Published on: 12 March 2013  | Last updated: 7 January 2020

Resources for tour planning

The regional tourism website visittuscany.com has a cycling section :visittuscany.com: cycling with 168 itineraries. 

Siena area

terresiena.it (it/en) is one of the more useful sites aimed at cycle tourists, although I’m not sure whether it has been updated recently. It includes inform­ation about 52 day rides with route descrip­tions and maps. You can of course pick and mix the day rides if you are planning a longer tour.

There is a very useful brochure which is available in tourist offices and you can also download it (you need to open the Flash version and then download the pdf file). There’s also a section with accom­mod­ation listings and a list of bike shops.

The Eroica

L’Eroica is a famous bike race that takes place in late end of September. It’s a race using vintage bikes on a figure-of-eight course along the roads and strade bianche (unpaved roads) to the east and south-east of Siena. Traditional clothes (and big moustaches) seem to be de rigueur.

The race is run in a day - and with the longer variants at 205kms and 135kms ‘Eroica’ isn’t an exagger­ation - but the percorso permanente (permanent course) is signposted and there’s nothing to stop you riding the route, or parts of it, at your leisure.

The race course starts and ends in Gaiole in Chianti, but there’s nothing to stop you using Siena as a base.

The Grand Tour della Val di Merse

The Grand Tour della Val di Merse is a circular 147 km signposted route to the south east of Siena primarily on asphalt but with some stretches of sterrata (a total of 12kms).

Firenze

The Firenze Turismo website (firenzeturismo.it) seems to have very little cycling-specific inform­ation. There is some inform­ation about the Renaissence Ring (Anello del Rinascimento) (Anello del Rinascimento) a 170-kilometre circular walking and mountain­biking tour.

The site also has a download page with maps and guides.

The Mugello

The Mugello is the area in the Apennines to the north of Firenze. The comuni in the area have got together to produce a site mugellotoscana.it (it/en) which includes a section with rides in the area: mugellotoscana.it: cycle tours with particular emphasis on the ‘mythic climbs of the Mugello Apennine’. There’s also a downloadable brochure  Mugello in Bike

You can also download a pdf guide Pedalando nel Mugello  (Italian). Note of Mac users: you will need Adobe Acrobat to open it.

Livorno area

There used to be a dedicated site for the Livorno area. Many of the routes now seem to be on the the cycling section of the visittuscany.com regional tourism website:visittuscany.com: Cycling.

Lucca area

The provincia of Lucca had a useful site panterabike.com (it/de/en) with 20 routes of different lengths, maps and gps files to download plus lists of bike shops and rail stations. At the time of writing (March 2013) it had been down for maintenance for some weeks, but hopefully it will return to operation.

The provin­cia’s main tourism website turismo.lucca.it has a lots of articles about itiner­aries which might be worth a look if you have a specific area in mind.

The Turismo Garfagnana website turismo.garfagnana.eu has three itiner­aries in the area but the descrip­tions are very brief and there are no maps or gpx files . The site is available in Italian, English and German but the itiner­aries are only available from the Italian pages.

Massa-Carrara area

The Turismo Massa Carrara website (aptmassacarrara.it) has a section with cycling itiner­aries.

General tourist information

• Turismo Toscana: visittuscany.com
• Firenze: firenzeturismo.it
• Lucca: turismo.lucca.it and luccaterre.it and turismo.lucca.it
• Pisa: turismo.pisa.it
• Pistoia: pistoiaturismo.it
• Siena: terresiena.it
• Chianciano Terme: chiancianotermeinfo.it
• Val d’Orcia: valdorcia.it
• Massa Carrara: aptmassacarrara.it
• Garfagnana: turismo.garfagnana.eu
• Mugello: mugellotoscana.it