The Sellaronda Bike Day packs some of the Dolomites’ most magical and menacing passes into one sublime loop. Mark Bailey gets round to an epic Italian adventure
Words Mark Bailey
t’s a breathless summer day on the flanks of the Sella – a strikingly serrated massif in the Dolomites of northern Italy – and the twisted grey towers of rock are shifting shape as I cycle around them. A cluster of crenellated peaks morphs into a medieval fortress guarded by imposing turrets. A sheer grey-white limestone wall, fronted by neat vertical fissures, glistens like the pipes of an ornate church organ. And a chain of spiked peaks evokes the armoured spine of a prehistoric monster. On these hot, high-altitude slopes, my imagination is whirling faster than my legs.
I’m here for the early-summer Sellaronda Bike Day – a traffic-free bike challenge that takes place twice a year, in June and September, enabling cyclists to complete a circuit of the world-famous Sella massif without the roar of cars, motorbikes and buses. The ride draws its inspiration from the legendary ski circuit of the same name. On two wheels, the Sellaronda loop is deceptively short, at just 53km, but with 1,637m of ascent, and four iconic high-altitude passes – the 2,121m Passo Gardena, 2,240m Passo Sella, 2,239m Passo Pordoi and 1,875m Passo Campolongo – this course should not be underestimated. Those climbs have appeared in the Giro d’Italia over 40 times and they have regularly marked the Cima Coppi – the highest point of the Giro course.
The Sellaronda route may be circular, but its profile looks more like a cardiogram from a brutal high-intensity Spin class. I’ve been cycling up and down all day. Four high-altitude passes. Four swirling descents.
And hardly an inch of flat in between. The Sellaronda is not just a bike route; it’s a rock-hewn rollercoaster.
UP THE GARDENA PATH
My day begins with a breakfast of muesli and local honey at Hotel Marmolada (marmolada.org) in Corvara, a pretty town in Alta Badia, about a three-hour drive north of Venice. At 1,500m, Corvara is loftier than the UK’s tallest peak Ben Nevis (1,345m), but it’s dwarfed on all sides by the mammoth Sella, and the hulking 3,343m mass of the Marmolada – the highest Dolomites peak. The hotel is conveniently situated opposite the Sport Kostner bike shop (bikerentalcorvara.com), from where I pick up a gleaming red Pinarello.
I meet up with Tommaso Cominetti, a local guide from Dolomite Biking (dolomitebiking.com), and some trave
