Verona

Verona is not a place. It is a lineage.

A city on the edge of the plain, with a lake on one side, a plateau above it, and vineyards in between. Everything the club does begins from here — and none of it is scenery.

Why here

A geography that happens to be perfect, and a history that is not an accident.

Verona sits at the point where the Po plain runs into the mountains. That single fact produces the riding: flat and fast to the south, a lake thirty kilometres west, a limestone plateau directly above the city, and terraced valleys threaded between them. You can ride four entirely different landscapes from one hotel.

It also produced the workshops. Framebuilding concentrated in northern Italy because the tubing, the components, the racing and the roads were all here, within a few hours of each other. The people who designed these bicycles were riding these roads, and it shows in the geometry.

This is why the club is not headquartered somewhere more convenient. Convenience is not what members are short of.

The territory

Four landscapes, one base.

Everything below is within reach of a single morning from the city. The drawing is an impression rather than a map — we do not publish routes or workshop addresses.

Verona at the centre; Garda west, Lessinia north, Valpolicella between. Not to scale, and deliberately not navigable.

Verona

The city

A working city that happens to be two thousand years old — Roman, Scaligeri, Venetian, Austrian, and entirely unbothered about it. You can be on a climb eleven minutes after leaving a courtyard in the old town.

Terrain: Flat through the centre; the Torricelle hills rise immediately to the north.
Season: Ridable all year. Hot and slow in July and August; the best weeks are April to early June and mid-September to early November.

The Torricelle. The city's own hills, climbed by everyone who lives here, best at seven in the morning when the light comes over the Adige and the rest of Verona is still asleep.
The river out and back. Flat, fast, unromantic, and exactly what you want on the first morning after a flight.

Lake Garda

Thirty kilometres north-west

Italy's largest lake, with a scale that catches people out — the far shore is another province and often another weather system. The eastern side, which is ours, is quieter than the west and looks straight into the sunset.

Terrain: A flat, fast shore road with tunnels and long views; Monte Baldo climbing steeply away from it to over 1,700 metres.
Season: The shore is mild enough to ride in February. Monte Baldo holds snow into May. August belongs to the tourists; go at dawn or go in October.

The eastern shore at dawn. An hour either side of sunrise the water goes flat and the road empties. It is the single best ninety minutes of riding in the region and it is entirely a matter of getting up.
Monte Baldo. Long, unrelenting, and worth it: you climb from lake level into something closer to the Alps, and the view back down is the reason people keep coming to this lake.

Lessinia

Directly above the city

The region's secret, and the reason VCC is where it is. Above the tree line the landscape turns pale and open — dry-stone walls, stone barns, roads that run for kilometres without a car. It looks more like the Burren than like Italy, and almost nobody rides it.

Terrain: A sustained climb out of the vineyards onto a high limestone plateau at 1,200–1,600 metres.
Season: May to October on the plateau; the high roads close or ice in winter. Flat overcast light suits it better than sunshine.

The high road. Up through the vineyards, through chestnut woods, out onto the plateau. Ninety minutes of climbing for a landscape that does not exist anywhere else within an hour of a major airport.
The contrada loop. A quieter day linking the old stone hamlets across the plateau — short climbs, constant views, and a lunch that will take longer than planned.

Valpolicella

The valleys between

Vineyards on terraces, villas, cypresses, and a road network built for people going between villages rather than between cities. The riding is unspectacular in photographs and superb in practice.

Terrain: Rolling, terraced, endlessly interconnected. Short sharp climbs rather than long ones.
Season: Best in late September and October, during and just after the harvest, when the vines turn and the cellars are open and busy.

The terraces. A morning of short climbs between villages, with more corners than kilometres and a view over the whole valley from the top of each one.
The cellar road. A gentler loop timed to end where lunch is. Ridden by a good number of members considerably more often than the high roads.

The four

City, lake, plateau, valleys.

Verona

Lake Garda

Lessinia

Valpolicella

Practical

Coming to Verona.

Getting here: Verona Villafranca is twenty minutes from the centre and serves much of Europe directly. Most members come through Milan Malpensa, Venice or Munich instead and take the train, which is straightforward and lands you in the old city. Bergamo works if the flight is right.
When to come: Mid-April to mid-June, and mid-September to early November. July and August are hot enough that the riding retreats to dawn and to altitude. February on the Garda shore is better than its reputation.
How long: Four days is enough to understand it. Six is enough to want to come back. Anything under three and you will spend it travelling.
Your bicycle, or ours: Bring your own if you would rather; a good number of members do. If you would rather not travel with it, say so when you register interest and it will be arranged.

Ride from the source.

The experience programme is built around this territory. Registering interest is how you hear about dates first.

The programme Apply to the Founding Circle

Behind the craft →