Cycling in Como, Italy

Lake Como

This is an article sent from one of our readers living in beautiful Como, Italy. It is at once a universal cycling story and yet unique to that area of the world. We would love to hear from more of  our readers  around the country  &  around the world. What is your story and what is cycling like where you live?

By Ane Evjenth

I started to bike about six years ago when I first met Guenther, who was a German bike enthusiast living in Milan. It was not until the year after we moved to Como, Italy, that I started to join him. Until then, I hadn’t had much experience in biking. Like many women, I was afraid of the thin wheels of the racing bike and the fact that shoes had to be clicked into the pedals. I know women who don’t want to start biking because of this.

Guenther and Ane on Monte Bisbino

I started  with an old rusty mountain bike. In the beginning, I went the same 36 km (22 miles) distance. I don’t remember much about this period, except for the frustration of always having Guenther waiting for me. But I went as often as I could by myself because I wanted to become stronger. I remember how proud I was when I discovered my average speed had improved. As I became stronger, I started to train on a hill. We have a nice mountain near Como, called Monte Bisbino, which is 16 km (10 miles) up hill and 1200 m (3937 feet) high. It has a great curvy road which is shaded, and has very little traffic. That’s where I did a lot of training and I remember how tired, but also how proud I was when I finally arrived at the top. And what a view there is from Bisbino, looking down on Lake Como! Bisbino is a must for bicyclists….although not particularly steep, the ongoing 16km slope will challenge you. On top of Monte Bisbino is a restaurant where you can get something to eat or drink and can stop and chat with other bikers.

View going up Valmara

Trying a Hybrid Bike

Even after I had been biking for about a year, I did not yet feel ready for a racing bike. Instead, I got a a “hybrid”, a bike with a bit thicker wheels than a racing bike, a straight handlebar, and pedals which could be used with normal shoes on one side, and with MTB shoes on the other side.  With the experience I have today, I can only say that MTB pedals are much harder to get into and out of than the pedals for racing bike shoes. Unless you are a dedicated mountain biker, there is no reason not to move straight to racing bike shoes. As you train yourself to lock the shoes into the pedals, its important to have enough space so you don’t have to slow down before you have managed to click in and out of the pedal. My mistake was training in the backyard, and the result was I did not have enough time to get the shoe clicked out of the pedal before I had to make a turn.

Joining the Como Cycling Club

At this stage Guenter and I felt ready to join a biking club. I think joining a club is a good thing, especially for a beginner, because you can get a lot of help, advice and motivation from a club. In a club you can get a feeling of which “level” you are on, and biking in a group is a very social thing. The first club Guenter and I joined was “Como in Bici” (Como on a bike). A very Italian club, I would say and by that I mean that the time of meeting was very different from the time of actual departure and first coffee should be drunk and issues discussed. The club consisted of 20 members including four women and a variety of skill levels. Every Sunday we met at Riga’s bar (Riga was the president of the club.) I was the weakest in the club and always tried to find the “slow” group. The slow group would leave a bit before the others, and on long trips they would take short-cuts and more or less improvise the route. It was quite confusing, not only for us “stranieri”, but for everybody involved. Sometimes the fast group and the slow group would lose each other. Then the fast group and the slow group would each send out a person to look for the other group, which resulted in even more confusion. I think we stayed in “Como in Bici” about a year. It was a very sympathetic group and we had a nice experience, but in the end it became too unstructured.

Ane riding up Ghisallo

The Next Step

My next bike was a used racing bike. Because I still felt like a beginner and didn’t want to spend too much money, I got a used bike. This was a mistake, because with a new bike, it is measured and fitted to you. For example the frame of this bike much too long for me, and I had to bend my upper body far over whenever I would have to brake. With an old bike there are also things which have to be repaired after a while. That is not what you want to be concerned about as a beginner.

With my new De Rosa bike I have been to Ghisallo; Colle del Ghisallo is a mountain pass road. And just a few meters from the pass is a small church, the sanctuary of the Madonna del Ghisallo. The ascent of Ghisallo (from the north) is traditionally traveled by the “Tour of Lombardy” and was even more times into the course of the “Tour of Italy”. For this reason, the Madonna del Ghisallo is especially respected by cyclists. Next to the shrine stands the Museum of Cycling.

However, with my racing bike, and some more experience behind me I started riding to Lugano, Switzerland with Guenter. It is a 94km.(nearly 59 miles) trip, starting from the center of Como to Lugano and back. In Switzerland the streets are wider and there are fewer motorbikes than in Como. During summer holidays, when the streets of Como are crowded with tourists, Lugano is a nice place for those who don’t want to be hindered by traffic. Going to Lugano means passing over the Swiss border, and even if I never have had to show my passport from the bike, I always carry with me a copy of my passport in my pocket. Lake Lugano is on both sides of the Italian and Swiss border is as much frequented by the Italians as by the Swiss bikers.

Looking back on my six years with biking experience, I would say it took four years before I felt as anything else than a near beginner. It wasn’t just the time it took to get into physical shape, but it took time before I felt safe on the bike. Safe in the traffic (this is essential for a racing biker) and safe down a steep and curvy hill. It takes time to feel that things are “under control”.  I have fallen a lot of times but fortunately so far, have not broken anything. Still, these aren’t the things I think about when I think about biking. Biking for me is freedom. You can do it alone, or in company, still it is mainly your own strength that gives you the speed, or the ability to follow a fast group. It takes time to become good, but the development and the pleasure you get from biking is there from the very moment you set your foot on the pedal and make it move.

The bike I have now is a “De Rosa.”