Where the pros train

Livigno is the Mecca for pro riders. Driving towards town, you might pass a half of the XDS Astana Team riding up Foscagno pass: if you happen to have a water bottle and a couple of energy bars with you, you could even act as a makeshift support vehicle. Once in town, they are all over the place. You’ll spot their bikes outside bars, bump into them on the streets from dawn till dusk, and catch glimpses of support cars parked outside hotels. If, for a moment, you don’t pay too much attention to the (rather low number of) watts being displayed on your bike computer, you could be excused for thinking you had ended up in the World Tour. You might, for instance, run into Marco Frigo as you set foot in a bike rental shop. Having bumped into him by sheer chance, you find out that the rider from Bassano is doing altitude training for the Tour of Poland and then the Vuelta a España. By now he knows the roads of Livigno like the back of his hand: “The first time I came up here was in 2018 with the national team to get ready for the Junior World Championship in Innsbruck. Compared to the other places teams go to, for training camps, Livigno is much livelier and there are lots of things to do.”

It is clear from the get go that Livigno is no ordinary place. To get there you have to cross mountain passes at heights of over 2,000 metres or travel through a narrow tunnel. It is actually the largest municipality in Lombardy: as a comparison, it is more than twice the size of Brescia. Unlike other mountain resorts in Italy, Livigno is Italian through and through: there are the little Valtellina houses, Romagna-style hospitality, and the same nightlife you get in Milan. Ironically, it is also one of the very few places in Italy that is part of the Danube river basin. The river that runs through the Livigno Valley into the Aqua Granda (or Spöl in German) then flows into the River Inn, which in turn converges into the Danube that flows through Vienna and Budapest.

Our guide around the Livigno area, Tommaso, is waiting for us at Aquagranda, one of the largest wellness centres in Europe, named after the river. It is hard to pin a label on this facility: besides offering relaxation, it’s also a hub where athletes from all kinds of sports come for peak training. As well as all the cyclists, “Gregorio Paltrinieri, Nicolò Martinenghi, the Olympic silver medallist in the 200m backstroke Apostolos Christou, the world record holder Kristóf Milák and many other swimmers have been here recently,” Tommaso informs us. We notice someone swimming in the Olympic pool; it is six p.m.: we can’t tell who it is, but judging by how fast they are swimming it must be someone good.

It’s hard to imagine a better place than Aquagranda to prepare for a tough two-day bike ride. At the top of the stairs there is an exhibition of Olympic torches, many of which are originals. You turn the corner and – in a display case – you can see the bike Sonny Colbrelli rode in that incredible Paris-Roubaix he won. You look outside and you can see Cremonese FC training on the football pitch, the first Serie A team to spend a summer in Livigno. Talking of Olympic gold medallists, Antonella Palmisano has just left.

And, of course, it is also great for cycling. A short warm-up on the flat roads around Livigno and then we are ready to tackle the Forcola pass. It’s not tough (about 8 kilometres at an average of 5%), but it peaks at over 2,300 metres. The last time the Giro d’Italia came through here was in 2010: Matthew Lloyd won a ‘King of the Mountains’ jersey with deep snow all around and clear skies. Little Tibet, as this place of mysterious beauty is known, is a unique blend of green meadows and rocks. We come across two pro riders on the Forcola: Fausto Masnada and Luca Vergallito.

We have a second breakfast at Rifugio Tridentina, a family-run mountain lodge owned by the Alpini, and we are ready to take on the descent into Switzerland. The Bernina pass, the second climb of the day begins just after the customs checkpoint, now little more than an abandoned building. Like the riders in the 1954 Giro, who staged a sort of protest against the race organisers and rode up the pass at the same leisurely pace as the little red tourist train that follows the same route, we too savour the Swiss valley riding at little more than a snail’s pace.

At the top you get the kind of view that only 2,000-metre-high Alpine climbs can offer. A small lake, a hotel with a restaurant alongside a switchback, stone cottages with red windows as is customary in Switzerland, more cyclists than cars, and snow-capped peaks all around. While we munch on a quick toastie, a pro rider from Team Visma-Lease a Bike whizzes past on the descent.

We meet another pro rider on the Bernina: the current Italian road race champion Filippo Conca, who’s been here at least 40 times, but still can’t resist photographing the lake, which despite its name (White) is actually very blue.
The descent into Engadine is fairly fast. Jan Christen once averaged 73 km/h over the twelve kilometres or so between the Bernina and Pontresina. Even for riders like us, who are rather inclined to pulling on the brakes, it is really tempting to just let yourself go and fly down the descent. As we ride down through Diavolezza, we can clearly see a golden eagle or a lammergeier swooping above us. While we are trying to figure out which of these two birds it is, we suddenly bump into Mattia Cattaneo riding up the climb in the opposite direction. We shout YOU’RE THE MAN, CATTA, but I think our cheers of encouragement got lost in the wind.

Mount Engadine, which starts at Celerina and follows the course of the River Inn – through Samedan, Madulain and all the way to Zernez – is not exactly unforgettable. However, we happen to witness a sort of training flight by the Engadine Tricolor Arrows and even come across a circus: both are very similar to their counterparts in Italy. A gentle downhill road and a lovely tailwind make it easy to exceed 42 kilometres an hour without pushing too hard.

About fifty kilometres after cresting the Bernina, we are still riding on the big ring at the front. We have already ridden up roughly 800 metres in no time, but another climb now awaits us. Tommaso says jokingly: “If we keep this pace up and follow the river, we’ll reach Innsbruck in three hours, four at most.” Instead we turn right at Zernez and hit the Forno pass, which is much tougher. Also known as Ofenpass in German or Pass dal Fuorn in Romansh, it is the place where the first brown bear was spotted in Switzerland in over 80 years. That is why there is a wooden statue of a bear right at the foot of the climb.

One of the things we like doing most as we ride up the Forno (Furnace) – to be honest the name isn’t quite appropriate: it’s not that hot, not even in summer – is looking down over the guardrail into the deep gorge carved by the river Aquagranda/Spöl. About halfway up, around Punt La Drossa, Munt La Schera tunnel is the easiest way back to Livigno. You are not allowed to ride through the tunnel, but every hour a shuttle loads and unloads all sorts of bikes. A curious but fun way to cross the border again, we think to ourselves, as we jump on board.

The tunnel is short, just over three kilometres in length, and in an instant we have crossed the border. We re-emerge in Livigno, at Punt dal Gall Dam to be precise. Built in the 1960s, this arch dam is still used for energy generation purposes, and for us cyclists it also makes the ride a bit easier. It is all flat from here to the centre of Livigno through the tunnels. Legendary and at the same time infamous, they are both a pleasure and a challenge for those cycling over here on the west bank of Lake Livigno. If the weather is bad, they are a lifesaver and you can avoid spending time on the dull turbo trainer. If the bad weather lasts for days on end, you can spend hours and hours just riding back and forth inside these tunnels.

The great thing about taking these tunnels, which we race through as if we were riding in the Baracchi Trophy, is that they allow us to go back to Aquagranda. But not before enjoying a ‘tripleda’ beer at the highest brewery in Europe: it’s called 1816 in reference to the height at which Livigno stands. The interesting thing is that this wonderful drink, flavoured with tripleda (a typical spice from Grosio, made with onion and red wine, and used on meats but also on pizzoccheri) is simply out of this world. At this point the day is done and dusted and we jump in bed early because tomorrow is the queen stage.

We start riding through the tunnels in the opposite direction. There are plenty of people out training, early this morning, including canoeists on the lake and the lads from C.C. Canturino cycling team, who are on a training camp. Anybody familiar with the cycling scene in Livigno knows that the bike shuttle services sets off for Switzerland every hour at a quarter past the hour, so we leave Livì Hotel at a quarter past to make sure we catch it. We get to the section of the Forno pass where we left it yesterday and luckily the final stretch is quite manageable. At the top, we take time to chat with bikepackers from Germany heading to Naples: “We are not taking the shortest route,” they tell us with big smiles on their faces.

The descent to Tschierv is fast and the road surface is perfect. The brothers Dario and Gianluca Cologna, two of the very best Swiss cross-country skiers ever, were born in this village of about 200 inhabitants. The smartest thing to do here would be to ride through Müstair to Santa Maria and then immediately take on the Umbrail pass, but we carry on a few hundred metres further just to take a silly selfie at a legendary spot for the Giro d’Italia. A blue road sign marks the exact spot where Tom Dumoulin stopped to poop during the sixteenth stage of the 2017 Giro before heading off again towards Umbrail pass.

This is the shortest but the toughest of the three sides of the Stelvio. An average gradient of 8.6% means we set off in the smallest gear on our Dogmas. An older version of this same bike was used by Mikel Landa to crest the KOM first back in 2017, flanked on both sides by cheering fans and mounds of snow. But that day is also remembered for Vincenzo Nibali’s crazy bunny hop to avoid getting his wheels wet while descending into Bormio, an exploit that almost defied the laws of physics.

We descend at a much more leisurely pace, bearing in mind we still have to ride back up to Livigno. We take the classic return route: just before getting to Bormio, we turn right towards Premadio, Valdidentro and then up Foscagno pass. It was November 1952 when, for the first time in history, a group of workers managed to clear the snow off State Road 301 between the village of Semogo and Foscagno pass. It took five days to clear those twelve kilometres: a team of workers led by Gian Vittorio Vittadini and Rocco Silvestri worked day and night in terrible conditions to clear the road. Silvestri, who comes from Livigno, was also involved in further crucial ‘snow clearing’ for cycling purposes: in 1960 he ensured the road up to the Gavia pass was clear so the Giro d’Italia could ride over it. That was a great day for Imerio Massignan. At least until the descent.

As tired as I am, I consider spending five days riding up the Foscagno pass, just like the snow-clearers did. Tommaso and I urge each other on, dreaming of downing a tripledo. We are energized by the excitement we sense among the residents of a small village, Arnoga, when a grass-cutter comes by: a bike, the climb, and everything happening around us is more than enough to make us feel good.

The Foscagno landscape is quite breathtaking as it opens up at an altitude of over 2,000 metres. The switchbacks on the descent to Trepalle, in a small valley of alpine pastures and wooden huts, are a spectacular sight. Among the few things I read about Livigno and the surrounding area before coming here to ride was a story about an old priest from Trepalle (the little village on the Eira pass) that goes like this: “Perhaps the Lord is closer to mountain folk than He is to people down in the lowlands; He understands all their hardships and is lenient with the priests in lonely valleys, who have to care for some equally difficult souls.”

After waving to the farmers who are mowing the grass on Eira pass, more or less at the spot where Jack Burke attacked to win the most recent Livigno Alè cyclo sportive, we decide that we do indeed want to suffer, so we ride up to Mount Mottolino. Like Mount Carosello on the other side of Livigno, this ski resort transforms into a summer hotspot for cyclists, drawing them to ride up to the 2,400-metre summit, a stage finish in the 2024 Giro d’Italia. The steep final sections with 20% gradients convince us that it would be a good idea to head back to Aquagranda this evening. Bike riding in Livigno is hard work, but somebody has to do it!