Tuscany Trail

I found it quite hard to find information about Tuscany Trail before doing it. In particular, it was difficult to figure out what kind of bike I'd need and I also had trouble doing the stupid medical form without any kind of template. So here's some information/photos.

• Route- the route is probably 75% road and well-maintained strade bianchi which you could do on 25mm slicks if you really wanted to, then about 15% trails and 5-10% SFAB which you want proper gravel tyres for. In the weeks before the ride there was a lot of rain in Italy so the mud levels were a lot higher than normal from what I heard and I think most people skipped some muddy sections. We powered through them but it was extremely slow going and I had to walk some of it because I had absolutely no traction in the mud. I was on 45mm Cinturato H with inserts, which were great for everything except the SFAB. In a drier year I think they would have been ideal. My pals were on the Cinturato M which has more tread for mud but a decent central tread for the road. They didn't seem to be any slower than me. There were no proper mountain bike trails with drops or anything. There are some long, steep climbs. I had 46/30 GRX with 11-40 at the back and that was perfect for me to sit and spin up a hill for 40 minutes. You could manage with a higher low gear if you're fit and your camping gear is lightweight

• Water - I had 3 bottles on my bike and the third was pretty much unnecessary, although it wasn't especially hot this year. There are water foutains all over the place. There are also loads of cafes. Generally you don't need to carry a lot with you. It's not like (e.g.) the Highlands in terms of remoteness

• Distance and accomodation - (UK) gravel is a bit of a crapshoot for us, sometimes it takes you 4 hours to do 30km, other times you're pretty much the same speed you'd be on the road. We didn't want to book 5 nights of accomodation and then be faced with a decision between losing money or 15 hour slog days if it turned out to be slower going than we planned for, so we didn't book anything before the start. We ended up doing 80-100km-ish most days though which is what we expected (and gives you plenty of time for coffee, pizza and pastries) and booked some accomodation whilst en route. Towards the start this is difficult as there's so many people but it thins out. Most folks finished in 4 days (but I'm sure a lot of people skipped some mud sections). We did it in 5 and a bit and we are all pretty fit but not the kind of people who ride a turbo 3 times a week. We stayed in a couple of campsites and then Airbnbs and hotels. The only wild camping we did was next to the hot springs at Bagno Vignoni which was ridiculous luxury compared to your standard wild camping as you could have a wash and there were 5 restaurants and a food festival happening just up the hill.

• Medical form - this is good old Italian bureaucracy - you need to get your doctor to sign a form saying you won't have a heart attack on the route, but there is no generic template provided. My friend got it done for like £15 at the GP. My GP was too scared to sign it so I had to pay £75 from an online service. Form that was accepted along with the name of the company who produced it is attached to this post

Medical form

Lovely pics. This is on my 'one day in the future...' list.

Is there an official route for this or does it change every year?

It's an official event but the route changes, so yeah, some of the info might be wrong if they change the route significantly.

Last few years have been point-to-point, this year's was the first circular route which makes the logistics a bit easier in some cases.

That reminds me on the subject of logistics- we flew into Florence and paid to store our bike bags in a hotel near there, so we just headed back into Florence a few hours before the flight, packed the bikes away, then got the tram to the airport. You could try to pick up a bike box from a shop but with a few thousand people doing the route I wouldn't like to take my chances

I'm more likely to grab a copy of the route and do it solo at some point that fits around other stuff to be honest so logistics might end up a bit different. I think I follow them on Insta so knew of the ride but not much about it, if you get me.

Great write up and some lovely pics. I did the ride as well and loved it, in fact my Pearson is propped up alongside your bikes in one of the pics. My first long trail ride and pretty much my first ride on tyres bigger than 25mm outside a few Richmond Park test runs. As you say, pretty easy going most of the time, but I was hopeless on the muddy sections and way out of my depth on the steep rocky bits. No experience in gravel tyres, so just went with what came on the bike. Ditto gearing - 32 at the back had me walking a few times. Live and learn, but terrific fun.

We took about five days as well and by the looks of your pics probably tracked you guys – got caught in the same storm, camped out at Bagno Vignori and went to the food festival. Had no accomodation booked either and it worked out fine, camping spots were easy to find with so many people doing the same. Coolest place I stayed was a Monastery on the Via Francigena about 20km before Siena, I’d have been happy staying another night. There was a food festival going on there as well – definitely not a ride that you’re going to lose weight on.

Fwiw I didn’t do the medical form – wasn’t prepared to pay the £75 and had a busted finger at the time it was required so couldn’t really go to the GP. Expected to have to ride it unofficially, but no one said anything when I collected my starter pack and got the goody bag at the end. Not saying it’s a fool proof strategy but…

my Pearson is propped up alongside your bikes in one of the pics.

Haha, that's funny! You must've been looking for pizza and espresso as well

There was another group camped by the frog pool bit at Bagno Vignoni, that must've been you?!

Yep pizza, expresso and a phone charge were definitely on my agenda.

It probably was us at Bagno Vignomi - I had no idea where I was tbh, had just been led there by some Italians on the promise of good and plentiful food. Great spot, nice to put a name to it!

Looks awesome. What does SFAB mean?

Shit From A Butt

On the subject of the medical form required for Italian cycling events, I'm pretty sure you can download one from the L'eroica website.