For the second time this year a stunning 58 km long loop, including four mountain passes on some of Europe’s most scenic roads, was closed to traffic for the Sellaronda Bike Day. We Love Cycling Team supported by (and seated on) Festka Bicycles joined cyclists for the event’s 10th anniversary ride.
The autumn edition of the “Sellaronda Bike Day”, which took place on September 13th 2015, was a great success. Even if the weather was chilly and foggy, the cycling day attracted thousands of people who enjoyed the beautiful landscape of the Dolomites.
Not only we took part in this event with our colleagues (bitter-sweet-impressions article coming soon), but we also had our photo crew on the spot to make everyone who has stopped by our tent a photo memory. The “problem” was, that the Dolomites look so good and the view was so dramatic that the result looks almost like it’s been photoshopped.
The Sellaronda Bike Day, the bicycle festival around the Sella mountain range, has become one of the biggest sporting events in the Italian Alps. During this day the passes around the Sella massif are reserved for cyclists only. Another advantage is that the participation in the event is free of charge. The costs are subdivided among four involved tourist organizations: Val Gardena, Alta Badia, Val die Fassa and Arabba.
There’s no collective start – the participants can simply join and leave the tour at several points in valleys. Without cars the cyclist can enjoy both the perfect safety ride with an endless downhill sections and fascinating panoramic views without the fear of traffic.
„This year we celebrated the 10th edition of the “Sellaronda Bike Day”, so we wanted to offer something special thus we organized two editions – one in June and another in September,” says Valentine Runggaldier from Valgardena Tourist Office.
„Specialized cams registered 27,000 people for both editions combined,” she adds. According to her, what started in 2006 as a village ‘bike day’ with no more than 2000 cyclists, has now turned into a great cycling event for more than twenty thousands enthusiasts.
Although the climbs are quite demanding and the tour has a total elevation gain of 1800 meters, there were cyclist of all ages including kids and seniors. As the Bike Day is a non-competive event, participants from another countries had a perfect opportunity to try a famous Italian cuisine in the restaurants around the road.
In the first season there were some concerns that closing the area for the traffic will cause sales losses but since it happened the residents of the region have been happy with it. Lot of cyclists stay overnight and spent their money in the hotels and apartments as we did.
The region is simply gorgeous and the Bike Day is a perfect occasion to enjoy it as much as possible. The next event will be held on 16th June 2016 so if you weren’t here yet, don’t miss it next time, it’s definitely worth it.