The plan was to ride from Locarno all along the arc of the Alps down to Genove.
A fantastic tour in spectacular scenery but also with lots of exhausting carrying passages.
A few comments if you like to repeat the tour:
The route is quite demanding, actually almost daily there is a hike a bike passage, mostly around 500m, but sometimes significantly more. Nevertheless, I found the route brilliant and would also recommend it if you have no problem with that. Some comments for a few sections:
- The first 2/3 of the route (to km 960) you daily climb over a big mountain from one valley to the next.
- The last third I followed the Via Alte dei Monti Liguri https://bikepacking.com/routes/alta-via-dei-monti-liguri/. Here you are now almost continuously on a mountain ridge
- On the 4th/5th day I could not ride the planned route because there was still too much snow on the high passes (the actually planned part track is also in the file)
- Colle del Turlo (south of Macugnaga): just from the numbers probably the most difficult pass. 1500m push / carry (I also had snow for the top 150m). Especially the lower half is tough.
- Locana - Cantoira: Up to 1800m good, but then all trails get lost. You need to find another passage here... that was brutal.
- Giaveno - Perosa Argentina (Colle della Roussa): Up to the Rifugio Fontana Mira good. Then hike a bike. After Colle della Roussa I went up to Alpe Bocciarda. After that there was a very exposed traverse...in no case follow that track, that was a bit criminal... probably best just from the Colle to the west and straight down