Re:
Thiago Motta 89, 2013-05-07 17:08:
Nice photos!
Portella dei Monaci is very hard to climb and can you tell me something more about Passo Della Ciambra?
Thanks! Passo della Ciambra: take the SP52 from Finale, then turn off in Barello Basso on the small road (this is actually the SP52, the main road changes to SP60 here) to San Mauro Castelverde (passing Portella S. Maria 385m & Portella Ceravulo 695m). Continue, but do not go down to the SP60. Instead take left 1,5-2 km after the high point at San Mauro (gas station) - no signs at all, but it is asphalted and you can see it goes up the mountainside to the left. It is getting irregularly steep, but nicely asphalted to the top of the Ciambra pass. Then the road becomes something else - at first steeply down on asphalt and then a little gravel/sterrato, but good. It gets worse when you get to the cobblestoned passage next, where the road starts to climb with two ramps over 20%. I cycled up one of them and walked the other to save my tyres … . Then it is bad asphalt down to just before Castel di Lucio on the SP176.
A man meeting me in a jeep as I went up to the pass seemed like angry at me and I first thought it was because many cows decided to run away in front of me for quite a long stretch, making it hard for them getting them together again. But when I got down to the cobblestoned road, I thought that maybe he was just trying to suggest it was a bad idea going this way with a road bike … .