Riviera Maledetta: 200k Lago Maggiore Bike Tour
2026-08-25
Sole, amore, velomassacre am Lago Maggiore
A lap around Lago Maggiore in northern Italy, with a little grande boucle problem to solve: the lake itself doesn’t quite give you the full 200km. The solution was to add Lago di Mergozzo, then point the machine uphill above Ghiffa for some entirely unnecessary verticalité at the very end of an unnecessarily long ride.
The result is a day of lake roads, cappuccino stops, mountains, questionable gradients, and the ancient cycling tradition of adding uphill kilometres when you’re basically home and it’s getting dark - just because the number on the GPS looked better that way.
Here’s the video for your enjoyemént:
The route
The backbone is the classic bike loop around Lago Maggiore, with two deliberate detours bolted on to chase the 200km mark:
- Lago di Mergozzo — a short, scenic diversion off the lake to pad the distance without padding the boredom.
- Salita di Ghiffa — Ghiffa → Susello → Carpiano → Ceredo → Cargiago → Caronio, a climb that stacks small, quiet villages one after another above the lake, with gradients that get progressively less polite the higher you go.
- The final “extra uphill” — that very last, entirely optional climb tacked on right at the end, in true randonneur fashion, purely so the total would read 200 and not 196.
Quadriceps and deltoids were consulted and they did not consent to this abuse, but the ride happened anyway.
GPX
Full track, including the Mergozzo detour and the Ghiffa climb sequence here for downloads:
Notes
Bring climbing legs for the second half of the day — the lake roads are flat and boring, but everything above Ghiffa punishes that false sense of security after a whole day of riding.