Pista Ciclable Del Ponente Ligure

What a perfect day for a bike ride we thought, as did most of the population of Liguria.

We set off about 9.30am on the 11 mile ride west to the terminus at Ospedaletti, notice how the word ‘pedal’ is cleverly inserted into the town’s name? It was early enough to miss the families but not the serious cyclists. We would hear a warning whistle from behind and then be briefly engulfed by a fast moving peloton before it quickly disappeared from view.

We have never cycled on anything quite like the Pista Ciclable Del Ponente Ligure. It is 2 cycle lanes with a footpath for walkers/runners/rollerbladers etc. There is one set of traffic lights where we have to stop if on red so cars can travel across, there are a few other places the cyclists are warned to give way but really the cyclist is king/queen of this 15 mile stretch of tarmac. There are sos telephones every so often, cctv cameras, cafes, bike hire places and 2x1 mile tunnels, lit of course.

By the time we reached Ospedaletti everybody and their dog (literally) was out, so the ride back to the van into a headwind, was a little bit challenging. Nothing else for it but switch to ‘turbo’ and keep a constant 16mph all the way back to the van. I think Rachel got RSI in her thumb sounding the warning bell for our approach to those lacking spatial awareness.

After a quick lunch we just had to nail the eastern leg of the cycle way. It was a lot quieter now so we just hammered it into the headwind then took a leisurely return. We had the afternoon off just baking in the sun to recover from our 30 mile ride, all the roof vents and windows on the van being open to make it bearable for when we went inside.

One of the many biker cafes

Our 2 night plot at Santo Stefano al Mare