A bunch of us are heading out to Garda in May to do a spot of mountain biking. We bimbled around Como last year on gravel bikes and enjoyed it, but all of us are mountain bikers first and foremost, and we had more than enough fun to want to go again this year.
Does the hive mind have any experience of bike hire places in or around Torbole or Riva del Garda?
I’m looking at Garda rentals too, over the years I have been there twice before but seems like some shops have quit since then.
Carpentari is still there, I recall them being OK.
Seems that ebikes are most popular category these days but I am hoping to find acoustic enduro gnarpoon.
I heartily recommend reservations well before the trip, last time I didn’t and it wasn’t too fun running around the lake trying to find rental bikes for the family.
We use Velolake in Torbole for shuttles they also have a good selection of rental bikes to suit all
Amazing - thank you both! There's a lot of ebikes for rental and not many analogue options, for anyone else looking and finding this thread. Velolake (or its chatbot) has been very responsive. I'll update as I find out / book more.
We used Velolake a couple of years back, very good and they can recommend loops/routes too.
We also used Bike in Garda (Nago Torbole) for an afternoons Ebike rental. Not so good, but may have improved since we last went. The brakes on their rentals were just not up to the job!
Velolake use Komoot and all their routes are on their site.
We used Velolake a couple of years back, very good and they can recommend loops/routes too.
We also used Bike in Garda (Nago Torbole) for an afternoons Ebike rental. Not so good, but may have improved since we last went. The brakes on their rentals were just not up to the job!
Were the brakes also setup Euro style (Front on the left?)
Thank you. Velolake only seem to do e-mtbs at the moment - no analogue ones. The routes look pretty awesome!
I can highly recommend the Via Ponale route from Riva del Garda up to Lago di Ledro, very picturesque, though would be quite a slog on an analogue
i hired from Xtreme in Malcesine, by the cable car station
"Were the brakes also setup Euro style (Front on the left?)"
No, we asked (by email) if they could swap them over before we hired. We did ride quite a spicy trail called the Naranch Trail, and they were just utterly useless, made for a few clench moments!
Now that I have just about finished my trip it could time to add some comments. Velolake rentals worked really well, the bikes (Trance X and eCitybike) were in good condition and there was minimal fuss when getting the bikes and returning them. I wasn’t that thrilled about Assegai as rear tyre on analog bike but it wasn’t as bad as I thought.
I could whine about the weather though, there was almost constant rain and multiple thunderstorms with and temperatures were less than +10C for most of the week. I didn’t pack my winter/wet weather gear and did not fancy buying it again so my rides were bit shorter than planned.
Also note to myself, packing my own grips and zip tie Wahoo mount to handlebars would have been smart.
Likewise! I think we headed over after you. We turned up during the bike festival, which none of us had noticed was happening that week.
I was slightly gobsmacked by the sheer, overwhelming volume of ebikes - mountain, road and gravel - everywhere.
Carpentari was excellent - great staff, swapped brake hoses in about 15 minutes for those of us who rode moto. Half of us were on brand new (literally - our first ride involved bedding in the pads and discs) Cube 155mm carbon FS bikes. I don't get on with SDG saddles, and probably should have packed my own. I brought a steerer cap Wahoo mount and used that. Other non-negotiables were a camelbak (well, Wingnut), lights in case we got caught out and wet weather kit, both of which we luckily didn't need. We had to pack light as used cabin bags, but took our own lids as well.
We had some amazing hot weather and logged 160ishkm on XCish loops over the weekend. The climbs are epic, steep and go on and on. I've lost a fair bit of fitness over the last year or so, but the climbing was brutal compared to Como the year before.
Our transfer from Venice took hours and hours on account of the public holiday, so we ran out of time for our intended ride along the lakeside, but did find a bar (hooray!) on the lakeside path on the western shore. Day 2 started with 1350m of climbing, day 3 was a longer trip (starting with another 1500m - yay) over towards Austria, and day 4 was a quick spin up Monte Brione before we had to drive back to Venice. It looked like a lot of cheeky trails on Monte Brione had been shut down with official tape; we didn't have the time or inclination to explore as it's clearly a sore spot. There is a pretty fun legal descent off the northern side which we took. Definitely worth it if you only have a couple of hours to spare for the view from the middle battery down the lake and up towards the mountains.
