New at CycleItalia - lower gears!

Above: "Baldini" one of our standard rental bikes

Campagnolo's new POTENZA (yes, the video IS rather corny) groupset offers a low gear of 34 X 32 and will be spec'd on our prototype full-carbon FAVALORO bike.

But what about the rest of our fleet you ask? We've already increased the cog size on our "classic" all-steel fleet to offer a low gear of 30 X 28 but the "standard" aluminum/carbon bikes had only 34 X 29, the lowest gearing available at the time.

"Uncle Larry" has ordered new 11-32 10-speed cogsets for these bikes for 2017. These are NOT from Campagnolo our official supplier, but from IRD. 

These have been available for awhile, but as most of you know Larry's not keen on jumping into the newest-latest development, no matter what it is. First we ordered an 11-speed version (which is now available from Campagnolo with the Potenza groupset) for Heather to try on her Athena 11 triple equipped bike. Once we knew those worked well, it was time to try the 10-speed version.

We're happy to report that in our tests the 10-speed version worked just fine, so the cassettes have been ordered and will be installed on all of our "standard" rental bikes for 2017.

Including our new prototype, which we'll add to our rental fleet along with some other sizes if things go to plan, our entire rental fleet will offer very close to 1 to 1 gearing to help you make it up even the steepest climb.

Adding a rental bike to your vacation is inexpensive at only $299 ("classic" or "standard" your choice) for the duration of your CycleItalia vacation. Just bring your pedals and (optional) saddle.

If you're spec'ing out your own bike for a CycleItalia tour, we suggest you do the same. Fitting the lowest gearing you can on your bike is worth the effort and expense. In almost 3 decades of challenging cycling in Italy we have yet to meet a single person who regretted fitting low gears. On the other hand, we have met plenty of folks who regretted NOT taking our advice!

The right attitude combined with the right gearing will get you up any hill or mountain, no matter how long or how steep.