Hi,
I’ll be in Olbia, Sardinia in a few weeks and I’m looking to rent a road or gravel bike for 1–2 days. Planning two rides in the 3–5 hour range.
There isn’t much route info available online, so for now I’m mostly relying on Strava Heatmaps.
Any locals who can share some favourite routes?
Definitely not a local, but just finishing up a trip here. If you haven’t identified a rental outfit, I used bike4more and they were super helpful and the bike has been well taken care of. If you’re based in Olbia, get out of town fast and go inland instead of the coast. As soon as you get inland of SS 125 the roads are way quieter. Go up Monte Nieddu from Padru if you want a climb. Road is smoothe, absolutely beautiful and it’s a dead end at the top so I did it twice and didn’t see a single car. Also did some very nice riding out in the Aggius/Luogo Santu/Bassacutena area, which is a fair amount of elevation, but not a lot of really sustained climbs. Really beautiful with quiet roads.
I rented a wonderful Trek gravel bike for two days from https://manubriobasso.it/en/ two weeks ago based in a lovely hill top village called San Pantaleo (close to Olbia), it’s a family run business and the dad Marco is just so helpful and so accommodating.
I actually rented an E-bike due to a knee issue and there were so many routes that are pre-set to choose from, including easy to expert gravel routes (all viewable on their website). I chose a brilliant 45 mile easy route, part coastal and inland route SP15 with the wife.
It had great views and a great way to see the north of the Island. I then chose another 25 mile route along the east coast that was just as good.
Highly recommended, and they will deliver to your hotel if needed.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did - cheers Marino
Good info. Thanks!
@agreene05 @chacho Do you guys have any gpx-files to share by chance?
Lot’s of great info there!
Yes, I used the GPX files to build some routes out of Olbia.
Currently I have a route based on SP7. And then a route based on SP15 and SP20 (as per your recommendation) combined into one ride.
One quick question about SP20: the second half goes along the Porto Cervo coastline. Any idea how busy that gets during tourist season? That’s the only part where I’m a bit concerned about traffic.
Thanks for the great resource. I’ll post up about the rides when I get back.
The Porto Cervo coastline road was the busiest of the two routes and Italian drivers are not the most considerate to cyclists.
I only had to make a few gestures to a couple of cars.
But the wife who is a complete novice was not too bothered by it.
It was worth it though, to ride the next sections to view the lake and beaches.
If you are a expert gravel rider then there are much more gravel routes inland and you probably won’t see a car at all. One thing to be aware of, a lot of the gravel routes I rode are shared by cars travelling to all the stunning beaches .
But definitely do SP15 along the river to Palau (stop for lunch) and on to Cannigione.
