Riding alone

Planning the departure

Riding solo gains something precise. The rhythm becomes yours alone, stops are decided on your own terms. The silence in the woods stays whole. Before leaving, it is worth sharing the itinerary with someone you trust. Better to list the planned stages day by day. A location-sharing app, the kind built into WhatsApp or Google Maps, costs a minute. It removes one worry for the whole trip. Carrying the guesthouse's phone number helps, because a real person usually answers, not a machine.

Better to choose shorter stages in the first days. It helps you learn your own pace with a loaded bike, before stretching the road.

Real safety, without alarm

Most of the Via crosses villages, farmsteads and towns at regular distances. A few stretches stay isolated more for geographic reasons than safety ones. That is the case with the upper Val Trebbia between Bobbio and Borgo Val di Taro, and with the Penice Pass. The same applies to the ridges of the Casentino Forests and the stretch between Norcia and Subiaco. Phone coverage is patchy in these spots and services are thin. These are flagged stage by stage on this site. Solo riders can know in advance and plan around water, food and daylight hours.

Accounts from women who have cycled solo in Italy, like those gathered by Bikeitalia and other solo cyclists, generally describe a good sense of safety. Mountain villages greet riders with curiosity more than suspicion. The usual rules still apply. Avoid riding after dark on unfamiliar roads, keep the bike in sight or secured at night. It is worth trusting your instinct when something feels off.

Where to sleep alone: guesthouses and sheepdogs

The Via's monastic guesthouses normally welcome solo women, in single rooms or gender-separated dormitories. That is the case at Bose, Vallombrosa, Camaldoli, Subiaco, Casamari and Fonte Avellana. The exception is the internal guesthouse at Montecassino, reserved for male pilgrims only. Solo travellers can sleep in Cassino instead, a few kilometres below. It is always worth calling ahead. It lets you book and share your expected arrival time. It also helps you understand how the evening gatehouse works. Some guesthouses close their door at a set hour: arriving with margin avoids being left outside in the dark.

On the Apennine pastures, especially in the Casentino and on the Navelli plateau, you meet Maremma sheepdogs. They work alongside the flocks. They should not be petted or confronted. Stop the bike and dismount. Widen your path around the flock, without running. The dog watches, assesses, and almost always lets pass anyone who does not approach the animals. In the territory of the Marsican bear and the wolf, the presence is real but direct encounters stay rare.

In the luggage, for solo riders

A few things make the real difference on the road.

• Share your live location with someone you trust
• Phone number of the guesthouse or lodging for the night
• Charged power bank for the phone through isolated stretches
• Double water supply on stretches flagged with no services
• Head torch for arrivals after sunset

Voices of those who have done it

Several Italian solo cyclists describe the experience of riding alone without drama. Among them, the stories gathered by Bikeitalia in Non ho paura di viaggiare in bici da sola (I'm not afraid to travel by bike alone) and in In bici da sola (Solo, by bike). The common thread is trust in instinct and technical preparation, more than fear of who you meet on the road. It holds for the Apennines of the Via delle Abbazie as much as for any other gravel road in Italy.