GRAZIE GRAN GARDA

A four-day tour around Italy's Lake Garda is as startlingly beautiful as it is relentlessly tough. From epic climbs to gravel singletrack and swooping downhills, this is an adventure that will stay with you long after the pedalling's done.

- Words MIKE FINCH Pictures MIKE & WAYDE FINCH

It took us one hour, fourteen minutes and twenty seconds to climb the Cat 1 Prada-Colme di Pravecchio.

It was the third day of our tour, which we'd named the 'Dads&Lads Giro d'GranGarda'. With a fully laden bike, the average gradient felt way harder than its claimed 6.4%, while the 9% pitches forced some deep digging to keep the bike moving forward - and upward.

June in Italy, and summer was in full swelter. The temperature hadn't dipped below 30°C since we'd started out that morning; and we still had another 20km of steady uphill to go, after the big climb, before reaching our overnight rifugio high in the mountains surrounding majestic Lake Garda.

But we wouldn't have had it any other way. There's beauty in tackling a long, hard climb like the Prada-Colme. My 30-old-son Wayde and I, two of a group of five 'Lads' and five 'Dads', had devised a coping mantra that kept repeating in my head: 'Manage your effort'. Going into the red zone would have been disastrous; finding just the right rhythm and effort was a constantly moving mental and physical challenge.

This climb was just part of a day that saw us gain 1 982m of altitude in only 60km - with some pitches that nudged 20% - as we wound our way through the vineyards from Torbole, on the northern tip of Lake Garda, to our mountaintop overnight spot on the ridge of the Monte Baldo range of the Italian Alps.

We knew that this was going to be a big day; and thankfully, the Lads - having witnessed the performance of the Dads, in the preceding two days - had kindly reduced the planned distance by 40km, and the climbing by 2 000m.

Our cut-down tour was based around a legendary cycling loop called the GranGarda (grangarda.com). The full tour has two routes: gravel and tarmac. The whole gravel route is 350km in length, with 10 000m of climbing, while the blacktop version is the same distance with 8 000m of climbing.