BGY Airport Granfondo: Course, Elevation & Route Profile

Course & Elevation

The start is at seven in the morning on Via Marzabotto beside the Stadio Comunale, out of Bergamo across flat ground. At kilometre 8 the Colle dei Pasta puts a two-and-a-half kilometre rise in the way, taken from its gentler side. At kilometre 24 the Colle Gallo begins, close to seven kilometres averaging 6.3 percent with its hardest hairpins immediately after Gaverina Terme; at the top stand the Santuario del Ciclista and the first of the nine water fountains. From kilometre 47 comes Selvino, 19 hairpins and around 660 metres of climbing to 950 metres at kilometre 57, the ascent that also carries the Memorial Eugenio Mercorio timed climb from Nembro.

The route then drops into the Brembana valley and turns at kilometre 83 into the Val Taleggio, a narrow side valley of cheese-making villages (Sottochiesa, Olda, Peghera) where the organiser hands out water at the village fountains. The Forcella di Bura at just over 850 metres, kilometre 103, is the way out of it. Bergamo sits at the foot of these mountains and the granfondo lives off that proximity: the airport that gives the race its name is joined to the city centre by a cycle path, and the five starting grids admit road bikes, gravel bikes and e-bikes alike.

The final third is what actually separates this route from the two shorter ones. At kilometre 113 the Forcella di Berbenno arrives as two short steps of just over 6 and close to 8 percent, split by the false flat at Laxolo. At kilometre 126 comes Bedulita, not quite four kilometres up to the church of San Michele at Cepino, and only then does the road fall for eighteen kilometres back into Bergamo. The measured climbing is 3,523 metres against the 2,800 the organiser advertises, and only 17 percent of the course is flat.

Pacing Strategy

This loop never settles: 41 percent of the kilometres climb, 42 percent descend, almost nothing is flat. The Colle Gallo arrives at kilometre 24, while the front grids are still intact and setting the tempo. That is where the main trap sits: Colle Gallo and Selvino, at 6.3 and just over 5 percent, are shallow enough to ride at somebody else's rhythm and expensive enough that you pay for it in the Val Taleggio. Selvino asks for no accelerations at all, only a cadence you can hold for twelve kilometres.

The race is decided from kilometre 110. After the long descent out of the Val Taleggio there are still around 800 metres of climbing left, split between the two steps of the Forcella di Berbenno and the rise to Bedulita. The false flat at Laxolo between the Berbenno ramps invites you to think the climb is over; the steeper half comes after it. Riders who have been disciplined all day take a lot of time here from those who spent the day sitting in groups.

Conditions belong in the plan too. The start is at seven in the morning at 264 metres and the high point is 950, so the first climb is ridden on cold legs, and the descents (Selvino's 19 hairpins, then the drop out of the Val Taleggio) are narrow. Rain in early May is unexceptional in these mountains; the 2026 edition was ridden wet. Treat the descents as sections where cold hands and a wet road cost time, not as recovery.

Training plan for BGY Airport Granfondo: 12-week build

For an age-group rider the Percorso Lungo takes roughly five and a half to seven hours. The demand is markedly aerobic and drawn out: four climbs of twenty to forty-five minutes at moderate gradients, with descents and valley roads ridden in groups in between. The profile forces very few anaerobic spikes; the load comes from the sum, not from individual ramps.

What decides the day is that the last two climbs arrive after 110 kilometres. The obvious training shape is therefore long rides with the vertical loaded at the back: five to six hours in which the two hardest climbs are only ridden in the final hour. Preparing with long but evenly distributed climbing rides does not address the actual difficulty of these 148 kilometres.

Early-May conditions cut both ways. The seven o'clock start in the valley is cold, the altitude stays under a thousand metres, but rain and wet hairpins come with this date; the 2026 edition was ridden in it. Train descending in poor weather as well, and plan clothing you can shed on the Colle Gallo and put back on before the Selvino descent.

The preparation priorities follow from that: volume and aerobic base for the sheer duration, threshold blocks as long as the climbs themselves, hill repetitions under pre-fatigue for Berbenno and Bedulita, and handling work for tight hairpins. Feeding routine matters just as much: nine water fountains and several feed stations sit on the course, but the eating has to happen on the valley roads, because on the climbs your hands stay on the bars.