Ciao Marietta, and welcome to our Forum!
I apologize for the missing bike itineraries, my bad, I still need to find some time to publish them!
The routes that I usually do with my road bike are all in the Chianti/Mugello/Casentino areas, so mainly around Florence.
Chianti is great for biking: wonderful roads, usually with gentle uphills and beautiful landscapes to admire while riding. Since the Chianti area is between Florence and Siena, maybe you can find some inspiration in a long trip that I took from
Florence to Siena and back. I'm attaching here the Gps track (gpx format) and the Google Earth file, along with the altitude profile. It's about 150 km, and it took me around 8 hours. I try to do it every year when the days are longer, it is hard but very rewarding if you love road biking.
I took the beautiful
via Chiantigiana from Florence (
SR 222), passing through Greve and Castellina in Chianti and reaching Siena in about 4 hours. After a short visit and lunch in Siena I returned to Florence through the via
Cassia (SR2), passing near Monteriggioni, and through Poggibonsi, Barberino Val d'Elsa, San Casciano.
You can of course decide to break it up to best meet your plans but hopefully it can be an inspiration for your biking plans. You could for example start from Siena and take the Cassia to Poggibonsi and from there take the
SR429 (another really nice road to bike) to Castellina in Chianti, where you can then head back to Siena through the Chiantigiana.
I think you'll find useful info on the
Terra di Siena website: they suggest several routes with a detailed description and map.
I personally don't know much about bike routes around Lucca, but you can take a look at
this post where Vongoren suggests two classic itineraries.
The
Comune di Lucca also proposes a couple of itineraries with downloadable gps tracks: you found them
here.
The
Province of Lucca has also
this website dedicated to bike routes in the Lucca area: not much on the website, but maybe you can contact them and see if they can email some hi-res maps with itineraries.
Some limited hints to build your itineraries can be also found
here .
In the email you wrote to me you mentioned that you will be staying in Florence too, so maybe you can be interested in some
bike itineraries in Mugello proposed by the official tourism board.
You might also be interested in
guided bike tours in Tuscany, in that case take a look at
IBikeTuscany.com for single-day tours and
WeBikeTuscany.com for multi-day tours.
If you want to buy (or rent) a bike, I can suggest two good shops in Florence:
www.florencebybike.it AND
www.probike.it. The first one is closer to city center, a lot of tourists rent their bikes there. Probike is my favorite bike shop, they're really nice and professional, you can ask for Piero or Gianni.
Finally: I wouldn't rely on buses to move around with your bike but most trains have the "treno+bici" (bicycle transportation service) option, so that you can go on the train with your bike paying just an extra fee for the bike. Just search on
www.trenitalia.com for trains that have the little bike symbol on their detailed description.
I hope I've been of some help and hope you'll have a great biking vacation in Tuscany!
It would be great if you can return to this thread after your vacation and tell us how everything goes, what itineraries you followed and any tips you can share with everyone else!
