STAGE 01 CLES – SENALE 

The Tour de Non begins with a long climb from Cles, the main town of Val di Non, up to the green mountains of the Maddalene Group to the north of the valley and at the border with Val d’Ultimo in South Tyrol.

In this stage, you cross the various typical vegetation zones of the valley: the plateaus organized into orderly apple orchards, the fields and forests at the heart of the rural economy of the valley, and finally the high-altitude summer pastures with their related alpine huts. Also from a historical and cultural point of view, already on the first day you encounter very different environments. From the lowland strongly influenced by Italian culture, you reach the Upper Val di Non area with South Tyrolean culture, the Deutschnonsberg, and in this transition the architectural differences in building construction and differences in the management of the alpine pastures immediately stand out. Remarkable from a landscape point of view is the succession of ever-changing scenery: the lower valley where the famous Melinda apples are cultivated, the dense forests providing raw material for the timber trade, the bright pastures carved from steep slopes around the alpine huts and surrounded by sinuous larches. It is a privilege to ride through these scenarios and at any moment to be able to look down on the wide valley and up towards the surrounding peaks such as the Brenta Dolomites and the Maddalene or in the distance like the Paganella, the Bondone, and the Presanella. It is also surprising to find the abundance of lush mountain marshes, a sign of immense water richness accumulating on the flat high-altitude meadows.

While on one hand the first day immediately presents a significant climb up to the highest point near Monte Ori (1880 m), on the other hand the stage does not present excessive technical difficulties. The paths are indeed very rideable except for some short sections where you have to push the bike for a few meters uphill on roots or through sometimes muddy dips.

After a pleasant single trail, you finish the stage in the South Tyrolean village of Senale/Unsere liebe Frau im Walde, which hosts the eponymous sanctuary.

STAGE 02 SENALE – MALGA DI ROMENO

From the spectacular green peaks of the Maddalene group, the second stage moves to the sheer rocky walls of the Mendola ridge. The character of the Tour de Non changes radically; this stage is decidedly more alpine and consequently more solitary than the previous day. The trails become wilder and exposed, the alpine huts sparse with few rest opportunities forcing precise planning of the stage and timing.

The section from Senale through Passo Palade up to the heights of the Mendola ridge also presents additional difficulties. The climbs run along a series of sections where the trail surface is often barely pedalable and therefore in some points forces riders to dismount. A keen sense of orientation is also useful to identify sometimes faint trails. The effort is rewarded by an overdose of panoramas, a succession of shots perfect for photography: fairy-tale forests, elegant larch woods, solitary alpine lakes, vertical rocky walls, root games on the trails, and breathtaking views into the void that remain indelibly in the biker’s memory album. Not to mention the trails that always tease bikers’ adrenaline: the extraordinary and technical single trails "Cresta del Macaion" and "Sentiero dei Siori."

That a grind of just under 40 kilometers can be more than enough to fill a day is realized once you arrive at the refuge in the evening, completely exhausted, barely having the strength to devour a delicious local dish with a quarter liter of wine before crashing into a well-deserved deep sleep.

STAGE 03 MALGA DI ROMENO – SPORMINORE

This stage starts in a "bike&hike" style, and suddenly you find yourself on the roof of the Tour de Non. At the summit of Monte Roen, bikers have reached not only the highest mountain of the Mendola massif but also the highest point of this 4-day alpine cross. From this unparalleled panoramic viewpoint nothing escapes: at the foot of the cliff the Adige Valley and the Wine Road of Caldaro, to the east the Dolomite peaks from the Sella group to the Marmolada, to the north the grand massif with the Tux and Stubai Alps, to the west the Brenta Dolomites with at their feet the wide Val di Non. Put it this way, in this stage you reap the fruits of all the efforts of the previous days. You can't go any higher than this, and so now begins a very long descent always along the ridge and along the cultural and linguistic border between Trentino and South Tyrol. Only after a long stretch do you reach Passo Predaia, where you leave the ridge heading west to land on the soft green meadows of Predaia. On single trails that are at times very smooth and at times rough, you finally also reach the villages and their people. From this point of view, you realize only now that the previous day was spent in such a solitary and remote environment.

Before undertaking the long crossing through one of the many canyons that carve the Val di Non and reaching the medieval Castel Thun in the lower part of the valley, you can pleasantly surprise yourself with an unmissable gem known only to some local bikers: “Amedeo super flow trail,” a unique single trail, a gift from mother nature that offers pure fun to bikers descending from Rifugio Sores to Vervò. Some bikers, with tears in their eyes, have climbed back the 200 meters of altitude on the paved road just to ride this trail again! The first time you ride it, you cannot believe how perfectly this trail is shaped in the landscape. And the second time, an exclamation arises spontaneously: THIS must have been the hand of the creator of the bikers’ universe!

STAGE 04 SPORMINORE - CLES

As a conclusion of this four-day loop through the Val di Non, the incredible variety of this wide valley is proposed again: the apple orchards dominate while to the west rise the peaks of the Brenta Dolomites whose white snowfields continue to shine throughout the summer. To the south the heights of Andalo and the summit of Paganella are clearly visible. Turning the gaze to the east, the eye runs over the long and gentle mountain chain of the Mendola ridge with its dense forests, larch groves, and high pastures. The difficulty of the path tackled in this stage is not significant, so there is plenty of time to look around and enjoy the views.

Once reaching the east side you face the option of the tempting climb and an even more tempting descent of Malga Arza. Those not interested can naturally skip this challenge and complete the tour following the route of the Dolomiti di Brenta Bike. Those who instead choose to give their all even in the last stage of the Tour de Non must face a tiring climb of 1000 meters of altitude towards Monte Corno, which however will be richly rewarded by an equally long single trail, the technical and demanding single trail “Genzianella.”