2025 Bike trip to Italy

It’s that exciting time again, when I start getting ready for another big bike adventure. I’ll be heading out to Verona, Italy on May 17 for a pair of Bike Dreams trips…

• May 21 to June 4 – Tutti Dolomiti

• June 8 to June 20 – Milano San Remo

All those passes will be a lot of climbing, averaging over 2,000m per day for 25 riding days. Each tour is 1,100 km. It will be almost all paved so I finally decided to get a road bike. I still love my Salsa Cutthroat gravel bike dearly, but this trip will be on my new custom-painted Specialized S-Works Roubaix SL8. It’s lighter but similar to the Cutthroat in that it’s got 12-speed SRAM electronic shifting. After I added water bottle cages, it weighed in at only 7.7 kg / 17.0 lb. I really like the clean look of the single front chain ring, 44 teeth this time, so I can pedal faster. It fits me perfectly and the 32mm tires are fast but still feel very robust and safe. It feels like a dream to ride. The Roubaix has a small shock above the head tube with 20mm of travel. It claims to be the smoothest endurance road bike made. After 7 rides so far, it really seems like I made a great choice.