God
loves cyclists too

No matter if you believe in God or not, when you cycle in the mountains you can't get away from enormous religious influences like crosses, crucifixes, chappels, churches, monasteries. Many pass names have been named after a Saint and many passes with or without a sign are marked by a cross or little chappel.
And even if you don't notice all this religous stuff there are certainly times you feel humble and tiny and in such a philosophical moment you might think who has created all this beauty of nature. Below there are some places where cycling and religion come together.

Madonna del Ghisallo (Italy)

Madonna del Ghisallo is the patroness of cyclists', so proclaimed by Pope Pius XII during the 1949 Giro d'Italia. This tiny church located on a hilltop in the northern Italian hamlet of Magreglio near Lago di Lecco, has become a functional religious attraction and cycling museum, filled with artifacts, photos and other totems from cycling history. The greatest riders in the world like Coppi and Bartali have given their bicycles and jerseys to the church by way of thanks for winning races. You can also find the bike of Fabio Casartelli on which he crashed and died from his injuries.
Giro di Lombardia (Lombardia 's Tour) is the last race of World Cup and even if they change the route, it always includes Ghisallo.

Many, many people make a visit to this tiny church on the top, but in fact, many cyclotiurists feel that the only proper way to make the journey to the chapel is by bicycle, as a sort of pilgrimage. While the chapel has a parking place for cars, the bicycle racks outside the church are often more crowded.
To cyclists, the most interesting souvenir is the small metal pendant with the Madonna's image on it. Many pros wind the pendant around the stem of their racing bicycles Tradition and legend hold that the Madonna will keep you safe from harm. While a Madonna pendant may or may not help you keep rubber side down, the powerful feelings associated with a visit to the chapel are undeniable. It sort of validates you as a cyclist.
Tourist season is generally May to September, weekends are your best shot to get souvenirs.

Although the church is 754m high cycling to the top is not a piece of cake. There are two ways to approach the chapel: the long, gradual southern climb up from Asso (±9km) and the steeper climb (±10.5km,14%) from Bellagio, the only real way.
See here for more info about the climbs

Madonna

Church (Joe Lindsey)

Curch Inside (Bill Henderson)

Notre-Dame des Cyclistes (France)

Set amidst the vineyards, 2.5 km south of the small medieval village Labastide-d'Armagnac, along the D626, an 11th-century chapel has been dedicated to the heroes of the Tour de France since 1959. Followers of the Tour visit every summer to meditate in an atmosphere where fervour and nostalgia mingle. Father Massie, with a self-confessed passion for the Tour de France, had the idea of creating a real site of pilgrimage for cyclists (the Tour already had its martyrs), following the example of the Italians with La Madonna del Ghisallo. Tenacious and obstinate, the good father went to the Vatican to plead his cause and received the authorisation from Pope Pius XII in person! The official inauguration of the chapel took place on Whit Monday 1959.

From then on cyclists, from the greatest to the most humble, have come to leave their jerseys, bikes or headgear before making a small prayer to the Virgin Mary. In 1989, following a request from Father Massie, the Tour de France passed via the chapel during the Bordeaux-Pau stage. Inside the chapel, numerous jerseys are hung on the walls. Among these is the jersey of the winner of the 2000 Tour - Lance Armstrong - still stained with the sweat of his efforts... Anquetil, Bobet, Merckx, Poulidor and Hinault have also left souvenirs of their visits. You can also see one of the cycles from the first Tour de France as well as photos, press articles and candles. There is also a Guest Book that records the impressions of visitors - both the famous and the unknown, Notre-Dame-des-Cyclistes is for everyone. The church is the place where the funeral ceremony for Luis Ocana was held in 1994. The monday after ... there is a feast.
Despite the detour, Notre-Dame-des-Cyclistes has become an unmissable stopover for cycling pilgrims heading for Lourdes or Santiago de Compostela. Before entering the chapel, you can read the inscription at the feet of Notre-Dame:

Mary, Queen of the world, we humbly ask you to bless and protect the cyclists of the world and help them to finish happily the main and final stage, which leads to heaven.
Amen.

Nuestra Señora de Dorleta (Spain)

In Spain Nuestra Señora de Dorleta is considered the patroness of cyclists. The Sanctuary of Our Lady of Dorleta is in Basque Country, in Salinas de Leintz (in Basque Leintz Gatzaga ), in the provincia of Guipúzcoa, near the Puerto/Alto de Arlabán (617m). See the map. On 26 october 1958 the Coronation of the Virgen de Dorleta took place in Arlabán, ............ There are several places where you can find Na.Sa. de Dorleta: on Alt de Campello (Vallada, big tiled tableau), la cumbre de L'Oronet? , Coll de Rates?, El Pîco del Águila?

Another place is in Andalucia south of Granada, just 0.7km S of the passo del Suspiro del Moro (The Moor's Sigh Pass), not on the highway but on the parallel road over the highway on the S-route. The text on the stone at the monument is:

Our Lady of Dorleta, patron of the Spanish cyclist's.
Maria, Queen of the world, protect the Earth's routes in all directions for the cyclists who love the great works of nature of The Lord.

It's ment for Spanish cyclists but I hope it's for all cyclists ;-) I was here in 1996 and 2004 and was shocked by the state it was in in 2004. The monument was tumble-down and not maintained: fallen pillars and broken plates.
People of this area ought to be ashamed of themselves for letting go this monument! To all Spanish cyclists I would say: try to override the right people or cycling organisations to renovate this monument.

Monument in 1996

Monument in 2004

Italian Chappels

In at least 2 Italian cities there are little chappels dedicated to cyclists. In the Italian region Veneto (North) there are chappels in Ponte di Piave and Tempio di Ormelle

Ponte di Piave

Ponte di Piave, inside

Tempio di Ormelle

Santiago de Compostela (Spain)

History

After the death of Christ the disciples dispersed to different parts of the then known world, to spread the Gospel as they had been bidden. Saint James went to Spain, we are told, where he spent a couple of years evangelising, though apparently without a great deal of success. He then returned to Jerusalem but was beheaded by Herod shortly afterwards, in AD 44. Immediately following his martyrdom, however, his followers are said to have taken his body to Jaffa, on the coast, where a ship was miraculously waiting for them and they set off back to Spain.

They landed in Iria Flavia on the coast of Galicia, some twenty kilometers from what is now Santiago de Compostela, after a Journey which is purported to have taken only a week, thereby providing proof of angelic assistance.
Saint James's body was then buried in a tomb on a hillside, along and forgotten for the next 750 years. The story is considerably more complicated than this but these are the bare bones.

Early in the ninth century Pelagius, a hermit living in that part of Spain, had a vision (which he subsequently reported to Theodomir, bishop of Ira Flavia) in which he saw a very large bright star, surrounded by a ring of smaller ones, shining over a deserted spot in the hills. The matter was investigated and a tomb found there containing three bodies. They were immediately identified as those of Saint James and two of his followers and when Alfonso II, King of the Asturias (791-824), went there he
declared Saint James the patron saint of Spain. He built a church and a small monastery over the tomb in the saints honor, around which a town grew up. It was known as campus de Ia stella or campus steliae later shortened to compostela. This is one explanation of the origin of the name. Another is that it derives from the Latin componere (to bury), as
a Roman cemetery or early Christian necropolis is known to have existed under the site of the present day cathedral in Santiago - and where the remains of Saint James are still believed to be housed today. News of the discovery soon spread. It was encouraged to do so, moreover, both by Archbishop Gelmirez and the cathedral authorities, who were anxious to promote the town as a pilgrimage centre, thus attracting money to the area, and by the monks of Cluny, who saw in it the opportunity to assist the Spanish church in their long struggle against the Moors. Both factions were also helped by the fact that the Turks had seized the Holy Sepulchre in 1078, thus putting a stop to pilgrimages to Jerusalem.

Pilgrimage

Certificate

Seals

European routes

Pilgrims have been travelling to Santiago de Compostela on foot or horseback for over a thousand years. (The Bishop of Le Puy, who went there in AD 950, was one of the first). Some say the cult of the spiritual traveller along the path existed even earlier as the way led to Cape Finisterre the end of the known world. Its 800 kilometers from the Saint Jean Pied de Port in the foothills of the Pyrenees to Santiago de Compostela in the western reaches of Galicia have changed little in that time. For although sections of it have now become modern tarred roads and many of the "hospitals" and other accommodation set-up by religious orders along the way to minister to the needs of pilgrims have long since disappeared, the camino , as it is known in Spain, still passes through the same villages, crosses the same rivers, visits the same chapels, churches, cathedrals and other monuments as did the path taken by our predecessors in centuries gone by.

At the height of its popularity in the eleventh and twelfth centuries over half a million people a year are said to have made the pilgrimage from different parts of Europe, the majority of them from France. The high point of the pilgrimage occurred between the years 1000 and l500 but although numbers dwindled after that, due to the Reformation and other, political, factors, the stream of pilgrims making the trudge westwards to the far reaches of Galiciain north-west Spain never completely dried up and
in the late twentieth century is making something of a comeback.

Nowadays several thousand people walk the Way every year, whether from the Pyrenees, from different parts of France or from even further afield: it is not uncommon, even nowadays, to meet Swiss, German, Belgian or Dutch pilgrims.
The Cathedral authorities in Santiago maintain a register of pilgrims of people travelling on foot, bicycle or horseback. But there is also a considerable group of people who probably don't register and travel to Santiago for other reasons as religious ones, such as contemplation, escaping from stressfull daily life, proving oneself, a challenge or a bet!

There are no other "rules" about how you should make your pilgrimage: but you will find among pilgrims to Santiago and those who support them a clearly defined ethos - a stong sense that certain attitudes and ways of comporting oneself are appropriate to the pilgrimage. This is summed up in the need to be true to oneself and to respect the motivation of others.

The Confraternity and similar pilgrim associations throughout the world exist to help the modern pilgrim, by providing advice and information, and issuing the Pilgrim Record or credencial which entitles the pilgrim to sleep in the Spanish refugios. By the way if you do complete the walk all the way and can provide proof (by stamps), you are entitled to three free meals for three days! at the magnificent Hotel de los Reyes at Santiago apply to the cathedral authorities.

The Cycling Pilgrim

The cathedral authorities in Santiago require that pilgrims must
1. carry the credencial or pilgrim passport, and produce it, stamped and dated
2. have walked or ridden on horseback the last 100 km to Santiago, or cycled the last 200 km, and
3. declare a spiritual or religious motivation, to qualify for the Compostela, the traditional Latin certificate of pilgrimage. There is a 'certificado', also in Latin, for those making the journey for other reasons.

It's obvious that the bicycle provides a greater degree of flexibility, independence and freedom from time constraints than walking or riding. Broadly speaking the pilgrim on a touring bike is confined to the road. On a mountain bike the pilgrim is free to follow in the footsteps of his forbears and travel on the Camino. In parts, the Camino is tough going even on a
MTB, so a reasonable degree of fitness is required. Training rides on bridleways, with the kit you expect to carry on pilgrimage, is highly desirable. The difference between the behaviour and handeling, laden and unladen, over rough terrain is considerable. Acceleration is slower, which is not of great importance.but braking is much more sluggish which can be
dangerous unless you are used to it. Some of the rough tracks through the Pyrenees and Navarre are not the places to get accustomed to a change in behaviour.

Some statistics

For the numbers of pilgrims staying at the Confraternity's refuge in the mountains of León, by country of origin and means of making the pilgrimage, click here.
www3.planalfa.es/arzsantiago/Peregrinos/Estadisticas/Estadisticaperegrinacion.htm
www.csj.org.uk/gaucelmo-stats.htm

Passes in routes

Check my database for: European passes on the Camino de Santiago

Links