Lago di Garda
Castelnuovo del Garda · Italy
Why we build here.
Olive trees, pomegranates, and figs grow outside the atelier door. Cypresses line the road into town. The lake glows pale blue under Monte Baldo most mornings of the year. How could the bicycles built here not carry some of this with them?
Act I · Why Garda Matters
A lake that has shaped cycling.
Lake Garda sits where the Alps tip down into the Po valley — one of the few places in Europe where you can leave your front door, ride forty minutes, and be climbing four-figure passes in alpine air. The Giro d'Italia visits these roads almost every other year. The Granfondo dei Sette Comuni starts here. Half the WorldTour spends their winter training camps in Garda hotels.
For ZULLO, that geography is more than a postcode. It is a daily reminder of what we build for. Every frame brazed in our workshop has been ridden on these climbs before it left Italy — on Tremalzo, on Monte Baldo, around the southern moraine into Verona. The frame and the place are inseparable.
Act II · Five things to see
Five rides, five places.
When you arrive to commission a ZULLO, these are the five places we will take you. Bring a long-sleeved jersey and a camera.
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I.
The Cliffside Road
Strada della Forra.
Tremosine. Winston Churchill called it the most beautiful road in the world. Tunnels carved straight into limestone cliffs, the lake below your wheel, daylight breaking through stone arches every few hundred metres. Quiet on a weekday morning. Cinematic on every one.
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II.
The Queen Climb
Monte Baldo & Spiazzi.
The mountain that dominates Garda's eastern shore — 2 200 m tall, with switchbacks that climb out of olive groves into pine forest. The climb to Spiazzi delivers you to Madonna della Corona, a sanctuary built into a sheer cliff face, 600 metres of pure vertical drop beneath the chapel. Few churches in Italy are stranger or more beautiful.
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III.
The Wine Country
Bardolino & Valpolicella.
Rolling hills draped in vineyards on the eastern shore. The roads through Bardolino, Lazise, and Cavaion are the quietest in the region; the climbs into Valpolicella DOC carry the smell of fermenting Amarone in October. Lunch in a winery, espresso in the next village.
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IV.
The Lookout
Punta Larici & Pieve di Tremosine.
A short climb out of Limone takes you to Pieve di Tremosine, balanced on a 350-metre cliff over the lake. Coffee on the church terrace, the entire northern basin opening below. The kind of view people travel a lifetime to find.
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V.
The Medieval Mill Village
Borghetto sul Mincio.
Twenty minutes south of the atelier — a fortified village built around water mills on the Mincio river. UNESCO-recognised, almost untouched since the fifteenth century. The flat ride out of Castelnuovo through cycle paths and quiet country lanes makes this a perfect recovery loop after a hard day on the climbs.
Act III · Where to Stay
The Garda Bike Hotel.
We have one preferred recommendation for our visiting clients: Garda Bike Hotel, ten minutes from the atelier. A cycling-first hotel run by people who actually ride — secure bike storage, a dedicated workshop, laundry for kit, an espresso bar that opens before sunrise. Their breakfast room is full of riders comparing the day's route at 6:30 am.
Mention ZULLO when you book and they will take care of the rest. We have sent commissioning clients there for years.
Act IV · The Best Way to Buy
Make a trip of it.
Commissioning a ZULLO is a six-week conversation. The frame can be measured remotely — we have shipped to every continent. But the riders who come to us in person leave with something a frame alone can't carry.
Three days in Castelnuovo. Tiziano takes your measurements at the bench. Lunch at the trattoria across the road. A long climb of Monte Baldo on a loaner bike. Espresso in the workshop while we sketch your geometry. Dinner with a bottle of Bardolino from the village your fork was painted in.
By the time the frame arrives at your door — six weeks later, in another country — it carries the smell of espresso, the colour of the lake, and the slope of Spiazzi inside every weld.