Lessons of Bikepacking with an E-bike From Siena to Vatican City, Italy

This is a quick post to discuss my lessons from a 4-day e-bike ride from Siena to the Vatican City. My normal bikepacking approach is to use a regular gravel push bike and wild camp with my own gear most of the time. But using an e-bike changed the rules.

Firstly, I bikepack with a lot of stuff, which naturally includes camping gear, etc. I wild-camp or air-camp as a norm and only use facilities (campground, warmshowers.org hosts or a room) only a few times a month. Mostly I stay out unless it rains. But my last month of bikepacking in Tasmania with a push bike made me think about e-bike options. Simply put, Tasmania involved an endless procession of hills, some small and some monstrous, so the prospect of a little bit of technical help is being considered for my next planned hilly trip (Australian Blue Mountains).

Costs

Total Cost Range of this Activity is: $$

Bike rental 45 €. Train fare is 10 € Florence to Siena and 28 € return from Rome to Florence. Each of the 3 nights I booked a room ranging from 44-91 €. Food, drinks and coffee cost around 80 €. So all in all, around 325 €.

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Setting a Target for the e-bike Test

Since I had recently ridden my push bike on a day trip from the town of Siena to Florence, Italy it seemed that one of these towns should be the starting point. Next, I looked for a destination or loop that would take around 3-4 days of riding. Ultimately, I picked Siena as the start and the Vatican City, Rome as the destination.

The Vatican (from Siena) seemed optimal based on my normal push bike backpacking trips and because the route had historical and religious overtones (the ancient pilgrimage routes  Via Francigena from Canterbury to Rome, and not to be confused with the modern Via di Francesco). The route also crisscrosses with the EuroVelo 5 bikepacking trail across Italy. The distance was around 275 km and I figured it would take 3 days of riding (spread over 4 days due to a mid-day start for bike pickup and travel to Siena). Note that Tuscany is basically all hills so it would be a good test of the e-bike approach.

Packing my Gear

For gear, all I took was a pair of saddle bags, a toolkit, a single set of clothes for evenings, an extra layer in case of cold weather and snacks. I took no camping or cooking gear (my normal stuff for wild camping). My gear weighed around 5kg. The forecast was for sunny days around 20 C and evenings around 14 C. Perfect riding weather and nights would have to be spent indoors at apartments, agritourism’s or whatever I could find via Booking.com due to battery re-charge requirements anyway.

Renting an e-bike

I started out by booking an e-bike on the Decathlon rental website for pickup at a store location near Florence, Italy (Prato). I picked up the bike at 10am in Prato on a Tuesday, rode it to the local train station and then took a regional train to Siena (all regional trains in Italy have bicycle carriages). From Siena I started the actual ride around 1 pm. See below for details of the actual ride.

What I learned about e-bikes

1. If you don’t peddle you get no e-boost from the motor. So, for the e-bike functionality you must peddle.
2. If you don’t peddle the bike coasts just like a regular bike (the rear wheel is not engaged with the electric motor, so you have no resistance), but you are subject to gravity. Fast downhill and slowing down going uphill. All normal stuff.
3. If you peddle downhill or uphill, you must adjust the gears to find the sweet spot that doesn’t cause resistance (think of going down a hill in a car in 1st gear vs 5^th gear, the difference will cause the motor to resist forward motion if the gear is too low or too high compared to the speed and motor rotation). So, you must constantly adjust the bike gears to find the least resistance from the e-motor while peddling up/down hills. Again, no peddling, no resistance.
4. Item 3 is the same for peddling on flat terrain. You must find the sweet spot of gear position, speed and e-motor rotation/resistance. Even if set to 0 power.
5. For item 3 & 4 you also must balance the power setting of the e-bike. Therefore, peddling in e-power positions zero to max requires a balance between gear, e-motor rotation and speed of the bike.
6. Finally, you need to know the way your battery consumes power. All batteries consume power at different rates compared to your power settings, hills (both for going up and down) and the age of the battery.

All this takes some getting used to. By the end of the second day, I had the bike figured out and could make full use of it’s e-benefits efficiently. I also had a good idea of how much battery life I was consuming and what I might expect to have at the end of the day.

My Battery Life

1. Day 1 a half day from Siena to Torrenieri, I ended with 50% battery power. I was too conservative in power use.
2. Day 2 a full and long day to Bolsena, I ended with 10% battery power. I was conservative but tried to cover too much ground.
3. Day 3 a full normal day to Braccianno, I ended with 40% battery power. I used the battery on all up-hills sections and still had a safe margin left at end of day.
4. Day 4 a very short day to the Vatican and then Termini RR station, I ended with 40%. I used the battery constantly since I knew I had a very short day.

And yes, you need to stay indoors every night for charging options, no wild camping. I probably could have picked some Warmshowers.org hosts but my daily planning was too poor to commit to any hosts on this trip. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t consider it in the future (when have the whole electric thing figured out better).

See my experiences as a warmshowers.org host last summer for some interesting reading.

Conclusion

The extra weight of an e-bike is not that excessive since bikepacking generally involves a lot of weight. The extra weight of the battery is well worth the assistance. However, the range limitation (even if riding at 0 power most of the day) does limit the daily target range. Plus, you need to plan to finish near a source of electricity. This is my biggest issue since I don’t like setting daily targets. I prefer to adlib and explore as I go. Then near the end of my day (whatever that turns out to be) I search for a wild spot to pitch my hammock. Not so with an e-bike. More daily planning needs to take place.

So, is an e-bike a good option for the price of a place to camp/stay with electricity every night and the need to plan better? If you are bikepacking where there are lots of hills or mountains the answer for me is yes.

GPS Track

Download My Ride Siena to Vatican – Rome.gpx track.

Download the Alternate Ride routes to Rome tracks.

Check out more GPS tracks.

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