You don't pick
a route.
You choose
every morning.

A crossing, not a race.

The Molise Trail is a bike journey on the tratturi, the ancient droving roads of transhumance. Three loops out of and back to Petacciato, self-supported.

No stopwatch, no ranking, no finishing order. You don't declare your route at the start: you choose it, and change your mind on the way.

A five-day window. How many you use is up to you.

Same start, same finish. What changes is how much Molise you put in between.

The tratturi network

Village · start and finish Riposi · base camps Highest point Reference towns Royal tratturi

Drag — or tap a village

Petacciato

To eat

The Short stays in Lower Molise and climbs inland: the coast, the Arbëresh villages, and passes almost through Campobasso.

Over three days: about 67 km and 1,500 m a day.

Distances are indicative. The final tracks are released about thirty days before: the rules allow a variation of up to 20%.

Not by your legs. By the time you have.

Most riders start Friday the 30th and are home Sunday night: you take just one day off work. But three days don't weigh the same on the three loops — the numbers are above, as you switch route.

And no one's forcing you: the loops cross at the Riposi. You can start long and come back short, or the other way round.

If it's your first time: the Short, at your own pace. In 2025 one rider in five was on their first bikepacking trip. You're not out of place.

No walls. Only long pulls.

It's the most common fear, and we settle it with numbers: the steepest climb of the whole Molise Trail averages 5%. They are long climbs, not vertical ones — done with the right gear and a little patience.

The total ascent adds up like this: many gentle climbs, not a few impossible ones. That's what makes Molise rideable even on a gravel bike.

About half is tarmac. We'd rather tell you ourselves.

The tratturo isn't a continuous track: it's a broken network — ploughed over, built on, lost in the fields. Tarmac is what sews it back together.

We're not chasing off-road. We're following a road that was already there.

Gravel or MTB. Both work.

On all three loops. Gravel rolls fast; an MTB is comfier and heavier. It's a choice, not a requirement.

• Tyres 40 mm and up. Below that you suffer on the gravel; above it you lose little.
• Repair kit required. On the route you're self-supported, and a tyre punctures where no one passes. At the Riposo, in the evening, there's a mechanic.

A network as wide as a motorway, three thousand years old.

They weren't roads: they were grass corridors. The royal tratturi reach 111 metres wide — enough to move a herd without it spilling into the fields.

Twice a year, for three thousand years, the flocks climbed to the Abruzzo mountains in June and came down to the Tavoliere in October. Millions of sheep. A whole civilisation moving on foot, with its own laws, customs houses and courts.

Poi, in un secolo, è finita. The tratturi sono stati arati, costruiti sopra, dimenticati. Ma non sono spariti. Molise is the region where most of them survive — and that's why the Molise Trail exists here and nowhere else.

Transhumance is UNESCO intangible heritage since 2019.

Left, the Pescasseroli–Candela. Right, the Centurelle–Montesecco.

It's the only place where you cross almost all of them in a few days by bike.

The flocks passed here. For five days, you do.

On the tratturo, the stops had a name.

They were called riposi: patches of grass near the springs, where the flocks spent the night before setting off again.

We're reopening four of them. Real villages, not serviced areas: it's the towns and their associations that open them.

They're also the nodes where the three loops meet: that's where you can switch route, if you like.

Half the riders sleep in a hotel, and that's fine. But come to dinner and breakfast at the Riposo anyway: that's where everything else happens.

A village that opens its door.

You arrive. You lean the bike. You wash the dust off.

You eat in a gym or a village hall, at long tables, with what the associations cook. You sleep inside or in a tent. You talk with the people who rode your same stretch and saw the same things in a different order.

It's not a hotel and it's not a bivouac.

doesn't mean left alone.

On the tratturo you're self-supported. No assistance along the route, no feed stations: what you need, you carry. The roads are open to traffic — the Highway Code applies. The repair kit is mandatory, and not for red tape.

At the Riposo, it's different.

And then:

• the track is verified, and updated maps land on Komoot;
• the app gives you points of interest, the Riposi and resupply points, even offline;
• the GPS tracker is included and mandatory: we know where you are;
• there's insurance, and someone who answers the phone. If something happens, we know where you are and we come to get you.

In 2025, 340 people closed the loop, crossing 57 municipalities and two provinces.

Late October, inland Molise.

By day it can reach 18°C. At night, and up high, it's another story. And it can rain.

• rain gear and something warm for the stops;
• lights — in late October there are ten hours of daylight, and you'll ride in the dark too;
• repair kit and a spare inner tube;
• what you need to sleep, if you don't book a place at the Riposi;
• food for the empty stretches: the villages are there, but not always when you need them.

The rest is weight.

On the coast, where it all begins.

• By car: A14 motorway — from the north exit Vasto Sud, from the south exit Termoli.
• By train: Termoli station, Adriatic line. Petacciato is fifteen minutes away.
• By air: Pescara, Naples, Bari.

In Petacciato there's the Village: open from the night of 29 October to the night of 3 November. With the accommodation option you sleep there the night before the start and the night you return — nothing else to arrange.

Everything, no asterisks.

The dinners at the Riposi are booked on the portal — we'll write to you when it's time. Breakfasts are paid on the spot, in the morning. They cost little: the village associations make them.

A medical certificate is required — competitive, cycling, valid beyond 3 November. Not needed to register: you upload it by 1 October.

The region almost no one tells you about.

It's not empty: it's untold. Two different things, and you notice by the first afternoon.

Below, what you actually meet. Open what interests you.

Central MoliseRome, the Samnites, and a Croatian tongue

Saepinum–Altilia is reason enough to be here. A Roman town built on the tratturo: the road crossing the forum is the tratturo. The gates, the baths, the theatre still stand — and the theatre is still used in summer. No ticket office, no queue: often no one at all.

Bojano, at the foot of the Matese, where the Biferno rises: the water leaves the mountain already a river. It was a Samnite capital.

Campobasso — the Monforte Castle above the city. Castelpetroso, the neo-Gothic sanctuary rising from nowhere amid the fields.

Acquaviva Collecroce: qui si parla croato-molisano, arrivato nel Cinquecento dall'altra sponda dell'Adriatico. Spoken in only three villages on earth — all three are here.

Upper MoliseSamnium before Rome. The reward of the long route

Pietrabbondante is the place you don't expect. A Samnite theatre-temple from the 2nd century BC, at 1,000 metres, with seats carved as griffin paws and mountains for scenery. It's Samnium before Rome: the people who gave Rome trouble for seventy years.

Pescolanciano — the d'Alessandro Castle right on the Castel di Sangro–Lucera tratturo. The heart of transhumance: this is where the customs were paid.

Bagnoli del Trigno, the “pearl of Molise”: the village is wedged into the Morgia rock, the church inside the stone, the castle above. You climb, and it's not a metaphor.

Frosolone — knives and scissors for centuries, still by hand, the workshops still open. And the cavatelli.

The Long costs 100 km and 2,000 metres more. That's what you buy with it.