Cool Spot: When the saints go riding in

For bike-mad Italians, the line between pedalling and praying is exceedingly thin, writes Sean O'Toole

The Madonna del Ghisallo is a small, whitewashed church on a hilltop near Bellagio, a picturesque northern Italian village and summer getaway on the headland where Lake Como splits and forms its wishbone shape. Outside the church, which has Lombardy-style clay roof tiles and a greyish stone bell tower, appear two sculptures portraying the saints that lend this modest chapel its legend.

One of the two men is a raffish divorcee, the other a smoker and drinker with a bruiser's nose. Every year thousands of cyclists brave the mercilessly steep pedal up the Vallassina road out of Bellagio to come and look at these two imperfect saints: Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali, Italian cycling's greatest legends.

If the biographies of the two men, especially the suave Coppi, don't quite gel with the solemn orthodoxy of Catholicism, then neither does the interior of the small church. Placed high on the ledges overlooking the penitents in lycra is a collection of famous bicycles. The turquoise bicycle, for instance, was used by Coppi when he won the 1949 Tour de France, the red one by Eddy Merckx, the legendary Belgian cyclist from the '60s and '70s.

All counted, there are nearly a dozen bicycles, each claiming an illustrious owner, including Bartali and the speedy Italian Francesco Moser. The selection has a distinctly European flavour, so don't expect to see the butterfly-decorated bike created by artist Damien Hirst when Lance Armstrong rode into Paris two years ago.

The only seating is offered by benches pushed against the walls, which, on one side, are tiled with hundreds of oval photographs of ordinary men - I didn't see any women - who lived for cycling.

The church is flanked by a museum, one of whose building stones was blessed by Pope Benedict XVI in 2006, shortly before the museum was opened. Italian cyclists have long beaten a path to the Vatican's door insisting on papal blessings. In 1949 Pope Pius XII, no doubt persuaded by the fanatical following created by the great rivalry between Coppi and Bartali, appointed the Madonna of Ghisallo the patron saint of Italian cyclists. (Up until then she had been a guardian of local villagers and huntsmen.)

Midway between the church and tiered museum, whose holdings include a svelte red bike by manufacturer Colnago made to honour the automaker Ferrari, is another papal project. Unveiled in 1973, and blessed by Pope Paul VI, this imposing bronze sculpture captures the ordinary drama of the two-wheeled experience.

One cyclist is depicted riding to victory, left hand hoisted aloft; the other lies crumpled on the ground, his collapsed ride next to him.

"And God," reads the Italian inscription beneath the sculpture, "created the bicycle, so that man could use it as a means for work and to help him negotiate life's complicated journey." Amen.

The Catholic Church wasn't always this freewheeling, to use a cycling metaphor, in the application of its theology.

"At one point priests were banned from cycling in Italy and had to fight for their right to ride a bike," offers John Foot, a professor of modern Italian history in London.

Foot has just published a new book, Pedlare! Pedlare!, a fascinating account of the history of cycling in Italy that is a must-read for anyone planning to cycle the winding switchbacks up to Ghisallo.

At the start of the 20th century, explains Foot, the recently minted Italian republic was going through the same hiccups experienced by our unstable new democracy. Cycling, which achieved huge buy-in from a previously foot-bound peasantry, was seen as a means to promote ideology, whether churchly or otherwise.

In Milan, writes Foot, there was even a Karl Marx tyre - marketed as the "great red brand" and sold to "comrades and cyclists".

The Tour of Lombardy, a one-day race that famously passes Ghisallo, traces its origins to this early antagonism and fight for constituents between the church and secularists, the anti-sporting left and fascist right. Nicknamed "the classic of the falling leaves" for the autumnal hue that sweeps across this forested and mountainous region, the race, which took place last month, brings to an end the European cycling season.

So what's it like to do the ride up to Ghisallo, to follow literally in the path of Coppi, who won the Tour of Lombardy five times? Hard work, but not impossible. The ride is not all that different to cycling from parliament up to the cableway station at the base of Table Mountain - three times over that is.

The route cuts through rural farming hamlets and is, on weekends, surprisingly busy. Not with cyclists, but endless motorists and motorcyclists taking the scenic route from Como, gateway to the lake, to Bellagio. Attractions here include the terraced garden at Villa Melzi and servings of edible fish from the lake.

The rise is also easier if you have the right equipment. I hired a carbon fibre Pinarello through a local rental company, Lake Como Cycling (www.lakecomocycling.com), who delivered the bike to my hotel.

To put the bicycle's pedigree in perspective for women readers who have climbed the lonely switchbacks of this article with me: imagine lying in bed with George Clooney, a Como region property owner, and gently stroking his abs.

That's what it is like riding a handcrafted Italian racing bike up a country road steeped in sweaty cycling folklore.