A Couple of Days of Rest

This is a 2-day update, yesterday and today.  You will be thrilled to hear that I’m catching up, at least with the blog.  Work?  Not so much.

It has been just superb weather.  Sunny, warm but not too warm, and spectacular scenery in the Dolomites.  on Friday we were supposed to do the ride above to watch the finish of stage 19.  But after 30 km or so, our legs said “no more” and we listened.  We parked ourselves at the side of the road at the 10 km to go to the finish banner (the hardest 10 km were those beyond where we stopped) and watched.  Well, we waited and watched people go by.  It is great people watching.  The valley that we rode up to get to where we waited was stunning in the sunshine.  The tallest peaks loomed over the verdant green valley and every tiny, tidy alpine village was done up in pink and loaded with locals.  Since we’re the only tandem that we’ve seen the entire trip, we are also probably the only tandem that the locals have seen.  They all applaud and make jokes (“hey, she’s not peddling!”) but we don’t mind being a source of fun.

Friday: San Martino di Castrozza

The Dolomites

This is where we hung out for the day

Here are some shots taken along the ride up to San Martino di Castrozza

The road is open for riders until about 30 minutes before the race comes through (closed to cars
much sooner)

We had to ride through 6 long tunnels.  We turned our tail light and headlight onto super bright blinking but it was still scary.  Then we figured out that there is a bike path around each tunnel.  Doh!  The last three tunnels were averted.

Eventually the race came by, and it was fun the cheer the riders on.  Almost as fun as it was to people watch.

The ride back to our place in Sorriva was super fast.  Downhill the whole way.  And we rode straight through the tunnels since the traffic was light (read: non-existent) and we were easily holding 60 kph.  Except the last 5 km that are uphill at about 11% grade.  They were slow.  But it felt a lot better without all of our bags than it did when we rode it the day before with all of our panniers.

For dinner we visited the same great pizza spot down the road that we’d enjoyed years ago. Excellent pizza again!

 

Yum.

Saturday: Croce D'Auna

Saturday we had a very short ride to the top of the famous climb Croce D’Auna.  This is the second to the last day of the Giro, and the last mountain stage.  Our BnB sits at the base of the climb and the road in front of the house is the race route.  We just walked out the door and road up the hill.  Total distance: 6 km up, 6 down.  Total up: 1700 m up (same down...)

It was pandemonium.  Thousands upon thousands of fans, all crazy, and every switchback was claimed by a different nation.  Dutch corner.  Swiss corner.  Hungarian corner.  And the zaniest, Slovenia corner (precisely ½ of the population of Slovenia was here today to root for their hero Primoz Roglic (who sits in 4th place).

The fan watching was equal to the race watching.  What an experience.

Every village is done up in pink and the entire population will be at the side of
the road as the racers come by

We stopped and had coffee and Lorie loved these centerpieces

A romanesque looking mausoleum, with a pink bow

Things are heating up on Slovenia corner

We're almost to the top.  Blurry not from our speed, but from our wobbling...

Almost there

The top.  This is about 6 km from the finish, but is where we stopped.  We sat on the grass slope
on the right -- it was a great viewpoint and was in the shade all day

The lead rider.  The riders came by in ones, twos and small groups

These are the race leaders...Nibali, Carapaz, Roglic, and the rest

Riders came by for about 45 minutes

After the all of the racers had roared by, we hung around the top for about an hour to let the crowds head down the hill to Luciano’s place. There are five Hungarians who also are staying here.  They are a fun group -- here because they love the Giro and they have been coming to stay with Luciano for about ten years.  They said “let’s go get pizza” so off we went.  Dinner started at about 1900 and I am writing this at about 2300 – we just got home.  Stephan, Lazlo, David, Ben and Gabor.  What a group.  I have said it before but the best parts of our rides is the people we meet.  And this year we have met more engaging people from more different parts of the world than in any prior trip.  We consider ourselves to be very, very lucky.

 Tomorrow we start phase 2 of our trip: no bike racing, leaving the Dolomites, and just having touristy fun.  We ride up the Croce D'Aune again (with our bags this time) then downhill to Valdobiaddene where they grow the grapes and make prosecco wine and where they make the wine.  We have a short ride but are really looking forward to this next part of our travels.

Best to everyone.

Ride Day 5: Trento to Sorriva

In 2016 we rode some of the same route that we rode yesterday.  Our destination is Sorriva, a tiny village at the base of the renown Croce d'Aune pass.  We are staying 3 nights in the same B n B in Sorriva where we stayed three years ago -- a wonderful place with an engaging host.  We'll use Sorriva as a home base to watch two more mountain stages of the Giro.

WiFi has been a bit spotty but it seems to be working now, so here’s your update.  The first thing to note is this: sunshine!  Yeah, it is warm (ish) and sunny (mostly) and in my opinion a very nice development.  Since I missed a day-o-blogging, I will update tomorrow first, when we rode from Trento to Sorriva.

We have many long days on a bike but both of us agree that yesterday was perhaps the longest and toughest day we’ve ever had.  There were no problems, the weather was great compared to the past days, but the distance and climbing added up to a day of misery.

We arrived Sorriva, a beautiful and tiny village in the Dolomites that we visited in 2016 on another ride (to Venezia) and are staying with our friend Luciano at his BnB.  When we arrived, Luciano met us and introduced us to his Hungarian friends who are also here to watch the Giro.  And Luciano had a beer in hand.  Just what we needed to try to get our rubber legs to solidify just a bit.

Our day started early in Trento.  Trento is a big city but set nicely in the confluence of three big valleys with mountains looming overhead.  Our room for the night is above the city and overlooks the university district. 

 

The view from our breakfast room

Overlooking Trento

From the University terrace

The Trento valley with the Dolomites looming over

In the morning, Favio, the guy at the BnB, told us that we ought to visit the nearby Trento University school of engineering to see the view from the terrace and have a coffee.  It was still early, before the BnB’s breakfast, and the sun was shining, so why not?  We walked up the hill to the school and quickly found the terrace and the view in the morning sun is gorgeous.

Coffee and food from the school cafe

Last night we walked down the hill to the main part of Trento to find something to eat.  We stopped at the first place we saw, Dorian Gray’s (of Oscar Wilde fame).  The food was decent and the wine was good and the walk back up to the BnB nearly killed our tired legs.  Sleep would maybe help.

We also found the student café and grabbed coffees for nearly nothing, and also bought a sandwich for lunch, down the road.  Then back for a nice breakfast at the BnB.

Bu onward, so we hit the road.  And it was quite a climb getting out of Trento.  We muddled our way through a bunch of confusion with our GPSs (which is pretty standard stuff for us) and we got super lost a few times, but eventually we got on the right road.  After the initial climb to get on the road, we dropped down to a beautiful valley that runs easterly toward Verona and which is bordered on both sides by enormous peaks of the Dolomites.  And there was a nice bike path, which we’d actually ridden a few years ago in 2016.

We're heading up there, eventually

On the way up

Unbeknownst to us, the Giro follows our ride, tomorrow

Near the summit of the Forcela pass

The bike taking a rest.  Us, too, out of frame.

We knew what was coming and when our GPSs said turn left we looked at the mountains and cringed a bit.  We hit the hills right away and dropped our gearing to the smallest gear we had and got set for a long, long climb.  It was ridiculous.  We went at least 25 km on a gradient no less than 9%.  It never really varied – 9% the whole way.  We were so slow that we could have tipped over.  At least the weather was good and the traffic was very light – those who passed us must have gotten a good laugh!

We crested the top of the Forcela pass and stopped for some food (energy bars; we’d chowed down on our University sandwich a few hours earlier).  There was some up and down after that and then the big descent.  We had ridden this descent in 2016, so we remembered it, but we realized when we got to the top of the Forcela that we’d ridden up another road in 2016.  Maybe it was easier since neither of us remember it being this hard back in 2016.  On the other hand, maybe I’m forgetting on purpose.  Maybe I am three years older and the hills are getting tougher.  You know what they say: Memory is the second thing to go.  I can’t remember what the first thing is…

The descent off the Forcela pass really steep and I’m constantly on the brakes to keep the bike at a reasonable speed through the hairpins.  By the bottom of the 20 km drop my arms and hands are wasted.  So we stopped at a bar for a coffee even though it was 1600 – a bit late for us to have coffee.  I would have loved a beer, but we had another 10km of climbing to Sorriva.

So up we went, again.  By this time we were like automatons, simply turning the pedals over.  But we made it, and were greeted by Luciano and the Hungarians who were just getting ready to head out for a ride (they’d arrived only an hour previously, after a 12 hour drive from Budapest).

With an hour off the bike, we are recovering nicely but our legs are useless. 

Sorriva is all decked out in pink -- the village went over the top to dress itself up for the race.  It seems that every village tries to outdo the next.  It is a fun competition.

Putting up a penny farthing,..pink, of course

Luciano invited us to join him at the neighboring village Fonzaso for a village party to celebrate the arrival of the Giro.  We were only too happy to join him.  We drove to the village and had huge plates of pork braised in wine, polenta with sauce, fries, and wine and beer.  There was a band playing and we had fun with Luciano and his friends.  We understood little of the conversation but had a blast. 

Tomorrow (which is actually today) we have a rest day, so to speak – we ride up to the San Martino di Castrozza to watch the Giro.   But before that, we do have down-time when Lorie can relive her inner hippy...

Ciao.