Stelvio day. Forever in my memory. 22ks of roughly 1700 meters up some 14%...even buses can't do it from the Bormio side. Average 7% just under our own Col Noir. The cycling peak for cyclists and makes the Giro now tougher in my estimation than the TdF having slowly gained the Alp dHuez sister city to Bormio..
Starting in cool forest straight up out of Bormio unforgiving up is the only option. No river in sight just increasingly huge, and these are by far the biggest I've ever been amongst, alpine raw mountains.. Sheer and rocky with streams just bouncing out of cliff faces to fall hundreds of meters. Very dramatic.
The bike is wonerfully light de-valised and yet I soon find myself deep in granny as some of the longer slopes hit 12%. I come across a goat family snd take them to be totemic benefice.
There are many cyclists perhaps one a minute passing either way. Motor bikers too perhaps 3 a minute roaring and insistent. In the short tunnels 150 meters or so with rushing water above and through them they are loud and emphatic. I've lights and take my lane which seems to work.
There are Hollandais here racing too...amazingly tough...one guy passed, slowed up and explained he was racing his work colleagues...where were my nga mates today then?...come and join me for some Stelvio hell and then heaven.
After two and a half hours we reach a snow bound grey skyed fastness populated by literally 100's of motor bikes. Roaring maelstrom they take up the entire street parked and moving. Everything is brightly coloured with mementos. I purchase a shirt and gifts while getting the compulsory postcard stamped. Fausto Coppi's memorial statue is covered with snow today so I record a famous photo of him in the Stelvio snow winning actually inside the very hotel in the picture. Italy lasts forever. And treasures its cycling heros. Man they were tough. To do all today on dirt carrying one's spares with no support team on a simple steel bike makes them forever great in my mind.
Then a 300 ft clamber on foot to the refugio Garribaldi...perched above, it commands views of both sides of the pass. The highest I've ever experienced on earth. Wonderful to have asked and received such a glorious experience.
After an omelette and petit noir by a real fire along wuth Fausto I descend. Max speed 47ks keepin it safe with lots a stops to rim cool. And photograph a fast vanishing experience. Hope the phone doesn't lose it all.
Arriving back in Bormio seems trite but after a brief rest I take my earnest steed to a local Trek bike shop and pay 5€ to clean her with degreasers and hot water. I'm here told the bike path from Merano to Bolzano is part gravel but well signed. I resolve tomorrow to catch a bus to Livigno and then another to Males and then a train to Merano. Here I can try to determine the path to Bolzano.
I've had a great day today with a dream come true, a friendly hotel in an equally generous to cycling town. From here I shall try to achieve a way to Zoncolan and thence the Tauern radweg.
Fabulous Davey!
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