Featuring the usual suspects

Featuring the usual suspects

Wednesday 28 August 2013

Italy day 3: To Livigno and back

 
The biggest climb!!

Alan had been suffering on the Stelvio the day before, with some form of stomach bug, this manifested itself that night into something a little more serious, now known as Bormio Belly.

Anyway there was absolutely no doubt in our minds, the next morning, that Alan would not be riding just by looking at him. Being not only stubborn, on holiday and a bad patient, he was also in denial at first. 'I'll see how I get on at breakfast' was all we got. Well his breakfast and what ever was brewing deep inside did not get on.. at all!! And finally he admitted defeat and phoned his wife for some medical advice (also in the hope he would get a little more sympathy from her than we were giving him).

He at least got the advice........

So then there were 4.

We had decided to ride down the valley from Bormio to Tirano then climb over the Forcola Pass into the Tax free 'comune' of Livigno which is a remote valley right in the heart of the Alps.

This meant a long climb starting in Tirano, long is an understatement. 27 miles of uphill!



Now that's a nice car! we passed this just parked up on the side of the road.
Looking back down the valley
 
 


The Forcola Pass



Livigno in Winter
By the time we had reached the top of the Forcola pass we were all ready for some refreshement, luckily it's a nice fast short run down into Livigno where we soon found a café and refuelled. The weather was on the turn and thunder storms forecast for the afternoon so no sooner had we eaten we headed of. Andy decided to have a little duty free shopping with Bob, so Dave and I started of 'we'll take it easy and let you catch up' was the general gist.

So now it was time to head back to Bormio and another 2 passes, this time the Passo Eira and Passo di Foscagno. These are both nice passes but still hard work after a long day. The Passo Eira is about 1200 ft of climbing in 4 miles, you then drop down 600 ft  into a high valley before climbing another 800 ft to the top of the Foscagno.


Dropping down from the Passo Eira, the Foscagno in the distance.


15 miles and 3500ft of descent later we were in Bormio. We missed the rain....just. I can safely say it was easily one of the hardest days I've done on a bike. But at the time I didn't have the next day to measure it against!

79 miles - 11800 ft of climbing.


Saturday 24 August 2013

Italy, Day 2: A quick trip to Switzerland for a Coffee.

The Stelvio Pass

Day 1 ended well sitting in the dining room that evening after 5 courses (that's if you count 2 salads and 3 deserts as a course each) we felt ready to take on the next day, if we could manage to move.

Day 2 started just as well as day 1 finished, when your told that breakfast will be not only as much as you can eat but also any combination you could ever think of, you take this with a little scepticism!

No need it is true...to accommodate the feast that was laid out for breakfast the hotel have to use a separate breakfast dining area!

So suitably fuelled (maybe even overfuelled!) up for the day ahead we set of on our first epic day. The goal was to climb the Stelvio Pass from the East where the infamous 48 Hairpin bends take you from 2900ft to 9045ft above sea level. But we had to get there!

The quickest and shortest way from Bormio to the east side of the Stelvio is to ride the Stevio from the West to about 1000ft short of the summit then drop down into Switzerland down the Umbrail pass, you then ride back into Italy for a bout 15 miles before hitting the Stelvio from the East.



Leaving Bormio


Stelvio from the west (below the Umbrail junction)
It took about 2 hours of riding to do the 15 miles of climbing to get to the Junction. at this point its only a few hundred yards to the Umbrail pass summit or another 2.5 miles and 1000ft to the Stelvio summit.

Well we'd talked about potentially nipping to the top of the Stelvio before heading down the Umbrial and as everyone was taking the first day at an easy pace I was the only one stupid enough to take it on so I headed up what looked like a mile of easy road, well 25 mins later I got to the Summit and then quickly turned around to meet everyone on the way down.

The Umbrail pass has a strange quirck to it, the first few miles heading down is really nice tarmac with the normal alpine hairpins, then suddenly with hardly any warning the tarmac runs out and there is a mile or so of gravel road before turning back to tarmac for the rest of the descent.


Heading down the Umbrail into Switzerland.

And what a decent it is!!!! Awesome. I dropped down what seemed to be endless hairpins mostly in the trees so it was very hard to make out how far down you are 1/2 hour later and the bottom suddenly appears a little village called Santa Maria I believe and here were the rest of the guys sitting outside a café with a coffee and coke.

Bob and Andy had been caught out on this trip before by stopping in Switzerland for lunch and paying a kings ransome so we headed down the road and back accross the boarder into Italy for pasta.

So that was it all we had to do was climb back up the Stelvio and drop back into Bormio.

The first 10 miles and 3000ft of the climb are in trees where you climb with the od hairpin now and again its only at bend 22 (they are numbered backwards so bend 1 is the last from the top) that it opens out with another 6 miles and 3000ft to go!


The top from bend 22, the lowest point on the horizon in the middle.

Looking down towards bend 22

The summit

The summit is a bit of a let down, full of bikers, burgers vans and a couple of hotels, its not a place that you really want to stop so we headed right over and down the otherside.

The next 30 mins are none stop downhill for 12 miles, this is the stuff that puts a smile on your face.

69 miles and 15,000ft of climbing......now for food, beer and sleep.