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.