Hard but fun

It was very sad to say bye to Bri and Noah in Milan airport. That meant, though, that I could turn my loneliness into cycling energy!

I spent the afternoon in Milano, caught the train to bergamo (which is a beautiful town) and then headed off the next morning towards the real mountains! I did 75 km up the valley to Boario then caught a train the rest of the way (35km) to edolo so I could save my legs for the 'big' mountains day.

Luckily Bri woke me up with a skype call (in my tent, mind you) at 6.10 am. That meant, I could get an early start. I needed it!

The plan was to tackle Passo di Gavia (2621m) and the Mortirolo (1852m and means something about death) in one go in a loop that was about 120km. I went anticlockwise starting and finishing at Edolo (720m)

Total elevation gain would be 3203m. Yikes

After a high calorie breakfast, I took off. The climb starts straight away from Edolo but then get steeper after 20km when the real climb to Gavia starts

Road is open!

Oglio river on the way

The climb starts

Near the top there is an un illuminated tunnel that sounded scarey. I thought I would avoid it and wheel the bike along the goat track on the side (as recommended by some) but in the end I just did the tunnel as I had plenty of reflectors and I could see

Looking back down the tunnel

Lake near the top

At the top, I bought an overpriced cappucino and cake and a reasonably priced beanie....

The descent was long and fun but cold. If felt like I was descending for hours but it turned out to be about one hour. At Bormio, I had a great pasta dish that was a local speciality (we're right on the swiss border, pretty much). Buckwheat pasta with potatoes, cabbage, cheese, butter, garlic and sage. It was delicious and high calorie too

Pizzocheri al Valtellina

Then I had about 30 km of downhill and flats into a strong headwind to get myself to the mortirolo climb

Amazing valley heading to Mortirolo

The mortirolo climb was really hard, especially because I was knackered. Much of it was as steep as Manuka rd on the Kettering side but 14km of it. I struggled up this, I'm happy to admit, but felt much better when the cyclists I met at the top thought I was nuts to have done both climbs in one day

View about 3/4 to the top

Just 17km of downhill to go!

 

 

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