Saturday 3rd of September 2011

I'd set the alarm so I could get up early and get some breakfast in before the small group from the hotel were to set off at 9:30am. However things didn't go to plan. Apart from my usual inability to wake up on a morning (nothing less than 9 hours sleep is the norm) I had a slight migraine. I got up to have some breakfast and changed the indicator on the board to show I wouldn't be joining the group. After eating I went back to bed and thankfully woke up feeling better.

The hotel had made me a small couple of sandwiches and a piece of fruit to take with me. After the chilled incident on the Galibier I wanted to be a little more prepared so although I don't like using them on the bike I decided to take a rucksack and put my gilet in there along with my new softshell jacket, arm warmers and the lunch.

To get to the start is very easy from Bormio - just follow the signs. I'd read that it was Cima Coppi day, in memory of the great italian cyclist Fausto Coppi they name one climb each year during the Giro d'Italia (Tour of Italy) in his name and this was the chance for amateurs to make the climb without motorised traffic. After the road sign saying that the road was closed there was still traffic, mainly motorbikes but a couple of km up the road there was a police road block turning people around. I continued straight through and noticed a sign saying Stelvio half marathon - 6km, oh my, people actually run up it too!

Just like Majorca - there's a sign telling you it's closed and then a bit further up the road the police making sure it's closed

Above the half marathon distance was a sign showing how many hairpins left - oh so only 35 to go!

The first section up to the tunnels was ok, no crazy gradients and then up the infamous hairpins was also not too bad. After those sections there was a relatively flat section for a km or two and I managed to get up in to the fifth gear, passing mountain bikers like they were stood still. The final section was back to hairpins though and with some steep sections which were hurting the legs although not as much as my back was hurting. I tried to stretch it as I went along but it made little difference.

Hairpins in the distance

Getting there 

The classic Stelvio view 

Gives a good impression of the scale of some of the hairpins 

Ouch that's a long up-hill stretch

At least the weather was good

I was pleased to get to the top though and made it about 1h45mins non stop from the start of the hill. I took a couple of photos for people using their camera and got someone to take a picture of me. I went a little bit further up the hill to a car park and found some sun there. I was starting to get cold even though it was 20C mainly because my cycling shirt was wet with the sweat. I tried the softshell jacket over the top of the shirt but that didn't make much difference so I just too the wet top off and put the jacket on by itself. I had an enerygel and had my mini packed lunch. After 20 minutes relaxing I had a little look up the road and found that there were hundreds of cyclists there. I also nearly fell off the bike trying to clip in while going up hill, oops, that would have looked silly! I took my time coming down and stopped frequently to take some pictures but it was interesting to note that even with dry a dry jacket and gilet on I still wasn't really warm until I'd dropped a thousand metres.

The worrying this is that this is one of the easier climbs around here.....

Over dinner I was chatting with my neighbour from Belgium and he was saying he'd been training for 6 months to come here but was finding it difficult to do more than one climb in a day because they are so long and so steep. He also has lower gearing than me making it easier up hill in the very steep bits. He did however suggest a nice flat ride in the next valley but as it's the other side of the Stelvio Pass it's probably best to drive to the start of it. I'll check it out for something to do next week.

In the evening there was a big storm with plenty of lightning and thunder. Hopefully it will clear up tomorrow.

And just a couple more pictures

The bike store in the hotel basement 

I noticed this - Chris Froome shirt.  Currently number 2 in the Vuelta.