Sunday 11th of September 2011

After a warm night I managed to get up reasonably early. I showered, had breakfast and then went to get the bike out of hiding once suncreamed up and the hydrocortizone was added to my unwelcome mosquito bites. I counted 6 of them this morning - after 10 days without them in Bormio. Oh well.

Once up and riding I headed up away from the lake to a route that I'd thought about doing since I visited the lakes above San Martino di Castrozze with Chiara. I knew that there were some steeper sections in the last 10km but the first 30km looked fairly easy despite being virtually all uphill.

The lake is being allowed to be drained and even in the last few days all the grass has returned

Once on the main 'super strada' it is fairly narrow in places and there are half a dozen or so galeria to negotiate but I knew that there was usually a route around them that meant I didn't have to go through them. There turned out to be one exception but this was only for one hundred metres or so. I stopped in the main small town before the hill starts to kick up and filled my water bottles from the drinking water in one of the pedestrian zones. Initially the slope was around the 6% region and I was having a reasonable spin up it. There was only the occasional 10% slope and I tried to keep the cadence up, the gearing not being an issue. There were however lots of motorbikes all out to play and a couple of them made me jump even though I'd heard them coming as they were really pushing the speed. Again the italians proved they were only marginally better than the english when it comes to passing bikes on the road. The bikers only adding to the poor display by often overtaking cars as they were overtaking me.

Usually you can use the old road at the side of the galleria but not in this case

One of the lakes at the road skirts around

Once at San Martino I considered heading up a little further as the town was by no means at the top of the pass but my knee had been grumbling a bit after the steep sections so I decided against it. I'm not sure if the Mortirolo pass had caused the knee to start to make itself known or whether it was just the accumulation of the 9 days spent around Bormio but I didn't want to aggravate it more. There was still 40km to go to get back home but thankfully it was almost all back down hill.

Getting ready for the car rally in the area. 

Back under those amazing mountains again. Would love to go back and take the ski lift to 3,000m

The descent back to the town was fast and fun. The road surface was good in general and once I'd got past a few cars I could stay off the brakes a little more. They clearly had no idea that a bike could keep up with them on that kind of slope. I was fairly lucky though on the descent in that I only saw a couple of motorbikes going my direction. The rest of the journey back was at a less of an adrenaline rush but still relatively quick given the gravitational assistance. I had a front and rear light on the bike this time so I could just carry on straight through the tunnels. Traffic was fairly light and I was only passed in a tunnel/gallaria a couple of times.

That's quite a few categorised climbs for one day

Weather was ideal

Back at the lake I headed down the main road to find some ice cream. The beach hut was open and they had ice cream and ice cold coke. I put the bike in the shade but noticed when I've finished my treat that the GPS was still showing 32c.

In the evening I headed to Arsie the local small town to a restaurant I'd spotted before. The service was fairly ropey and despite being the only customer sitting outside (I guess I was early) I counted three different waitresses. The rest of the customers were in the bar watching the football, first SerieA match od the season, while they drank beer and/or waited for takeaway pizza. I opted for tagliatele con ragu di agnelo. Lamb is unusual in this area but I was just expecting a slightly different tasting typical tomato ragu but that wasn't to be the case. It was tomato free but still very nice indeed and even with my fussy eating requirement as regards normally fatty meat I cleared the plate and most of the accompanying salad. The tiramasu was ok but I think the prize for the best desert still goes to the restaurant in San Fermo.

So cleaned, fed and sleepy and it's only 9pm.... an early night for Phillip.