Some of you might remember this: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=5119674;search_string=bolzano;#5119674 from the last time I shared some of my rides.
Well now I went for another big one! Had originally planned to wake up early but that didn’t work out. Left around 12:30 instead of the originally planned 7:00. Just woke up, had a yogurt and got a move on. Luckily in the end it worked out with sunlight lasting just long enough. Conquered a total of 4 passes although I admit I kind of cheated for two of them. I’ll get to that later. Anyway the weather was perfect with temperatures just above 20 degrees celsius in the valley and the sun was shining with no chance of rain. Now onto the actual ride!
Here is a google maps screenshot of the whole ride:
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First I had to ride for about ~10-15 km to reach the base of the first climb.
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The climb is the Passo Nigra or Nigerpass.This is the longest climb of the day. Including some up and down it comes in at about 28.7 km with 1455 m of vertical gain, going up to just under 1800 m, meaning an average of about 5%. This however includes the easier portions. The first section is consistently around 10% while the second and harder bit is around 11-12% with spikes of 15% followed by a few kilometers averaging around 7%+. But luckily I didn’t take the even harder variation which goes up to 24% and is comparable to the Mortirolo. The climb took me just a few seconds over 2 hours.
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Still a long way to go.
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The Adjacent mountain. The Ritten or Renon.
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The first of the Dolomites. The Schlern home of the Seiser Alm which hosted a stage finish in the Giro when Lance did it in 2009 or 2010.
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Still the Schlern but with a castle. I mentioned it in my last thread but this region has the highest number of castles per kilometer squared in the world.
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Some bovine friends. They stink!
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This is how pubic hair should look. Well-groomed! Seriously beautiful grass though. And luckily at this point the first easy part had just started so I no longer felt like shit.
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And then to make things even better I had the first glimpses of the Rosengarten or Catinaccio. This is visible from my city and the name comes from the fact that it has a pinkish glow at sunset. I had never been there by bike though.
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In the intervening period the hardest part had started and it really didn’t allow for taking pictures. Refilled my water bottles at the bottom of it and was partially regretting is because I had to carry them up with me! This part was otherwise beautiful although it was more of an atmosphere thing, would have been hard to capture on camera. Just after this I reached the top of the pass which comes before the actual climbing is done.
The picture isn’t mine because I actually missed the sign. Just took this from google.
This is the Latemar, another famous mountain in the Dolomites as seen from somewhere near the top of the Passo Nigra. As you can see there is a ski resort here; Carezza Ski, and in fact on the other side of the Latemar there is another one, Obereggen, which is my home resort.
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I’m sure you’re getting tired of it by now, but here are two more pictures of the Rosengarten as seen from close up just above the ski resort.
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http://i58.tinypic.com/2rx8wtz.jpg
At this point I proceeded to the next pass, the Karerpass or Passo di Costalunga. This is one of the ones that I kind of cheated for as… well look at the profile.
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And I descended that! Ha!
It’s a bit lower than the Passo Nigra and other than a short uphill at the bottom of the descent I basically did no work at all getting up there. Loved it though. Kept telling myself there’s nothing better than this. If some of you recognize the name it’s because it’s often used in the Giro d’Italia. The last time was two years ago on the way to the Tre Cime di Lavaredo where Vincenzo Nibali won the stage. I actually saw him pass through Bolzano, which was cool.
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After this I got to enjoy an even longer descent of about 13 km. It was a bit busy but not too technical so I had fun. Not sure what exactly it was for but toward the bottom a motorcyclist that passed me turned around and gave me a thumbs up so that was nice. I assume it was for staying relatively to the side other than through the turns. This was after the more technical part up top and was more or less straight. Either way it was a nice gesture and made me think I must have been doing something right.
Anyway just before that interaction right under the summit there was a very special place. A lake called the Karersee or Lago di Carezza. I’d never been here before but had seen pictures of it countless of times. My pictures of it are admittedly shit but I think they’ll show you why everyone else I know had already been here. It’s at above 1500 m.
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This is what’s above it. The aforementioned Latemar.
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At the bottom of the descent I immediately started the next climb. The Passo di Lavaze or Lavazejoch. The Giro actually also went up here in 2012 en route to a summit finish on the Alpe di Pameago or Reiterjoch where Roman Kreuziger won the stage. I’d been up this one before but from the other side, came down the side I was going to go up, but that was two years ago (the year of the Giro). The top is at 1808 m meaning it was the highest point of my trip. It’s much shorter than the Passo Nigra but also quite hard. It’s only 13 km long but requires that you climb a total of 969 m over those 13 km. That means it comes it at about a 7.5% average grade with that tough part being around 10%, essentially it slowly increases from 5% up to 10% before then becoming much easier at the top. And there are no serpentines so it offers no respite. The Passo Nigra thankfully had quite a few including 12 in the upper part, this climb has about 4 and those only come after the hard part. One good thing is that the road surface was in near-perfect condition so I certainly had less rolling resistance. I just kind of spun up or at least to the best of my ability before finding a rhythm later on. Took me 1:10.
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This is from the beginning but this is basically how it is the whole time. Straight.
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After about 5 or 6 kilometers there was this view of the Latemar from the other side. This is only about 2 km from the ski resort I mentioned, Obereggen.
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Didn’t take any other pictures until the top because other than that brief view of the Latemar it was completely forested with nothing to see. Here though are the pictures from the top.
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At the top I put on arm warmers, a windbreaker, long-finger gloves and a headband as the sun had stopped shining and I knew it would be cold. On the previous big descent all I had was the windbreaker but it was warmer at that point and I was in the sun. The descent was great as it’s not too technically challenging and is very fast which is helped by the lack of cars. Toward the bottom I went through the town of Varena, where I refilled my water bottles, which includes a short cobbled downhill with a 180 degree bend.
This is a view across the valley from the fountain. It’s the Val di Fiemme which some of you cross-country skiing fans might know. In fact the Passo di Lavaze I believe hosted some events in the nordic skiing world championships a year or two ago. I saw a few posters advertising the World Cup coming again this season.
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Here’s another picture from slightly further down.
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After there was still one climb to go. It’s another one which I didn’t really fully climb as I came from the shorter and easier side but in this case it wasn’t just a descent. It was the San Lugano Pass or Passo di San Lugano. From my destination it would have meant 855 m of climbing but for me it was only 7 km long and 97 m of climbing. Going to admit it hurt though. Took me 15 minutes which apparently set a new best time on the biking website I use. For the record there was only one previously recorded time! Ha!
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There was no actual sign for the pass at the top, just this one.
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After this there was a decently long descent 16 km averaging only about 5% with no tight switchbacks at all so very easy to just cruise down. Most of the traffic was in the opposite direction and I didn’t have to brake once.
Had just 20 km of, thankfully, flat riding left to get home after the descent. Went by quite quickly and made it just before sunset. Took these last two pictures from a bridge right before Bolzano.
This one is downstream/south towards Trento and Lago di Garda. (the river is the Adige/Etsch, the second-longest Italian river after the Po.)
http://i57.tinypic.com/2m81ugo.jpg
This one is upstream/north towards Bolzano.
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Bought 4 slices of pizza, a coke and a beer. Now eating almonds and feeling not too bad. Realized that I don’t have a bottle opener so I’ll be googling how to open a beer without one, if you have any suggestions then feel free to chime in!
I hope you enjoyed my pictures/ride/story and that it inspires you to get out and ride. I want to thank Callidus whose posts of his own rides inspired me to share some of mine as well. The same goes to Dave Roche who shares so many of his races. Also I appreciate it if you really read the whole thing but just looking at the pictures is fine too.
