The weather looked awesome so we took a day off work to do a three pass tour. A tour of firsts - I had never done any of these passes before. Started early and drove to Klosters which would be the start of our tour: Klosters - Davos - Fluelapass - Zernez - Ofenpass - Santa Maria - Prato alla Stelvio - Passo Stelvio - down Umbrailpass back to Santa Maria - then bus/train it back to Klosters. We had lofty plans of cycling back over Ofenpass but as it was the tour was ~140km and 4000m of elevation gain so that idea quickly went out the window.
For some reason ST re-sizes some of the pictures so click on them if they’re too small.
Fluelapass outside of Davos
Looking up toward Fluelapass summit
Looking down
Fluelapass 2383m
Pass is open all year round - expecting a lot of snow
Fluelapass descent
Fluelapass descent
Fluelapass descent
View from the first false summit on Ofenpass (1882m) - looking into the Swiss national park
Heading back up the real summit
Summit shot Ofenpass 2149m
Fuel for Passo Stelvio- didn’t help I bonked anyway
Game on
The summit just visible
Nice place for a hotel
Some ascent shots
So close yet so far - the summit
Pure joy on my face - only 1 more hairpin to go (out of 48 in total)
Herbert…let’s have these pictures put on the main page on one of the “galleries”. I love these threads that Callidus posts and having them buried on the forum between all the whining about seats being too high, which wheel to use, how fast does IM “X” sellout etc etc, just does not do it justice.
Callidus, many thanks…this makes my day as you already likely know. If I can’t be riding these mountains, the next best thing is getting pictures from someone who did! Sadly, they don’t make road likes this in North America (someone show me a ride with 48 switchbacks…)
I want to leave the office right now and take a train south to the alps. My 40 mins on the trainer for today didn’t feel too bad until I saw these pictures. Wonderfull ride it must have been!
Stelvio was a great ride but it was tough - we already had ~2200m in our legs at that point. I also messed up and didn’t eat enough so once the damage was done there I suffered. It hurts just looking at those pictures again…
Awesome! Next time you also need to check out Gavia.
I did the same tour with a mate (RIP bro) in 1993. He took pride in saying “Umbrailpass in the big ring!” afterwards.
Gavia looks tough (steep) but it’s on my list of ones to do. No way I could do Gavia after those 3 - I don’t think I even managed to ‘big ring the Umbrail’ :).
