Big Ass Alps

Miles from Home - 5354.1 miles
Firsts / Highlights - WWI Tunnels, Category-2 climb, bike museum
Miles Ridden - 50.5 miles
Vertical Feet - 5,829 ft
Route - View Today's Route Here.


View Trento in a larger map

Today had a couple of significant climbs. I was riding with Bill from Kentucky who told me when we reached the top of the first that it was the hardest thing he had ever climbed. I told him that his record wasn't likely to stand very long, because our last climb of the day was going to be even tougher. He agreed with me at the end of the day, but he made it up both with a smile.

First off, I am sorry to say that my camera has officially given up. What I thought could be managed by keeping a fresh charge on my battery is apparently something more severe. I charged it twice last night, and when I fired it up this morning, I couldn't take even my first picture. That was really unfortunate because there were plenty of interesting things to see today. I will look for a replacement battery, but I don't expect much luck unless I can get to a bigger city. I may try to get one shipped from Amazon to the bike hotel I will be checking in on Thursday. Following the Giro, my address changes every 48 hours, so there is no way to have anything shipped. If the battery doesn't solve the problem, then I guess I will need a new camera, but by the time that arrives, a lot of photos will be forever lost.

The ride started this morning with a good route selection. In order to get from our hotel to the Giro route, there was either a fairly busy modern road or one that was built by the Austrians around WWI that gets very little traffic today. Obviously, we took the road less traveled. Turning onto the road, you could see far ahead into a mountain canyon. It looked as if it was a box canyon with sheer rock walls at the top going up 500-1000 feet. I couldn't figure out how a road could get past such an obstacle. As we got closer, the walls looked bigger, but still no obvious way to get through. After what had already been a difficult climb, the crux move came into view. There were tunnels stacked up on top of each other climbing the last 500 vertical feet. Each tunnel had a 10-12% switchback inside it, so what looked like 2 tunnels stacked on top of each other was actually 1 tunnel with the entrance below and the exit above. There were 5 such tunnels to get to the summit. To make it a little more interesting, the road narrowed to 1 lane so that you had to wait for a traffic light to let you know that traffic was going your way for the next 5 minutes. I didn't want to meet a truck coming down the hill in the middle of one of the tunnels, so I rode hard to clear them before I suspected the downhill light would turn green.

At the crest of the hill, Bill and I stopped at a cafe for a bottle of water. We saw a very fit couple come running up over the hill. They had ski poles for hiking, but this was obviously a morning run, not a casual hike. After a quick stop at the cafe, they turned around and headed back to the tunnels at a running pace. Bill and I dropped down the big descent and spotted some mountain peaks poking through the haze. I had come to think of the climbs we had been doing as mountains until I saw these peaks. We had been riding hills. These were mountains. We had reached the Big Ass Alps.

The second climb was scenic but not epic. One of our tour guides, Michele (Mi-Kell-a) pointed out that the forest smelled like garlic. The wild garlic is in bloom, so even a hike or a bike ride in the forest of Italy can get you thinking about food. After stopping for a lunch consisting of prosciutto-wrapped asparagus with cheese, bread, pasta and salad, we got back on our bikes for the final climb. This is the point where we intersected with the Giro course and rode their first category-2 climb of the race. We were about 2 1/2 hours ahead of the race and only had 11k to cover, but there were quite a few vertical feet to be grabbed before the mutants arrived. The bottom of the climb was the most difficult, but you never know that when you are doing it. It started off at a grade that never dropped below 8% and was quite consistently 10%. There were a few sections of 12%, just to make the 8% hurt a bit more. It was not a consistent grade, however, and there were some sections of 7% past the halfway point to provide some recovery. It occurred to me that I felt as if I was recovering whenever I hit a grade that was the same as Rabbit Ears Pass. If this climb had been longer or did not have those recovery sections, I suspect it might have been a category-1. For the last 500 meters of the climb, the crowds were getting fairly large, so I pulled Ray's video camera out of my pack and started recording as I rode. I hope the video captures what it is like to climb up through the switchbacks with the big crowd assembled. I won't be able to post it until I get a memory stick reader. Not sure when that will be.

It was rewarding to see that the mutants were impacted by the climb we had just done. The race was fractured by the hill. There was a 10-minute gap from the first to the last riders, which was very unexpected for such a short climb. I'm not sure what it did to the GC standings, but I expect there were some changes today. Where I saw them pass, Lance was safely in the peloton, right were he would strategically choose to be. After they dropped over this climb, they had another comparable climb to the finish. That's a pretty good dose of pain for one day at the office.

Speaking of category-1 climbs, I think that is what we have in store tomorrow. I haven't seen the official race profile to confirm it, but we are climbing Alpe du Siusi, which is a single 5,000 foot climb. Again, not a consistent grade for the entire thing, but I would guess that its length might earn it a category 1.

After descending from the big climb of the day, we loaded into the van and shuttled to Trento to be within striking distance for Stage 5 tomorrow. Sadly, tomorrow will be my last day with Experience Plus chasing the Giro. I hope to see another stage in Milan and the final time trial in Rome. But tomorrow will be the last day of dedicated race spectating.

Sorry for the lack of pictures. If you want to see other people's pictures of the areas I am riding, go to the "View Today's Route" link at the top of any of my posts. When you get the map of the ride, click on the "More..." button on the upper right corner and select "Photos".