A Taste of Mortirolo

Miles from Home - 5309.75
Firsts / Highlights - Rode to Tirano and part of Passo Mortirolo. First equipment breakdown
Miles Ridden - 61.40 miles
Vertical Feet - 5,782 ft.
Route - View Today’s Route Here
People - Just me.

This post is from June 20, 2009.



I set out today with a route planned to go from Bormio to Tirano and back. With one exception, it is 25 miles downhill to Tirano and 25 miles uphill back. The picture above is the valley I passed through in both directions. A little more than ½ way there, a sign appeared saying “Passo Mortirolo”. The dreaded Mortirolo.

Daniele has said a few times that, “you must ride Mortirolo once in your life”. He may be right, but I’m not sure if this trip is my time. I knew that I wasn’t prepared to ride it today. I had not eaten yet, only had one bottle of water and still had at least 35 miles left to ride after the pass. Curiosity got the best of me though, so I made a deal with myself to ride just the first 3 km (2 miles) of the climb. There are three ways to climb that pass, and this one is considered the “easy” route. “Easy” is certainly only relative to the other 2 approaches. I have never heard a single person say that any of the approaches are, “not that bad”, much less “easy”.

The party got started quickly. Immediately the hill climbed at 13%. I expected that, but I didn’t expect the leveling that came next. After a short recovery, it went back to 11 and 13%, then 15%. Very steep and difficult, but surprisingly, the recovery sections continued every so often. When I got to my 3 km goal, I was feeling good, so I decided to go another 2 and see what was ahead. The pattern of steep and recover continued. I recognized that if I went much farther, goal-orientation would take over and I would start to think I should just do the whole climb. I knew it wasn’t a good idea without food, but I also knew that I was likely to talk myself into it. I went 1 more km to 6 km and then turned it around. I did not even get up to tree line, so it is entirely possible that the character of the ride changes higher up, but the part I rode was merely torturously difficult, not impossible.

After descending off Mortirolo, I continued toward Tirano. Shortly after passing through the town of Grossetto, I had my first mechanical breakdown of the trip – my chain broke. One of the links came loose, caught on the front derailleur and got mangled. Fortunately, I was pedaling lightly enough that I don’t think I did any damage to the derailleur. Also in the fortunate column, Brock had the foresight to sell me a tool kit that included a chain tool and a spare master link to replace the broken one.

The only explanation I have is that I generated such an overwhelming amount of torque climbing Mortirolo that the chain just couldn’t handle it. It was either that or something else.

I was able to remove the broken link and install a spare master. Since I had never fixed a chain, I was happy that it went well, but the break happened on the link right next to the existing master link needed to remove the chain when packing the bike. Having 2 consecutive master links in the chain was not a good long-term solution, but the fix got me rolling again.

Throughout this trip, I have been quite surprised at how few bike shops there have been in Italy. That made it startling when I found the biggest shop I have seen in 6 weeks just 2 miles down the road from my breakdown.

We had no language to draw on to discuss the problem, so I showed the mechanic what had happened and asked “Una link” or “Tutti chain”? I was trying to ask if I had to replace a single link or the entire chain. He got the idea and changed just the broken link and gave me back the master link for the next emergency. Between my front and rear brakes and this chain, I have visited bike service shops 3 times in the Alps, including the house call. My total labor charges so far are 0.00 euro. It must be tough to earn a living as a bike mechanic in Italy. No wonder I can never find one.



On the way back to Bormio, I found this little church up on a pass hidden back from the road. Something about it made me want to explore. There was a sign saying that it was built in 1392 and survived a landslide in the 1500’s that destroyed everything else in the area. Being a mountainside chapel rather than a city church, I was taken back when I looked inside one of the buildings and saw a room full of perfectly organized skulls and femur bones. Mike from Ohio had told us about that tradition on our tour of Vatican City, but I didn’t expect to see it here.

Good luck to everyone in Colorado who is doing the MS Bike Ride next weekend. I was thinking of you today. Sorry I won’t be on the team this year.