The reason to stay at Bormio 3 nights was so that we could do the much feared Motirolo with unloaded bikes. To my dismay in the morning as we went to prep the bikes I discovered that my Sofirn headlight had water intrusion and failed! What was strange was that it hadn't rained on us since the Albula pass, so my guess was that the water intrusion had happened earlier but just took time to corrode enough electronics to kill the light. It had rained the day before, but the roads looked beautiful and sunny today, and the Garmin route I had laid out brought us onto what looked like freshly paved bike paths.
Soon, we ended up pacelining with a bunch of South Americans (Argentinians maybe?) who were intending to do the Motirolo Gavia loop. With the fast pace Arturo was dropped, and to add insult to injury his Bryton radar had fallen off his bike and he couldn't find it!
We separated from the Argentinians and proceeded to the town of Mazzo di Valtellina where the official pass started. (There's also an option to start at Grosio, but all my research indicated that you wanted Mazzo for the full experience) We found a rest stop with a water fountain and proceeded to snack and refill while waiting for Arturo to catch up.
Once the pass started it went up steeply. I saw 10-14% grades and several times I saw 15% grades, but nothing worse than that. Nevertheless, because the pass starts low it was quite hot, and we almost ran out of water a few times. I had my jersey unzipped and were grateful that we found water fountains at appropriately spaced intervals. We saw our Argentinian friends descending to Mazzo, so apparently they had decided not to do the full Gavia loop.
To my surprise, we discovered that my route laid out was wrong --- I'd neglected to include the climb to the summit but had routed to a loop with the highway coming up from Grosio. We had come so far and it would be silly not to do the summit so we went up to the summit. This last section was a lot less steep and also quite a bit prettier, if windier, being much more like other alpine passes we had ridden. At the top we took pictures but clouds were gathering and so we started down.
"Aren't you cold?" "No?" "I'm freezing." Arturo said to me as we returned to the intersection with the Grosio highway. "You're low on blood sugar. Quick. You need to eat something right away!" "Wow, you're being nice to your friend," a voice came from up the road. I saw two women with Crust bikes! They turned out to be the CEO of Crust bicycles out for a day ride to the top of Motirolo. They identified them selves after I noted aloud to Arturo and Boen how serious those bikes were --- generator hubs and steel frames. Having heard Arturo's plight they fed us with nuts and chocolate before we went back down to the valley.
The descent was great, granting us lovely views of the valley below us, and though steep without a load whenever we stopped to check rim temperatures they were never scary. At the bottom we started getting hungry once again and stopped at Sondalo for a quick meal. It was an odd looking pasta (the waiter called it the local specialty) and the service was fast.
After that the ride into Bormio was easy, despite the occasional raindrops. Once in Bormio, we stopped by Stelvio experience to buy a new headlight for me and a new taillight for Arturo. We asked about our planned route to Livigno the next day but the bike shop staff was negative about attempting it on road bikes. I noted that Europeans don't believe in under-biking, and decided we would do it anyway!
We did a full load of laundry and set it all out to dry so we could depart Bormio early the next day. The forecast was for rain in the afternoon and we wanted to not be riding on dirt (which would turn into mud) when it happened. I texted Sean Kendall and got directions on how to get to Passo di Valle Alpisella, and with those encouragements we went to bed and rested.
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