Review: Airframe

In recent years, it's been hard for me to read fiction, as non-fiction always seems more compelling. If that describes you, then Airframe might be a great novel for you. Airframe's plot revolves around a fictional airline (TransPacific) and a fictional airplane manufacturer (Norton Aircraft). One of TransPacific's flights has a horrible incident in flight resulting in several deaths and multiple injuries, and our protagonist, Casey Singleton, is the VP of QA at Norton who's tasked with trying to figure out what went wrong.

Along the way, we get lots of exposition into how an aircraft gets made, sold, and maintained.  Critchton, like most science fiction writers, is skilled in the art of injecting exposition in ways that don't interrupt the narration and plot, so this exposition while frequent and extensive, felt very organic. Michael Critchton's usually well researched, but since this is fiction, he gets to inject his opinion about airline deregulation:

“Exactly,” Casey said. “Flight safety’s always been an honor system. The FAA’s set up to monitor the carriers, not to police them. So if deregulation’s going to change the rules, we ought to warn the public. Or triple FAA funding. One or the other.” (Kindle Loc 1705)

The protagonist spends a lot of time piercing together clues, much of which isn't very sexy, such as maintenance records. She gets threatened by union action, and does a couple of dumb things herself because she has no one she can trust because of corporate office politics. Less a character than a vehicle for the plot, nevertheless she's sympathetic and smart.

The ending ties everything together neatly, and I didn't feel cheated: the clues were provided in the book, and if you didn't figure it out before Singleton, it's not because the author cheated. All in all, the novel was a page turner, and well worth the time. Recommended.

June 27th: Arnoga to Pontresina

Hoping for a repeat of our ride into Italy, I told Bowen that today, we had a chance to have breakfast in Italy, lunch in Livigno, and dinner in Switzerland. "Wait, is Livigno its own country?" "No, it's part of Italy, but it's got it's own tax autonomy, so sometimes it can feel like a different country." The night before, I even found the Sporthotel Arturo and I had stayed at the last time we were in Pontresina, and it offered free cancellation even on the day we were scheduled to arrive, so I booked it!

On the menu today were four passes, Passo di Foscagno, Passo Eira, Forcola di Livigno, and Bernina pass. In the direction we were riding, each pass was only about 500m at most, and my notes from 2014 was that when I got to Pontresina I was happy to ride further, but Arturo wanted an easy day. An easy day on the single day would make for a challenging ride on the tandem, and so it proved. I had forgotten that the route was full of galleries, and so on the first gallery we encountered we had to pull over and turn on our flashing lights. While stopped, we found a pack of AA batteries still sealed in their packaging that I mistakenly thought were AAA batteries, and stuck them into Bowen's Camelbak. We would later leave them at the hotel, since we had no use for AA batteries, but at the time I thought it was a lucky omen. At the top of Foscagno, it was 10:00am, and cool enough that Bowen asked to put on everything he brought, layering his rain jacket and rain pants over his regular clothing, and putting on his mittens. We had also worn out the batteries on our cadence sensor, and took the opportunity to replace it on the top of the pass. On the tandem on this tour, we spent so much time in our lowest gear that our cadence sensor was getting many more turns than our speed sensor. From there, it was a 200m descent into one of the communities that were officially part of the tax-free zone, and while the descent was somewhat chilly, I knew it would be over quickly.

I remembered buying lunch somewhere between Foscagno and Eira, but on the climb through the community, I noticed that the supermarket was closed. In many European towns, Wednesday is sort of the mid-week holiday for certain supermarkets and stores, though the schedules are usually coordinated in such a way that there's at least one store that's open in any given town, but I wasn't about to go search for an open supermarket on an uphill climb. A man drove his car up ahead of us and pulled over, got out, and started taking pictures of us with his smartphone. "I saw you yesterday on the Stelvio, and here you are again!" He had asked me about my choice of caliper brakes the day before, when I asserted that with Bowen at 40 pounds, myself at 130, and the bike at 45 pounds with 20 pounds of luggage, we weren't anywhere close to needing brakes other than caliper brakes. When I configured that bike, I reasoned that by the time my two sons were heavy enough that I needed disk brakes, they would also likely prefer riding their single bikes over the tandem.

Passo Eira wasn't a particularly pretty pass, so we stopped for only a short time for a pass photo, and then went for the 500m descent down to Livigno. Livigno's full of cyclists, and we found ourselves overtaking a few on the straight sections but when it came to the corners I was much more conservative than the typical single cyclist and they caught up and then passed us with their superior knowledge of the road. I remembered that there was a bike path through the valley with many picnic areas and even some playgrounds, so we stopped at a duty free supermarket to buy a picnic lunch and then rode off in search of a picnic area off the bike path.

Soon enough, we found one which had a choice of sun or shade, a water fountain nearby, and even a stone hammock, which we did not use. As we ate lunch, a cycle tourist came by and stopped to check out our bike. He was from Germany, and was very proud of his steel frame. "Steel is real!" he declared. I myself wasn't fully enamored of the amount of weight I was carrying, but my mouth was full of supermarket sandwich, and I had chocolate to look forward to.

After lunch, it was time to climbed Forcola di Livigno. I remembered that it was an easy climb on a single bike, but of course, on a tandem after 800m of climbing on the bike, it was a different story. The climb was slow, and the tailwind didn't help, since it wasn't strong enough to provide assistant but gave me still air which allowed the sun to cook me on the climb.

It was a relief to reach the final galleries near the top of the pass, since we were protected from the sun. At the summit, a group of motorcyclists had arrived from the other direction and happily took photos of us.

Looking back from where we came, it was amazing to see how much climbing we'd done, but the hardest part was still to come!

From Forcola di Livigno, the road descends just 100m to the Swiss border, but then intersects with the Bernina pass climb in the difficult direction, with grades north of 10-12%. Coming at the end of the day, and with a cold headwind to boot, a contrast to the Forcola, it turned out to be harder than either day of the Stelvio climb! At the top, the wind grew and Bowen got so cold that rather than show up at the summit photo, he chose to hide behind the tandem (You can see his helmet right behind the tandem).

The top of the Bernina was a fun descent as usual, but once it flattened out, it became a pedaling descent because of the headwind! At this point, however, we knew that Pontresina was easily within reach, and other than a stop to relieve ourselves we had no obstacles on the descent other than a construction traffic light.

Once in Pontresina, I didn't need a GPS to find the Sporthotel, for it was right on the main drag and easy to find. Upon checking in, the friendly staff gave me a laundry bag for our sports clothes, and showed us where the electrolyte drinks and free water bottles were. We were down to just a couple of Nuun tablets now, so it was welcome. It was a luxury not having to do laundry for a change, and I bought some snacks at the local supermarket that turned out to be superfluous because the lobby had free snacks! I didn't remember such nice facilities the last time we were here. We also took advantage of the jaccuzi, the rooftop viewing, and it was Bowen's first experience in a Sauna.

For dinner, I eschewed the 10 course meal Arturo and I had last time while in town, and just went for the half-pension dinner, which was a good deal. We had shrimp, salad, and a main course that would have been skimpy without the unlimited salad buffet. Looking at the forecast, it looked like we were running out of dry weather, since the forecast was for thunderstorms tomorrow afternoon, but I still hoped to get in Albulapass and if the weather looked good, Lenzerheide the day after was also a possibility.
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June 26th: Berghotel Franzenshohe to Arnoga

In the morning, we ate the generous buffet breakfast, loaded up the bike with our panniers, and headed out the door by 8:50am. Parked right at the 22nd turn was a Mapo Bike van, obviously there to support cyclists coming up the mountain. I asked the driver if he could take our panniers up to the top of the Stelvio, and he said, "It'll take an hour." "That's how long it'll take us to get there," so he agreed!

What a glorious way to climb Stelvio: bag free, in gorgeous weather, and with next to no traffic on the road, since even motorists starting at 8:30am at the foot of the mountain would take a while to get to where we were. Since we had a head start on the folks the Mapo bike van was supporting, we were under no serious time constraints, though as we approached the top we saw the Mapo bike van pass us as the slowest single bike in his group overtook us. But he provided no pressure, and in fact, stopped to take photos of us with his smart phone.

FotoStelvio was positioned in one of the late corners, and they snapped the only pictures we had of us climbing the mountain. Since there weren't too many other cyclists climbing in that early morning, we had no problems locating the photos of us. At the top, the entire group of cyclists accompanying the Mapo bike van were waiting to cheer us on, and helped us with our summit pass photo.

The Mapo bike van returned our panniers to us, we donned our helmets, and began the descent. I'd never had such optimal conditions down the Stelvio before, though we had to stop for Bowen to put on his mittens, the rest of the time we could barrel along at top speed.

I'd promised Bowen a video game descent, complete with galleries, tunnels, and waterfalls in the tunnels. When we got to the Swiss border, I contemplated briefly a descent of the Umbrail pass, but decided that Bowen had done so much on the climb that he deserved the full on Italian Stelvio descent experience, so what if it cost us another day and 2 passes to get to Livigno.

The clear conditions and the lack of traffic because it was early gave us gorgeous views, high speeds between corners, and at no point were we stuck behind some slow driver, though we were stopped once for a construction-driven traffic light. I was worried that conditions were so dry that the tunnels wouldn't have any water in them, but indeed, there was enough water for Bowen to see a waterfall inside one of the tunnels.

At the bottom of the pass, a group of French cycle tourists helped take a picture of us, with Bowen striking his "I'm asleep pose." Eschewing the turn off to Bormio, since we weren't about to climb (or descend the Gavia), which would lead us back to Bolzano, we turned right onto the Val'DiDentro road, which I last rode with Arturo in 2014. Back then, Arturo and I had stayed in Isolaccia, but it was much earlier in the day this time, and I entertained thoughts of maybe even making it over to Livigno that day, and at the very least, I wanted to be as high as possible so it wouldn't be too hot.

We had lunch at a mini-supermarket right before Pradelle, buying meat, bread, and bottled drinks. Cyclists came by in both directions, but in the shade it was actually cool. Nevertheless, once we got to Isolaccia where the climbing began, the afternoon began really heating up. I was sweating buckets and dipping my cycling cap into water fountains in an attempt to cool off. We'd stopped at the Mapo bike shop earlier before just to check it out, but I'd forgotten to buy a cycling cap for Bowen. Nevertheless, we persisted: "Every kilometer we ride today is one less kilometer we have to ride tomorrow," I told Bowen. Yet, the thermometer continued to climb, and after a couple of switchbacks Bowen had had enough. "Let's stop at the next hotel," he suggested. The pass was  at 2300 meters and we were nearly at 1800 meters. I thought there was a good chance we could still make Pontresina the next day, so I agreed to stop. You're not going to get your son to go touring with you if he doesn't enjoy it. The next hotel turned out to be Li Arnoga Hotel. The price was lower than the Berghotel Franzenshohe. I was learning that staying at hotels half-way up the mountain was actually a  pretty good idea. The bottom of the mountain tends to be expensive, because that's where the population is, and the top of the mountain is usually not cheap either, because of the expense of bringing materials up. But nobody stays in the middle of the mountain unless they're cycle touring, and in the summer these places don't get very many customers.

The place looked like it had a lot of hiking trails, but Bowen didn't like the half pension very much, and in retrospect we should have just eaten at the pizzeria down the street. But the rooms were big, the facilities were great, and it even had AC but by the evening had cooled down enough that we didn't need to turn it on.
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June 25th: Prato Allo Stelvio to Berghotel Franzenshohe

When I looked out the window in the morning, it was cloudy, but the forecast still called for good weather. Breakfast was generous, but when we rode downtown to the supermarket to pick up snacks (there are no grocery stores all the way up the Stelvio, except for the hotel/restaurants that might sell the occasional snack), I felt raindrops.

Nevertheless, we proceeded to climb the Stelvio, since I didn't actually think we would make it up to summit that day, despite a fairly early start. As we left town, I started to warm up, and could shed my arm and leg warmers. The initial parts of the Stelvio climb from the East are fairly easy.

Indeed, we soon had to put on sunscreen, since once past the initial gallery, there actually wasn't a lot of shade. In Trafoi, we passed a dirt parking lot, and we pulled into it to rest. There was a woman there, standing by her car, but she didn't look like she was in a hurry to go anywhere. "Are you going up the Mountain?" I asked, "Because if you are, maybe we can trouble you to carry our bags?" "Sure, of course! I'm waiting for my boyfriend, because he's cycling up the hill!" This was great. I gave her the name of our hotel, and told her that there were 48 numbered turns on the road, and the hotel was at the 22nd. I gave her 2 business cards, one for the hotel, and one for her in case she needed to call or text me.

"We're from the Netherlands, and we're doing this big trip in between jobs." "Wow, that sounds great! I always thought Europeans had lots of vacation..." "But yeah, we wanted an even longer one. One that would let us drive across Europe to Morroco."At this point, I had finally caught my breath and we gave her our panniers. Resuming our upward path, the bike immediately felt lighter. I decided that this meant we could easily go over the Stelvio today.

At 1800m, however, at Rocca Bianca, we saw our trail angel standing by the side of the road, looking very distressed. She waved us over to the restaurant parking lot. "I'm so very sorry. I have to give you back your bags. I tried calling you, but I had no cell signal. I am too terrified to go up the mountain any further. I will go down and wait for my boyfriend at the bottom." "Oh, no problem! You saved us 400m of vertical gain having to carry our bags!" She was very apologetic and I didn't want her to feel bad --- if you'd never driven in the mountains, Stelvio is downright scary, with tour buses making 3 point turns at every hairpin turn, and if she had a stick shift she would risk stalling out each time she had to come to a stop. In many other countries Stelvio would be a one way road or restricted to smaller vehicles, but this was Italy and the road was a "free-for-all." We took the panniers and mounted them back on the bike. We were only 400m  of elevation gain from the hotel, but of course, you always immediately feel the additional 20 pounds of load on the bike, no matter how strong you are, and we were definitely  not that strong. Pass Rocca Bianca, the road begins a series of switchbacks as it climbs steeply up the mountain.

We started to see the hotel, and got there at a very healthy time of 1:00pm. We stopped for lunch at the hotel, but over lunch Bowen lobbied for staying at the hotel. We'd only gone 12 miles but had climbed 4000' in that time, 3000' of which was carrying a load. With adults, I would never settle for staying at the hotel, but I reflected that Bowen at 6 years  old had just spent 4 hours crawling along at 3mph. The forecast for the next day was good weather as well, and the hotel was reasonably priced. After making him eat every morsel of food he ordered for lunch to make sure he was serious about wanting to stay here, I assented to his request and booked a room.

I'd last stayed at Berghotel Franzenshohe in 2007, in inclement weather that precluded any exploration. But this time, checking in at 2:00pm meant we could go outside for a walk in the hiking trails behind the hotel. And boy, what a view!

We never wandered more than about 15 minutes from the hotel, but in that time I'd found scenery to match or exceed the other places I'd seen in the Alps. I began to think that all those times when I'd just zipped past the hotel on the way to Bormio or Livigno, I maybe should have stopped and tarried a little. When I tell adults that I'm taking Bowen on this massive (unplanned) journey through the Alps, they have a tendency to say things like: "What a wonderful learning experience for your child!" In reality, however, Bowen was teaching me as much as I was teaching him. There's certainly a value in tarrying and slowing down, and there aren't many 6-year old children who've had the desire (or opportunity) to tour like this and yet would choose to climb high passes. As we walked along, Bowen would sing his Stelvio song:

I considered how lucky I was, that my son loved the mountains as much as I did, and appreciated scenery, something that many adults tell me that children don't care about. I wrote a short poem in my head:

Two souls, one bike, across the alps they went,
One brought his strength, but the other his heart he lent,
Day by day they traveled, until the father learned,
The wisdom of the child cannot be earned,
But must through attention be heard,
And his heart's eyes and ears bestirred.

Dinner at the Berghotel is a half-pension: you don't get a menu, just what's being cooked that night. This was Bowen's first formal western dinner, so I explained the placement of the utensils and plate, how you use the outside utensils first, then the insider ones and the spoon furthest away was for dessert. Service isn't American style: they take away your first dish and then you get your second one. To my surprise, Bowen liked the Gnocchi and soup, and of course the Salad buffett.

By the time the main course came, he was quite finished with dinner, and only picked at it, but I was hungry enough to eat his portion. To my surprise, he didn't want the ice cream dessert. (He couldn't have the regular dessert because it had nuts that he was allergic to) I ran out after dinner and snapped one last shot of the moonrise with Alpenglow.

There was no question in my mind that bringing a large sensor point and shoot camera was the right move for this trip. I would have cried bitter tears having to shoot today's scenery with a smartphone camera.

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June 24th: Selva di Gardena to Prato Allo Stelvio

The morning that greeted us as we left Selva di Gardena was beautiful, with not even a cloud in the sky. I did a double-take and checked my phone for a refreshed forecast but it hadn't changed. So off we went down to Ortisel. Komoot kept trying to direct us to a bike path but I knew from experience that if traffic is not bothersome, the main road is much faster on a descent than any bike path, and a lot more fun to boot.

In Ortisel, I paused at a bike shop to check for directions, and then we waved goodbye to the Gardena area and started up the climb over to Kastelrotto. The climb was surprisingly steep, reminding us that our performance the previous day was also partly due to not having to carry our panniers on the bike. It didn't take long before we warmed up and I was putting on sunscreen again. It was good to see that the route I was on was frequented by cyclists, who once again would compliment us as they rode past. It turns out that this route was part of a loop with 2 passes: Passo Pinei (which we would climb), and a further road up to Siusi which could take you back to Selva di Gardena with sufficient climbing.

With all the climbing we had in our legs from yesterday, we were quite happy to see the pass sign, which at 1437m meant that we had only done 200m of climbing from the valley. From there, the descent to Castelrotto was fast, and we arrived at the Spar to buy some fruit and chocolate to eat while the morning was still cool, having learned that the weather was too warm to buy chocolate to carry in the saddlebag.

Past Castelrotto, I started riding up towards Siusi but then did a map check and realized that Lukas's directions meant "ride in the direction of Siusi but don't actually go there." From there, we had a beautiful descent towards Fie. The directions from Lukas was to head towards Atzwang from the old road, but I must have missed a turn. Reasoning that descending through obnoxious tunnels was not that big of a deal compared to having to climb through them, I followed the main road down through fast and furious turns and descents until the road dumped us out near Prato Isarco right in front of the bike path that I had used to climb up to Steinegg 4 years ago.

From there, it was a 6km ride to the Bolzano train station, where we bought train tickets to Schluderns, with a transfer in Merano. The ticket counter agent looked at the bike and said, "I'm not sure if you can find a space for the bike, but I'm willing to sell you the tickets if you want to try." It turned out that at noon on a Sunday there was plenty of room for the bike, and we could get the bike easily on the train to Merano, though there was a mad scramble while the conductor taught me how to validate the tickets, using a machine that wasn't the same as the ones we had used to get from Verona to Bolzano!

In Merano, we did the transfer with the help of a British gentleman who owned a tandem back home and felt compelled to help us out. He was impressed that we were going to attempt the Stelvio, and had done the Sella Rondo the day before. While on the train, I asked Bowen if he wanted to tackle the Stelvio immediately and ride up to Trafoi, or whether he wanted to stop in Prato Allo Stelvio and then do the Stelvio the next day. "Stay in Prato Allo Stelvio tonight" was the answer. It being a Sunday, we lucked out and found a cheap place to stay on booking.com that wasn't normally available.

I'd bought the tickets for Schluderns since I knew it had a train station from the 2016 tour. In retrospect, Sponding would have saved us a couple of Euros, and was actually closer to Prato Allo Stelvio than Schluderns and not a significant climb. But upon exiting the train station at Schluderns, I spotted an ice cream and cake shop that I hadn't noticed before, so we had lunch there, along with ice cream and cake. Both were very good, so it wasn't a wasted trip.

The ride to Prato Allo Stelvio from Schluderns was pretty, traversing the narrow part of the valley. Once at Residence Ortlerhof, the friendliness of the staff overwhelmed us, as did the facilities. The room had a kitchenette, though we weren't able to use it since the supermarkets were closed in town on a Sunday. We had dinner at a nearby pizzeria, and for desert, cherries off the tree at the Residence.

The weather was cloudy and overcast, making it easy for me to believe that it was storming over Cortina D'Ampezzo. But I wondered how on earth was it supposed to be clear on the Stelvio the next day?
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June 23rd: Sella Rondo Bike Day

Way back in  2007 when I first toured the Alto Adige valley, on my way up the Stelvio I asked a bunch of cyclists what their most beautiful ride in the area was, and they told me it was the Sella Group. I dutifully visited the Sella Group that year, and was rewarded by the sights and sounds of tour buses climbing up passes, and being stuck behind tour buses when descending. So when I saw that the Sella group was having a bike day, and the weather forecast was cooperative, I knew we had to participate.

We ate early enough to ride out from the hotel at 8:00am. In retrospect we didn't need to do this. Not only were we finished well before the 3:30pm cut off, by starting half an hour early we bore the brunt of the last minute rush of vehicles trying to get over the various passes before the roads closed. Fortunately, by the time we got to the ridge to climb over to Passo Pordoi, the road was well and truly closed.

The bike day is every bit as amazing as you might imagine. None of the other countries in the alps have regular bike days: the Germans don't do it, neither do the Swiss or the Austrians. The Gran Fondo-type events might feature road closures, but those require pre-registration in advance and the entry fees are usually high, and in some cases you might even need to be lucky enough to win a place. To my mind, this makes up for the insane driving you frequently see in Italian roads. The organizers suggested doing the Sella Rondo counter-clockwise, and most people followed their suggestions. This was great, since it kept the speed differentials down, and the roads were narrow enough that there weren't even center-line markings on them!

Along the road were photographers represented by FotoStudio3. They had clocks next to the photo stations so you could search for your pictures afterwards. I should have taken pictures of those clocks, but in any case I couldn't find any photos of us except the one that Hina found, since there were so many cyclists at the event! Every where you looked, especially after we descended to the saddle between Sella and Pordoi, where hordes of cyclists were climbing up from Canazei, which was apparently a much more popular lodging destination for cyclists than Selva di Gardena. Here's the thing about doing the Bike Day on a tandem: first, we were the only non-electric tandem that we could see. Every other tandem we saw was electric-assisted. The other thing was that every cyclist who passed us (which was most of them!) would say, "Bravo!" or "Grande!" Some would even speak to us, and tell us what a cool bike we had. I don't think I ever got so many compliments in my life for riding a bike on one ride. As is true back home, despite all the compliments on the bike, if I asked anyone if they wanted to exchange no one would take me up on the offer. 

Bowen, as usual, hadn't eaten much breakfast, and by 11:00am was quite hungry. The Sella Rondo bike day wasn't a supported event, but the restaurants and hotels all along the route were open, and happy to serve hungry cyclists with food, snacks, and drinks. He ate a sandwich and I ate some chocolate. While descending from Campolongo to Alta Badia to start our final climb up to Gardena, an Italian guy rode up to me and said "Piano, piano, kinder!" He was asking me to slow down so I could watch out for kids on the road? Or was he worried about mine? Bowen was a veteran of major descents at this time, and I didn't see any kids descending on the road. We did see plenty of other types of bikes, recumbents, e-bikes, even a guy towing a child in a trailer using an e-bike. Safety patrol was done by 4-wheeled dune buggies, which made the only motorized noise we would see that day once the event got going.

It was a relief when we finally made it up Passo Gardena, with only a small saddle to traverse before we began the descent back to Selva Gardena. The day clocked in at 6500' of climbing in 38 miles, and Bowen was a good sport about it all, complaining about the cold only a few times. Once we were in the hotel, we showered, tried to find the game room (which turned out to be just a bunch of toys thrown into a room), ate dinner, and spent more time in the swimming pool, as Bowen deemed the zipline at the local playground not worth the time and effort it would take to get there. My boy was definitely getting picky about ziplines and playgrounds! Miguel had yesterday mentioned that Adrenaline X-treme Adventures had the longest zipline in Europe, and I explored the idea of taking Bowen there, but nixed it when it turned out that their minimum weight for children was 35kg or 77 pounds. I could load up Bowen's camelbak with all the bricks that could fit and he still wouldn't come in close to that. My plan was to ride over Gardena to Corvara and climb up to Falzerago to Cortina over the next few days to show Bowen Misurina and maybe spend a day climbing up to Tre Cime di Laverado, a road I'd never visited before, but the forecast had turned sour in that direction, indicating thunderstorms were coming. Unusually, the forecast for Stelvio was good for at least the next 3 days, so after confirming to Bowen that he still wanted to climb over to Stelvio, I sent a WhatsApp message to Lukas to confirm the route down to Bolzano, where we planned to take the train back to Schluderns for our attempt. Lukas couldn't help with luggage up the Stelvio, but after doing the Sella Rondo Bike Day, I was convinced that a half day of riding with relatively little climbing would be sufficient rest that we could make it up the Stelvio.
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June 22nd: Via Ferrata Grand Cir

It thunderstormed during the night, enough to wake me up, which wasn't a bad thing since I had some stuff that was still in the wash and needed to be taken out and air dried. I went back to sleep, and still managed to get up early enough to make breakfast for Bowen.

After breakfast, we packed up our bike, which despite being under a shelter showed signs of chain rust, left the keys in the apartment, and rode down to the train station, carrying all un-eaten food on the bike since we knew we were getting a taxi transfer. It turned out that our taxi driver was none other than Lukas Panitz, the owner of Base Camp Dolomites and a mountain guide and tour organizer. While driving up, I asked him about good paths down from Selva di Gardena on the bike, as I didn't think that there was a good bike path up, something he concurred with. He said that there was a good alternative down back to Bolzano, by riding over to Castelrotto towards Siusi. "There's a plateau there, so even though you have to climb a bit, the rest of it is easy riding, and it's away from most traffic." I asked him for ideas for what to do on our free day in Selva, and he suggested that if we were lucky, we might be able to get a mountain guide to do a Via Ferrata which was something his daughter practiced and enjoyed. He named Piccolo Cir and Gran Cir as two options that we could potentially do with a 6 year old. I told him about our consideration to do the Stelvio and he said to ping him in case he could find a way to help us.

I'd heard Arturo talk about Via Ferratas before, but I had no idea that a little kid as young as 6 might be expected to do it. We rode over to the tourist information office after dumping our bags at the Residence Antares. We could have walked it, but Lukas had emphasized that we might have already arrived too late to get a mountain guide for the day, and while we could do it on Sunday, this was the optimal day to have an off-bike activity. The tourist information office told us that the mountain guide office was already closed for the day, but then she called one of the mountain guides she knew and he was available and would meet us at the office!

Miguel met us and told me the price would be 200 Euros. Well, I didn't know squat about climbing or Via Ferratas, so I agreed and we went back to the hotel to get Bowen's sandals. Miguel looked dubiously about my cycling shoes, but I told him that that was all I had. He picked up harnesses for us, and then we headed out. Residence Antares was happy to hold our bike in the ski room, and Miguel picked us up in his car and drove us to the cable car.

The view from the top of the cable car was pretty good. On the way up, Miguel told us that Piccolo Cir was shorter but harder and Gran Cir was longer but easier, and he would suggest doing the Gran Cir first. Not knowing any better, I took his advice. In retrospect, doing the Piccolo Cir would probably have been more fun, and might have left Bowen more enthusiastic about the Via Ferrata experience.

The approach started with a hike up to the base of the wall. Bowen happily kept up with the mountain guide and walked surprisingly fast. At the base of the wall, we were asked to put on the climbing harness. I would manage my caribiners myself, but Bowen would be tied to the guide.

The climb itself felt like it was too easy, with only a few places where I felt like I ws in danger of falling. But as I climbed, I caught myself doing dumbass things, which is probably how someone could get killed doing an easy climb. For instance, you're supposed to have one caribiner clipped in at all times, but I would catch myself moving both at once.

I thought Bowen would not be happy to get dragged along by the guide, but it turned out that he was very happy to do things this way, and indeed he seemed to be having fun. In due course, we got to the top, where unbelievable views could be had, because it was such a clear day.

Unfortunately, a cold wind blew, and Bowen got cold. Once Bowen gets cold, he stops wanting to work hard, so the mountain guide half-carried and half-guided him down the mountain. There was no question that Miguel had earned his pay that day! Bowen was quite tired, but he nevertheless still walked all the way back to the cable car station for lunch. There was no question that we were going to try Piccolo Cir.

Back down in the village, Miguel showed us the zipline playground and the supermarket, and then we found an ATM so we could pay him in cash. The zipline playground wasn't good enough to hold Bowen's attention, so we went back to the hotel, where our room was finally ready for us  to move in.

It turned out that the supermarket was just behind the hotel, and the apartment was on the ground floor (even though the receptionist called it the basement, we still got plenty of natural light). I went to buy dinner and breakfast the next day. The kitchenette had no oven, so I had to be careful to buy stuff that could be cooked over a stove.

We then did our shower and laundry routine, though I didn't have to wring out everything as thoroughly since we were here for two nights and there would be time for everything to dry. We checked out the hotel's indoor pool, which was Bowen's first exposure to a European-style pool, which typically has toys like button-activated waterfalls that give you a shower, jet-streams that would push you back-wards when you pushed a button, and even bubble makers on the floor. It wasn't a very big pool, but Bowen loved being able to turn the waterfall on at will. Even the showers were kind of strange, as they had aroma therapy options, where you could push a button and get various smells in while you showered.

We had to have an early night. Technically, the Sella Rondo Bike Day started at 8:30am, but Lukas had encouraged us to get an early start because things tended to warm up in the afternoon, and of course, certain winds could build up. In any case, the Bike Day ended at 3:30pm, and given that traffic would be waiting to traverse the passes the moment they were let through, I didn't want to be on the mountain when they opened up the roads.

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