July 1st: Hollental Klamm

After breakfast, we packed our rain gear into the backpack so kindly loaned to us by the owner of Guesthouse Nicole, got on the bike and rode my pre-programmed route to Grainau, where the trailhead for the Hollentalklamm was to begin. The day was partly cloudy, and it felt warm, but I anticipated it being wet in the gorge. We rode past the parking lot and onto the trail, past the restaurant. It being a Sunday, there was a steady stream of hikers going from the parking lot to the trailhead, and once on the trail, there was also a continuous stream of hikers. Maybe the people density wasn't as dense as what I continuously saw during our Japan trip, but it was at least 20-40% of what we saw then. There were so many people continually coming up or down the trail that during the hike, it was a major problem to find a place to pee! The flip-side of this was that you saw all shapes and sizes on the trail, including several elderly folks who had hiking sticks.

We eventually got to a point where it was impossible to ride the bike any further, there being a series of steps up the trail. We got off the bike and locked it, changed Bowen into hiking sandals and then started hiking up. Right past the steps there was a clearing and a dirt road led off to one side. We would later figure out that it was a road used by cars to deliver supplies to the Hollentalanger Hut, the mountain hotel/hut/restaurant up the hill.

The initial part of the hike went through the forests and was easy walking, mostly featuring a stream next to it, no doubt fed by the gorge above. We then arrived at a cable car station, but the cable looked like wires: too small for human carriage, and we would later understand that it was used to ferry supplies up to the hut. (Supplies too big to fit in the cable car were dropped by helicopter) Past this point, the trail got more rugged, once again featuring steps and stairs, but still very easy going. When we got to the Klamm, I paid my entry fee, and Bowen was free because he was 6 years old. He was very unhappy not needing a ticket.

Gorge hikes are somewhat unique to Europe. At least, I've never seen them as frequently as I see them in the Alps, where it seems that every gorge has been engineered for hikers to visit (and pay a fee to do so). It's hard to describe, but fortunately I shot several videos. You get to walk along a walkway, with water running underneath, and in some cases above you, with the spray of water. The closest you can get in the San Francisco Bay Area would be to hike the Steep Ravine trail in the winter in the middle of a rainstorm, something I've done and consider very fun. But even that wouldn't describe the scale and the sound of water rushing through like a jet-engine. Of course, the trade off is that if you were to do the Steep Ravine trail in a rainstorm in winter, you're likely to get a wilderness experience and get the place to yourself. In Hollentalklamm on a weekend in Germany, you're just going to get lots of people in your pictures, and be continually negotiating with people going the other way, or moving over to let faster hikers overtake you and your Bowen.

The initial part of the gorge was dry, but pretty soon, I found a landing and got out the rain gear and put it on Bowen, and put on my rain pants and rain jacket myself, the only time I would do so on the entire trip. (I'm not complaining: it's great to have a bike tour in Europe where I'm not constantly putting on rain gear!!) Bowen did what every 6-year old does when confronted with water while wearing rain gear. He put it to the test by deliberately standing under waterfalls, stepping into puddles (he was wearing sandals and so got his wool socks very wet, though they stayed warm)

Once out of the hike, the scenery opened up, and we got to see some mountains! I then made the mistake of asking a German hiker an improperly worded question. I asked if the hike was a loop or an out-and-back. She said, "Yes, there are ways to make it a round trip." I didn't pay attention to her odd phrasing. What I should have realized was that I needed to ask a follow-up question: "How do I make a loop out of this hike?" As it was, I just followed other hikers up the mountain until we got to Hollentalanger hut. There, we ordered lunch and ate it, and I saw another family I'd seen earlier, and asked them which way to go to complete the loop? The answer: "Hike back down!"

It turned out that the loop fork was way down back near the exit of the Hollental Klamm! We got to the fork and turned off, since there was what looked like a mountain cave along the stairs, but that turned out to be a disappointment. Then some hikers told us that this was the loop, and that it would take 20 minutes longer. Bowen decided that it was a good idea to see something new, rather than retracing our steps, so we went on it.

The alternate path was gorgeous, granting us beautiful views of the mountains from high above the gorge, but of course, that meant that we had to do quite a bit more climbing, and for Bowen at least, it was much more than 20 minutes longer. I started to worry that we had been mis-led, but then the trail suddenly took a dive down to a bridge that crossed back over the gorge: we could see the gorge below, and then we realized that we had seen a fork off before the entry to the Hollentalklamm, so I became less worried. At which point Bowen said he need to go to the bathroom. I quickly borrowed some tissue paper from another hiker, but we couldn't find a place that wasn't exposed. Fortunately, the need passed.

By the time we got back to the bike, my GPS had said 12 miles of hiking. Even if I'd carried Bowen for 2 of those miles, that was a lot of hiking for a little kid. There was no question that we were not going to make the Zugspitz that day. We rode down the path, and now I was grateful that I was persistent about riding up as high as I could: downhills are way easier on a bike than on foot, and I was skilled enough to handle the mild-off roading this involved.

We rode back to Garmish and got an ice cream each downtown. Bowen wasn't done with his lessons for the day, though! When he ordered the ice cream and the server gave him a cup with a cookie, he asked: "Why do I get a cookie?" At which point she assumed that he didn't like the cookie, picked it off his cup and threw it away, and gave him a windmill instead! He was quite upset about it. I had to explain that when someone gives you what you want, the best thing to do is to say "Thank you," and shut up. There's no way for the situation to improve by talking. I'm not sure if he fully understood what I said, but at least he enjoyed the windmill a little bit.

My tough little guy was now too sore to walk to dinner, so after our shower and laundry routine, I rode the bike to a nearby restaurant and we didn't have to do any more extra walking. I promised him that tomorrow would be an easy day, mostly cable car rides.

Next

June 30th: Lindau to Garmisch Partenkirchen

The whole point of making it to Lindau was to make use of the Bayern ticket. With the ticket, you can travel all throughout Bavaria using as many local trains as you like, all day. The catch is that you must use the local trains, and unless it's a weekend, you can only use the train after 9:00am. Well, it was a weekend, but the train from Lindau to Garmisch didn't leave until 10:00am, so we had time to leave the hotel at 9:06, take pictures and say farewell to the Bodensee, screw up and go the wrong way and still make it to the train station with plenty of time to buy train tickets.

The first of the trains we needed to take was an Alex train. It had narrow corridors and was a massive pain to get a tandem on, but once you're in, you get these massive private compartments where the two of you can spread out and lounge around in.

Surprisingly enough, the train from Lindau to Garmisch-Partenkirchen did not go through Munich, as I would have expected, but switches in Kempton for a train to Reutte (which is in Austria), and from Reutte we had to take the train to Garmisch. Being German, the train schedule was setup so that we never  had to switch platforms for a transfer. We could just stay on the same platform and either switch sides or get on the next train that arrived on that platform. Because getting off at Kempton was a pain, I enlisted the help of other cyclists to assist with the transfer. The nice thing about the bike car being so big was that nearly everyone in the car was a cyclist and hence eager to help!

Once on the Reutte train, we got to see some Austrian scenery, which reminded me once again that I had yet to explore the part of Bavaria that connected Kempton/Lindau to Reutte. From the window, it looked gorgeous, and I guess I should have considered riding instead of taking the train, but what was done was done.

Local trains are slow. By the time we got to Garmisch, it was nearly 2:00pm. But the train we were on from Reutte was going to link up with another train to get to Munich, and we got to watch that and even capture it on video!

After watching that, we got off the train station, found a supermarket, and then found a little city park nook to picnic in. It was gorgeous, with a stream running through it, and a place you could sit and dip your feet into the water! The bread was also delicious.

We checked into the guesthouse, and I asked the owner about Partnach Klamm, and she said that it was closed because of high water, but I could check at the ski center for further details. I was disappointed, but we figured we had nothing to lose, it being too late in the day to do anything else, so we rode out there after leaving all our luggage at the guesthouse.

Indeed, we were told that the Partnachklamm was closed, but the Hollentalklamm, which I hadn't been, was still open. The tourist information person gave me a map, and when I looked at it, I said, "Oh, it looks like we can do both Hollentalklamm and the Zugspitze in the same day. Can we ride up to the Klamm?" She said she thought it might be possible, but didn't provide more details. Well, our trip wasn't wasted: we stopped by a supermarket to  buy some shampoo/body wash, and then on the way back downtown we saw that everyone was wearing white!

When we went to dinner, our waitress told us that tonight was "White Night", apparently a huge party and an excuse to listen to music/DJ and dance. Our waitress also confirmed that it had actually been raining hard in the afternoons over the last few days in Garmisch, indicating that we weren't being lied to about rain in the mountains. Back in town, we stuck out like sore thumbs, not having  brought anything white to wear.

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June 29th: Chur to Lindau

Hoping to avoid as much of the headwind as possible, we ate the 6:30am breakfast and got on the road at 7:50am. That early in the morning, the bike path was pretty and we even found a zipline pretty early!

Bowen complained that we weren't doing sufficient climbing, but I told him that this was where all the ziplines were. Also, that if we got to Lindau (which wasn't required), we'd traverse 4 countries today, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Austria, and Germany! That got him to perk up, which was good, because otherwise, there's actually very little to recommend this ride. I've done it far too often, and usually it's in circumstances like this: escaping from the mountains into the low lands in anticipation of poor weather.

At the intersection with Landquart, I saw the sign for the climb up to Davos for access to the Fluela pass: it would climb 800m over the next 34km, very gently. But Fluela was out of the question (and if anything, the descent down to Landeck from Zernez would have even more headwind), so we kept going down river until near the border with Liechtenstein the Rhine river opened up and granted us what would be the same scene for the next 50km.

The nature of the Rhine river bike path is that it's pretty for the first 10 minutes and boring for the rest of it, especially in the direction of the headwind. At the Liechtenstein border, we switched sides of the river so that Bowen could say he'd traversed the country.

We tried detouring into Liechtenstein to try to get our passports stamped, but somehow missed all the signs to the tourist information office. I was under the mistaken impression that the post office could do it as well, but no, only the tourist information could stamp our passports. We gave up and kept going down river, against an increasing headwind, which bogged us down to a speed around 10mph.

At the border with Austria, we found another zipline playground, which Bowen thought was a lot of fun.

While Bowen played on the zipline I tried looking for hotels in the direction where we were going. Since our goal was the Lindau train station the next day, we could potentially stay in either Switzerland, Austria, or Germany and still be well within striking distance of the train station. Switzerland was so expensive it wasn't even in consideration. To my surprise, Bregenz was also really expensive, so that left Lindau, which wasn't much cheaper, it being a Friday night. We ended up at the Best Western in Lindau, mostly because it had AC and had really good reviews that claimed that it was nothing like any other Best Western you'd stayed at.

By the time we were at the Bodensee, Bowen was thoroughly bored, and didn't even want to take a picture. We rode through Bregenz, and saw a zipline playground, but it had as many as 5-6 kids sharing the zipline, and Bowen decided that wasn't even worth getting off the bike for. The headwind had died down by now, but we both had 70 miles in the saddle and just wanted off the bike, so we beelined straight for the hotel, stopping only to take a picture with the Bavarian coat of arms when we entered Germany.

The hotel wasn't very far from the border, in fact, and it was in a part of the neighborhood that didn't have access to the little island of Lindau. In fact, when we asked about places we could walk to for dinner, it was a 15 minute walk to anything except the McDonald's, which was practically next door. The number one rated restaurant in Lindau happened to be one of those, though, so we showered and walked over only to discover that the place was fully booked for the night, and even though no one had showed up for dinner yet they were not going to seat us, no matter how quickly we said we could be in and out.

We ended up at Restaurant Meblo's for dinner instead, which was attached to Hotel Nagel and served gourmet burgers. The hotel looked very well appointed and had a crystal clear swimming pool. If we'd known we would have stayed there instead, but perhaps it was already all booked on a Friday. This experience made me realize that I should look again at hotels in the Salzburger Lakes and Garmisch since tomorrow was a Saturday, and if we were going to stay at the Salzburg Lakes we'd have to ride from the Salzburg train station, and you do not want to arrive on a Saturday without a prior reservation.

The Salzburg Lakes proved to be surprisingly expensive. I double checked the weather, and the forecast was for it to start raining in the afternoon the next day, which would be exactly when we'd get out of the train station and would have to start to ride. Garmisch, however, turned up a guest house that would put us up for 3 nights for about 90 Euros a night, and had the benefit that a return to Munich was easily accomplished from there. I discussed it with Bowen and his preference was to stay in Germany anyway (for whatever reason he didn't like Austria except for Hahntennejoch and Landeck), so I booked the guest house in Garmisch. I remembered spending an off-site with Google Munich 10 years ago there, with a combination day hike with gorge walk and then a river rafting trip that was fun, so I knew there ought to be enough to occupy us for 3 days. And even if not, we could easily do day rides from the area!

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June 28th: Pontresina to Filisur/Transfer to Chur

The morning looked fogged in and cloudy, but we were up early because the Sporthotel Pontresina serves breakfast at an unusually cycle tourist friendly 7:00am. We ate at the very generous breakfast buffett, and even had lactose free milk, very unusual in Switzerland. As promised by the hotel, the laundry was ready at 8:00am after we were done with breakfast, and we could finish packing and be out the door by 8:40. Sportbottles filled with sports drink and all. The fog had lifted by then, and it looked like a nice sunny day!

We didn't get far, however, as we immediately found a zipline almost immediately. It didn't keep Bowen's attention, however, as Bowen didn't think it was exciting enough. The little guy's become a zipline snob! This was my first time riding the bike path from Pontresina to La Punt. To my surprise, the bike path very pretty, filled with views of lakes and the surrounding mountains. It wasn't fast, but it was well worth the trouble, though towards La Punt it turned into a single-track mountain bike trail!

In La Punt, we stopped so I could shed my arm and leg warmers and put sunscreen on those areas, since I wasn't actually expecting it to be so sunny. The climb from La Punt doesn't waste any time gaining altitude: the bottom sections climb rapidly and relentlessly at grades of 10-12%, and it absolutely does not let up until the last couple of kilometers at the top. The deceptive part is that the altitude gained from La Punt is only 625 meters over 9.5km, but the last 2-3km the road hardly climbs at all, which is how you get the 10+% grade for the first 6. We stopped several times so I could catch my breath.

Once we got above the treeline, the weather clouded over, and now it looked as though we were actually going to get rain! The top of Albula is a barren landscape, with no trees, and no shelter whatsoever from the weather. We were very glad that we had gotten started early, so we had no doubt whatsoever about making it over the pass. We stopped so that we could put on jackets, with Bowen putting on his rain jacket over his down and getting his mittens on again.

Traffic was light, though we did see cyclists going the other direction. At  the summit hotel restaurant, we stopped for a photograph, but with the weather starting to sour, did not feel like going in for tea.

I had never descended Albula from this direction before, and the first few kilometers were straight and fast. After that, the road twists and winds around the mountains, and showed me sights I'd never seen before, because when you're climbing a mountain at maximal effort you hardly ever turn around to look back. I spotted a gorgeous lake and decided to stop the bike for a short walk to appreciate the view even further.

It looked so quiet that I couldn't believe it later, when we resumed the descent, that right below this was what looked like a strip mine or quarry. I'd ridden past that without a thought in the past, but this time it stood out against the rest of the mountain I had seen. We arrived in Bergun around lunch time. Pulling into the water fountain in the center of town, we had a choice of supermarket or a bakery. Bowen opted for the bakery.

As we were eating, we were surprised by two cyclists coming in who looked familiar! They turned out to be fellow tandemists from the Western Wheelers! They had spotted our bike out in the fountain, and said, "This has to be Piaw and Bowen. No one else has a bike that looks like this!" And of course they were right!

Bergun was one of the potential places for us to stay, but with the impending rain, it would be better to be somewhere with a train station like Filisur, or even Chur. We rode down to Filisur, and the weather looked poor enough that I decided to go for the expensive train transfer to Chur, since that was a big city with stuff to do, and quite possibly warmer as well. If I had known the weather would be clear the next morning, I would have decided to stay in Filisur and do the Lenzerheide the next day.

The train from Filisur was uncharacteristically late for a Swiss train. When we boarded it, we got into the wrong bike car: the car didn't have any room in the bike compartment for a tandem, so we were forced to block the entryway. When the conductor came, I expected him to ask us to move the bike to a more suitable car, but he said, "We don't have time to move you. Just make sure you clear the doorway whenever someone wants to exit." It's quite clear that being late caused the conductor much more anxiety than a mere blocked entryway for other passengers. All that stressing paid off, however: the train arrived in Chur on-time. After the Italian train stations, it was wonderful to be in a Swiss train station, where there were disabled ramps down to the subway and no stairs to negotiate while portaging a heavy tandem.
On Booking.com, the cheaper options had very mixed reviews, so we ended up at Hotel Post Chur. I thought I'd stayed there before in the past, but in retrospect that was  mistaken memory, as my tour notes from 2007 indicated that I stayed at Hotel Chur, which is an entirely different hotel! Hotel Post was much more like a dorm-based youth hostel than a hotel, but the staff was very generous in helping me get the bike down into storage. I checked the weather once again, and the forecast was for rain in the mountains: I had toyed with the idea of riding up the Oberalp from this direction and then somehow making my way down to Meiringen and Hotel Rosenlaui in the days I had left, but the forecast didn't look good in that direction, and once we got to Rosenlaui we still had the issue of getting back to Munich, which would take multiple expensive train transfers.
Plan B was to go back to the Salzburg lakes or Garmisch. Both looked to have much better weather than the alps, but would entail riding against the headwind into the Bodensee to gain access to the German train system. Both the Austrian and Swiss train systems were quite a bit more expensive. After shower and laundry, we walked around to dinner and then bought some fruit for dessert, which Bowen preferred to ice cream or chocolate. I felt somewhat disappointed that our time in the mountains was at an end, but with a 6-year-old in tow, I didn't really want to take any risks: Bowen got cold far more quickly than any adult, and adding rain to the mix wouldn't make him happy. Next

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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