Jully 11th: Pescul to Cortina d'Ampezzo

From Tour of the Alps 2014

The day started steeply, as Passo di Giau is a 12% grade. But with blue skies and rapidly warming weather, things shaped up very well, and it was quite clear that Passo di Giau was more more scenic than Passo Falzerago would have been. Climbing the little used road, all the problems I encountered were a fogged up camera lens (easily taken care of with a wipe) and the antique Mercedes Benz club driving 24 antique cars down the road behind 2 lucky cyclists. Those antique cars were not capable of taking corners faster than a skilled cyclist, and served the function of blocking the road so faster traffic couldn't harrass them.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

The descent from Giau was fun until I got stuck behind a bus. I stopped to let the bus go ahead as the road wasn't conducive to over-taking, but I was still too fast and caught the bus again twice. On the descent, I saw cyclists starting the climb, indicating that we were getting close to Cortina.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

At the intersection with the main highway to Cortina, I stopped and took off most of the excessively warm clothing I had, and waited for the others. After they joined me, I told them that I wouldn't be making any stops on the descent but would wait for them at the bottom of the hill. I then took off down the rest of the road, noting in satisfaction that I had gotten ahead of a platoon of cars led by a tour bus. I was feeling fast that day, and felt comfortable staying ahead of the bus. At the bottom of the hill, I removed all warm clothing and waited for them. A bee got into my helmet and stung me, which caused me to tap my feet impatiently as the tourist bus I'd worked so hard to stay ahead of came into town and took off. Then I got a text message from Arturo saying that Hina had crashed. It wasn't a trivial one as her helmet had cracked and there was an apparent head injury, which caused an ambulance to be called. Hina's tour was over, like it or not, though I would not realize that until much later.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

After Hina got taken away to the hospital, Arturo was stuck with an extra bike. I hitch-hiked with my bike up the mountain to discover that she'd crashed only 3km from town. Fortunately, by the time I arrived, the police were already there, and they agreed to take the bike down to Cortina for us. My initial thought was to have the police take the bike and have Hina pick it up from them later, but Arturo said to me, "Look: they don't want to hang on to the bike for whatever reason, so we should just do as they say and meet them at the center of town in an hour." So we rode down to Cortina d'Ampezzo and found a hotel downtown with good TripAdvisor reviews, called the Hotel Montana. The receptionist was very sympathetic, and gave us an adjoining room with a shared bathroom.

Later on, we would pierce together the details of the crash as follows: Hina was stuck following the bus, while Arturo didn't enjoy the traffic and so stopped and let the traffic past until he had a clear view of the road. Unfortunately, Hina paid so much attention to the traffic that she missed the potholes in the road and hence crashed. By the time Arturo got there, she was already on the ground. Fortunately, while Arturo was administering first aid, a motorcyclist who was a doctor stopped and took over. The Italian paramedics who showed up by ambulance within 10 minutes were both competent and spoke good English. All in all, while it was undoubtedly a harrowing experience for Hina, both the outcome and the handling of the situation was well done by the Italian authorities.
 

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Well, this blew my carefully made plans out of the water, so we looked at the forecast again. The next day was going to be good, but the days after that looked pretty crappy, especially for the Grossglockner highway, which were forecasted to have fog on days when it was not pouring rain. We pondered riding to Slovenia to check out a new country and then riding back to Lienz to start Grossglockner, but none of them were realistic, and it was impossible to buy good maps in Cortina!

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Searching further afield, I found that Stelvio was slated for a run of good weather after Sunday, and Arturo wanted to do it anyway, so we decided to head back in that direction. While waiting for news from Hina, we decided to take full advantage of our location and take the cable car up to one of the ski locations to check things out. By the time we arrived, the weather had turned iffy, though there was still sun in the valley. We hiked around a bit amidst sprinkles, but it was uninspiring. Coming back down, we checked the bus schedule for Hina was unlikely to be able to ride the next day. It turned out that there was a bus to Dobbacio, where a train would take her to Fortezza, where a train would get her into the Austrian train system at Innsbruck from whence Munich would be a snap. The bus would even take bikes.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

With that settled, we had dinner at a luxury prosciutto restaurant the hotel had a deal with where we would get a substantial discount. We didn't think thinly sliced pieces of ham could fill us up, but four plates of this in combination with the very light riding that we had done today proved to be sufficient. We heard from Hina: they did a brain scan, then sent her to another hospital for another brain scan, and then they brought her back and were ready to discharge her when she threw up, which apparently meant that she had to stay overnight for observation. "Usually in these cases it's either straight to surgery or they release you," said Arturo. Well, we could do nothing, having already booked two rooms, but one way or another it appeared that Hina would be discharged the next day. No matter what, though her tour was over. It was a pretty nasty way to end a tour, and it's the first time anyone had crashed out on any of my tours, in more than 20 years of touring, but unfortunately there's a first time for everything.

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July 10th: Vigo di Fassa to Pescul

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The morning greeted us with blue sky mixed in with clouds, which gave me hope that we might be able to make Cortina D'Ampezzo today. Regardless, the first step was to traverse the Fasso valley to get to Canazei. The last time I did this the traffic was pretty bad, but this time, we spotted a bike path under construction and decided to beta-test the pavement, which held out very well until we got near Canazei, where the pavement turned into construction. Exiting the bike path 2km from Canazei, however, I discovered that my bike wasn't shifting into the lowest two gears. A quick stop and the diagnosis was that the anchor bolt was not tightened properly by the mechanic (namely me!) before leaving California. Fortunately, this was an easy fix, and retensioning the cable took very little time. I took care to cinch down the bolt properly, and up we climbed, headed for Fedaia pass.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

At just over 2000m, Fedaia pass was an easy 600m from Canazei, but filled with cyclists who used it as a prelude to the Sella group, and even cross-country skiiers on training blades. After a series of galleries, we emerged at the summit lake, where once again a few raindrops sprinkled on us here and there. The climb to Fedaia is so easy that day riders ride up the road to the war museum but as tourists we didn't feel the need to do so.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Instead, we prepared for what Jobst calls the fastest highway in the Alps. Unfortunately, we encountered some slow going traffic that day and I did not exceed 50mph, though we certainly each got a taste as to how fast you could go if you just let your brakes go down a 13% grade.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

At Savina di Laste, I made a wrong turn and went up the tunnel road towards Selva rather than the white road towards Passo di Giau. This turned out to be a good choice, because there was more rain on the other route which could see while we were climbing. The other route looked prettier, however. I'd skipped Passo di Giau in 2007 because my knee was hurting, but this time, we were stopped at Selva because it looked like there was rain up ahead. I wanted to push on, so I called the hotel at the top of the pass to see if they had room for us, and while they said they had room, they also said they didn't have dinner! That was such a strange response that we wondered if I misunderstood, but the remainder of the climb was said to be quite hard so we turned back to the tourist information center. There turned out to be no lodging in Selva (despite the information center being located there), but there was lodging the next 2 towns over. After perusing the options, Arturo got excited by the TripAdvisor reviews of a B&B in Pescul, so we picked the place and went there. They didn't serve dinner, but the walk to the hotel restaurant in town did give us excellent views.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

The forecast was food good weather the next day, and we needed to get Hina to Munich by the 13th via train, so the plan was to have a long day the next day to Cortina d'Ampezzo and then Lienz, and then climb over the Grossglockner in Austria the day after where she could catch a train at Zell Am See bound for Munich. The weather forecasts supported this endeavor, and I was optimistic that I'd finally be able to climb Grossglockner on my single, as well as attempt Passo di Giau.

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July 9th: Bolzano to Vigo di Passa

From Tour of the Alps 2014

We woke up to another good breakfast. Arturo had warned us to expect anemic breakfasts in Italy, but so far every breakfast has been pretty substantial. "I'm coming to the conclusion that Northern Italy has lousy churches but great breakfasts. Which is a good trade-off for this tour," he said. We then discovered that his bike had a flat on the front tire. The flat turned out to be from a valve stem that peeled off from wear, rather than a road debris puncture. It would be our only flat tire for the entire trip. Arturo had left the spare tubes in Amsterdam, but fortunately, he could make do with ones borrowed from Hina. I pointed out that we should just buy tubes while we're in a big city. Sportler was just around the corner, but when we got there it wasn't opened. No problem, just visit the Coop supermarket for bananas and chocolate, and come back to the store and wait for 5 minutes. We spotted an inner tube vending machine, but by the time we got together the change needed the store had opened.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

I also asked the Sportler folks where to get to the bike path headed for Costalunga, and his directions were spot-on. Once on the bike path, the difficult part was figuring out where to turnoff. We had a chat with a fellow cycle tourist who was kind enough to ride with us until the turn off at Prato Isarco. The gentlemen was from Gerona, and he was headed off to Munich to visit his girlfriend by bicycle. A former motorcyclist, he said he was getting too old to handle a motorcycle safely, and the bicycle was as close as he could get to that experience.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Even overcast, the climb up to the eggental valley was beautiful. It was a long, unrelenting climb since Bolzano was at 300m, and Passo Costalunga was closer to 1800m. At Nova Levante we missed the supermarket closing by 15 minutes, and so ended up eating lunch at a restaurant. It occured to me that ever since Hina voiced her distaste of supermarket lunches, we had never successfully eaten a supermarket lunch again. I hoped she never voiced any distaste of my tires staying on the ground.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Past Nova Levante, the climb brought us to Karrersee. The last time I came by this way it was pouring rain, and I never so much as got a glance at the lake as we were stuck underneath some shelters waiting for the rain to let up so we could sprint for some lodging. This time, it was overcast but not raining, so we had time to slow down, take pictures, and admire the scenery. After getting a photo at the lake, 3 Italian seniors walked up to us and started talking rapidly. Arturo's Spanish enabled him to translate for us. The older gentleman turned to the two ladies and said, "See? I told you it was a lady on a bicycle!" The two ladies ooh'd and ahh'd and said, "Wow, we've never seen a woman cycling up here before." It seemed that Hina had acquired a fan club!

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Past Karrersee, we rode over Passo Costalunga, passing by the lodging we stayed in 2007. At the pass, I explained that our goal was Canazei, but I was forced to eat my words as the descent led us right into the midst of heavy rain. I therefore called for a stop at Vigo di Fassa, where we found a hotel willing to put us up and the bikes for a reasonable price. The dinner was impressively good and contained lots of food. That night, I hoped that we wouldn't repeat the pattern from 2007 and get stuck in Canazei for 2 nights.

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July 8th: Fondo to Bolzano

From Tour of the Alps 2014

The morning greeted us with an early start but just mere droplets of rain prior to the start. The climb up to Passo Mendola was easy as I remembered so many years ago. But the descent from the pass was much rainier than I previously experienced, which detracted a bit from the views, though when the clouds parted enough for us to see the views, they were pretty good.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

We were soaked through at the bottom of the pass, but fortunately, had to travel the extremely busy main road for but one block before I spotted the entrance to the bike path to Bolzano. This is where having been to the place once before helped, because the traffic would have been daunting otherwise. The rain was much less at the bottom of the pass than up high, but even so, while we were in the tourist information at the center of Bolzano trying to get lodging it absolutely poured. Fortunately, it let up enough for us to get to the hotel, get registered, unpack and showered.

The first order of  business was to replace my torn up Capris. Paying European prices for clothing is not on my list of favorite things to do, but the good part was the Cloudveil Capris I had bought were no longer in production for men, while men's Capris were common and fairly easy to find in Europe. Capris are the most practical casual clothing for occasional cycling. Nevertheless, I ended up at the huge Sportler shop and found only one acceptable pair of pants that were a decent fit, provided I didn't gain any more weight.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

After that, we had lunch at a good pizza place, and then went to stand in line for the Oetzi museum. It was a small muesum but very well done, and we easily spent 2 hours in it before leaving to walk around town and admire various features like the locks on the bridge and the town square.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Dinner was at an Asian/Italian restaurant with high prices but insufficient quantity or quality of food. We did manage to our laundry done. Arturo and Hina were worried about the weather, at one point musing about the possibility of hopping onto the train to Vienna where the weather was warm and sunny. A detailed examination of the weather forecast, however, showed that while the forecast called for rain, it was in relatively small quantities of less than a millimeter, so going forward with the tour was definitely feasible. We declared the "neero day" a success as a result.

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July 7th: Santa Caterina to Fondo

One of my goals today was to make it to Hotel Gran Baita on the Mendola pass so we could have an easy ride to Bolzano the next day. One look at my past trip report from 2007, however, made me realize that I'd made a mistake. In 2007, we'd started from Ponte di Legno (otherwise known as bed-bug town) rather than Santa Caterina. This group wasn't nearly as strong as the 2007 group, so we had very little chance of making it. Looking at my 2011 trip report, it looked like Phil and I made it to Fondo that year from Santa Caterina, so I made Fondo a more realistic goal. The value of having taken good notes in the past was made clear with this simple observation.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

I'd never had a good-weather climb over the Gavia, and though it looked like this would change as we set off that morning under blue skies, things soon reverted to form as the road rose above 2000m in elevation. Storm clouds emerged, and soon I felt rain drops on my skin, though they were occasional and not too frequent. I stopped to put on clothing and more clothing as I approached the summit. One interesting event was that the Vespa touring club had somehow decided to climb the Gavia on the same day. Vespas are severely under-powered, and some were even carrying 2. The small engines made distressing noises as they were subject to stresses not designed for. They moved so slowly that I could even capture footage of them as they passed me!

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Arturo would later tell me that one of them stalled out in front of me and they had to descend in order to get the engine restarted. Gavia from the north eases up from the 8% grade to a very very manageable 3-4% near the summit. But unfortunately, so did the rain. I got caught in one rain shower but could see that the weather eased up at the summit so made a maximal effort and found myself on the summit proper where after putting on everything I owned, I ate a Banana, some chocolate, and walked into the Rifugio Bonetta, which featured poster sized photos of Andy Hampsten winning the Giro on the Stelvio/Gavia, as well as Jobst Brandt climbing the Gavia back in the 1960s when it was unpaved. (The Gavia was unpaved until 1996)

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It took my companions a while to get to the summit, which surprised me until I realized that for the first time during this tour I felt well-fed, so I was no longer functioning on a nutrition-led penalty! When they did arrive, they mocked a sprint for the finish and then immediately headed into the Rifugio for a hot chocolate. While talking to them, I realized that the weather was about to take a turn for the worst, so I told Arturo and Hina that "I had a bad feeling and was going to start the descent right away." Indeed, apparently right after I left a fog rolled in, trapping Hina and Arturo for almost half an hour.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

The Gavia descent on the North side starts off easy, but then quickly degenerates into several steep grades, a long tunnel, and then approaches 16% as you get near the bottom. I got to the bottom, found a park with a kiosk serving pizza, got bored waiting for my companions and bought a Pizza and ate it before either Hina and Arturo showed up, complaining that I didn't wait at any of the "obvious" intersections. They too, had a pizza lunch, and then we wasted no time climbing to Passo Tonale, easiest the ugliest and least scenic of the passes in Italy, dominated mostly by a ski resort with no redeeming values other than a cable car that would offer a tired cyclist a free ride to the top.

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At the summit, Arturo paid a quick visit to the mausoleum of the war heroes, and complained that he didn't think we could make even Fondo that day. I pointed out that the route was mostly downhill past Tonale, and the short climb to Fondo was less than 300m. Tonale's easy descent gave us terminal velocity almost throughout the descent, interrupted only by the occasional annoying Italian motorist, and one stop for water.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

At the town of Piano, I spotted the bike path sign and pulled off the main road to join the bike path through the valley which was made for easy traffic free riding which I had enjoyed 3 and 7 years ago. It appears that I'd missed that sign on the prior journey or the path had gotten extended as the bike path went on forever until just past the town of Male where I got nervous and got us back onto the main road towards Cles.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

We were now in the apple-growing part of Italy, with signs telling us what sort of apple was growing in the area. The air was filled with the scent of apples, and the sun appeared, occasionally mixed with rain. Both Arturo and Hina were flagging, but an appropriate dosing of chocolate and ice cream soon had them starting the climb to Fondo, where we arrived at the information center and discovered that the hotel in town couldn't take 3 more guests.

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I recalled a B&B that Phil and I stayed at in 2011, and so asked for that B&B and confirmed that yes they did have room for the 3 of us. The price was good, we just had to walk to town for dinner. Since Arturo knew Spanish, which was sort of related to Italian, he did the bulk of discussions with the B&B hostess as to where to go for dinner, but it all turned out to be moot. It rained while we were going to the "good pizzeria in town", so we ended up defaulting to the hotel, where the service was uncommonly quick --- until we realized that they'd probably made a half-pension dinner for the huge group in the room next door, and we were getting the left-overs. It was pretty good left overs, so we were still satisfied and went to bed hoping that it wouldn't rain until we got to Bolzano the next day for our rest day.

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July 6th: Il Fourn to Santa Caterina

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The morning greeted us with sunshine, tempered by the altitude at 1800m. The forecast, however, indicated only passable weather the next day, and then rain on Tuesday. Since the Gavia doesn't have good weather even on the best of days, we needed to get over the Gavia by Monday. The others were also starting to ask for a rest day, which was best done at Bolzano. I'd always passed up Umbrail pass before in favor of the long approach from the East on the Stelvio, but the time savings would enable us to get over the Gavia on schedule with ease, and I would get to explore a new road, so I proposed doing Umbrail pass. Hina was a bit disappointed, but Arturo perked up when I mentioned that we might get to do the Stelvio again on the return.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

The climb up to Offen pass was as beautiful as I'd seen it, and a fairly easy grade from before. The descent down to Santa Maria with the intersection with Umbrail pass had a mild headwind, but nothing like what I'd experienced in the past, though I was glad not to lose further altitude as Umbrail was a high pass, at 2501m. It's only short in comparison with the Stelvio and Gavia, which are its immediate neighbors.

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At the intersection, we filled up our water bottles and headed up the past, which almost immediately started to weave along the mountain top, with hair pin after hair pin greeting us as we gained altitude rapidly.

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Because of the hairpin turns, the grade was consistent, and the smooth surface made for easy riding. I'd never climbed Umbrail before, and I was delighted by it. It's every bit as pretty as the Stelvio, and near the summit, you get great views of the back side of the Stelvio summit. Furthermore, the bus schedule on the pass only has 2 visits by the post bus a day, which ensured that Arturo wouldn't meet his nemesis today. The climb was only interrupted by a hotel 4km up the pass, which also provides a very convenient place for a water stop with an external tap.

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From the climb, I descended at full speed into the Bormio/Livigno intersection, having full faith that Hina and Arturo, having never been down the pass before would stop to take photos.

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By the time everyone had regrouped, it was time for lunch in Bormio. Hina expressed that she was getting sick of supermarket lunches, so we at a sit down lunch at a mediocre restaurant at the intersection of various passes in Bormio, after which we found an ATM issuing Euros for Hina and then headed up towards Santa Caterina on the Gavia. The ride up on this side of the pass is easy, unlike the southern approach. We rolled through a series of towns with lots of water fountains after which the grade steepened a bit but never enough to make us feel like it was hard work, compared with Umbrail pass.
Arriving at the ski town of Santa Catarina at 5:00pm, I wondered if it was too early to stop, but Arturo said, "This is a nice town. Let's stop here." Indeed, the sun had come out and for a ski resort town, Santa Caterina looked gorgeous. I'd stayed at the Park Hotel 3 years prior, but with the benefit of TripAdvisor, Arturo found the best hotel in town was Hotel Nordik. A visit to the tourist information center revealed that they cost only 5 Euros more than the alternatives, so we booked it.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

This was a good choice, because the food at the Nordik wasn't just good, it was plentiful! I got double helpings of the pasta and soup, and even samplings of other dishes. The salad bar was a buffet, and the only thing not up to par was the dessert. I finally felt as though I'd gotten enough food for the first time during the tour.

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July 5th: Filisur to Il Fourn

From Tour of the Alps 2014

The next morning saw overcast skies but dry roads, so no thoughts were given at all to the train station as we headed down back to the Albulapass road. The road to Bergun, which had been my goal the day before rose up through several gorges, and was as pretty a climb as any. We wouldn't have made it to Bergun without riding into a heavy rain, so it was a good thing we'd stopped in Filisur.

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Bergun was as pretty as I remembered, a little town with water fountains, restaurants, and a cobblestone center. We were too early for meals, so after shopping at the local supermarket for our staples, we continued riding up the mountain. Albula pass spans a National Park, so as we climbed past the Glacier Express train line where it entered the tunnel, the area bore less and less sign of civilization. The sun started peaking in through the clouds, lifting our spirits, and giving the scenery by the road a magical light.

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By noon, I'd gotten confident about the weather, and we stopped to book a room at Il Fourn, the National Park hotel near Offenpass I'd passed up several times in previous tours but had always thought would be a good stop. On a weekday, I'd wait until we'd ridden to it and then check if it had rooms, but on a Saturday, a reservation would give us more confidence and also had the benefit of allowing us to ride longer. They only had a 3 person room without an en suite bathroom, but we were all ok with having to use corridor bathrooms and showers, so we confirmed the reservation. We told them that we'd be arriving by bicycle and gave them a conservative arrival time of 6:00pm.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Albulapass' summit and descent were easy, especially since while the top of Albulapass was 2315m, the button of it was nearly 1700m, meaning that the elevation loss was minimal. It was nevertheless a fun descent, with long sightlines, no blind corners, and relatively little traffic despite the weekend. Once in LaPunt, we filled up our water bottles and rolled down towards Zernez on the main road, once again eschewing the bike path in exchange for speed. On the road, we felt many rain drops, but it never actually rained even as we entered Zernez after a series of quick descents along the road.

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A quick stop at the Coop supermarket for another supermarket lunch followed, and it was finally warm enough for ice cream. Arturo noted that while Zernez was at 1400m, Il Fourn was at 1800m, which meant a short 400m climb. I smiled but didn't tell him about the retro-grade after Ova Spin. The climb was steep and reached 1800m quickly at the Ova Spin bus stop, but then immediately dropped 200m to meet with the Livigno tunnel intersection before climbing again to Il Fourn, so when Arturo got to that intersection where I was waiting, he said, "You knew about this, right?" I nodded. This retro-grade is rarely marked on maps, as motorcyclists and car drivers would barely have noticed.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Regardless of the terrain, we arrived at Il Fourn at 5:00pm amidst sunshine, causing the check-in reservation agent to comment that we must have been furiously pedaling to get there. The price of lodging was fair but apparently they didn't serve half pension for short stays, so we were forced to dine using the a la carte menu, which was outrageously priced. Nevertheless, the reappearance of the sun put us in such good spirits that we went for a longish hike after dinner to explore the park further, taking advantage of the long summer days.

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Review: Motorrad ReiseKarten Alpen

This trip was the first where I used the Motorrad ReiseKarten Alpen in the field exclusively. It was a great experience. First, I separated the pages I thought would be useful from the folder. This made a light, compact, and waterproof package, especially sitting in the saddlebag. Every day, I would extract, 1, 2, or 3 pages from the package that we planned to ride through, and then have just those pages available in the handlebar bag that wasn't waterproof. The lamination on the map sections itself isn't perfect: we had one map section that was used extensively over several rainy days, and it was clear that the lamination had began separating from the map. However, the map was never unusable, and it looks like it could survive another tour.

The back of the maps turned out to be useful in terms of booking and finding lodging during the trip. We were able to call Il Fourn based on the phone number available, and make a reservation during the day on Albulapass. The only improvement that could be made there is to have country codes printed on the map to make international dialing easier. However, in the age of smart phones a country code lookup on Google was neither bothersome nor difficult.

The biggest disappointment in the map is in the data. Many towns are missing elevation information. Galleria were not noted on the map, and in some cases, a tunnel mysteriously appear but wasn't marked on the map. This is all data which is secondary to a motorcyclist but quite important to a bicyclist. Just before I left Switzerland I saw a recent edition of Motorrad Atlas Alpenlander in 1:250,000 scale which might have better data, but I was in a hurry and did not have a chance to peruse the map in more detail.

Regardless, however, I consider myself very satisfied with the map collection, and saw many motorcyclists using it, so the collection pretty much sets the standard for touring maps in the Alps.

July 4th: Disentis to Filisur

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We woke up in the morning to discover that the forecast was indeed correct. By breakfast, while the valley Chur was situated in was dry and sunny, one look up towards Lukmanier pass and you could see that rain was already happening. This was a day to do long, flattish miles. We visited the monastery quickly after breakfast, and then took off down the main highway towards Ilanz, eschewing bike paths because those add needless climbs while the road is relatively traffic free and descents fast. Hina and I took turns pace-lining each other, which Arturo didn't take part in since he'd done no club riding prior to the tour and didn't have the confidence to stay close to another rider at speed. I made a note to rectify this later in the tour.

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We made a left turn to ride into Ilanz, where we followed the signs to Versam to get out of town after stopping at a grocery store to pick up some bananas and chocolate. The side road between Ilanz and Versams comes recommended by the OCD, and is actually part of the official bike path to Chur. It first takes you through small towns, but then becomes rural and takes you through a series of gorges. It's like getting to ride in a schlutz, except that the scale is big enough for roads and bicycles. What car traffic there is on the road is fairly trivial, and we had no problems riding side by side into tunnels, for instance.

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With that adventure out of the way, the road drops you along a terminal-velocity descent into Bonaduz, where we arrived just before the supermarket closed to have a supermarket lunch. From there, we could ride up to Thusis and then Tiefencastel, or we could head over to Chur to climb up to the ski resort of Lenzerheide. The map showed a distressing number of tunnels towards Thusis, though I should have remembered the bike path that Phil, Lisa and I used in 2010 from Thusis to Chur. Nonetheless, the Lenzerheide ride in 2007 was quite good, so I opted for the known good road.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

This was a mistake, because the Swiss, like many Europeans, have a much more balanced approach to work-life approach than Americans. This meant that despite it being 1:00pm by the time we started up the climb to Lenzerheide, there was already an active stream of cars traversing the road, weekend warriors escaping the city towards the Swiss National Parks. This added pressure to the ride which I didn't need, since Friday nights are already tough for finding lodging. By the time we made it up to Lenzerheide, our nerves were frazzled from too much traffic interaction, but strangely enough, the traffic died away quickly on the descent, indicating that most of the traffic was to the ski resort, and not to places beyond. At the intersection where we could turn away from Tiefencastel, we took the road towards the Albulapass, and dropped down to Alvaneu following the signs. It had clouded over during the climb, but rain was still restricted to small drops. There weren't any hotels in Alvaneu along the Albula highway, but a Tripadvisor search revealed some highly rated hotels in Filisur, which had a train station. That was attractive, since if the weather turned sour, the train station would make for a good bailout.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Filisur turned out to be a pretty mountain town, but the best rated hotel turned out to be next to the train station which was unusually located at the highest elevation in town. The climb was fine, but we arrived just as rain drops started to pelt. Hina and Arturo noted that they were very close to 100km today, and chose to do a few loops around the train station parking lot to reach 100km. I declined to participate in gratituous riding, preferring to enjoy the little cottage the hotel gave us for the night as it was the only 3 person "room" they had available. The dinner was quite good, and we were pleased to have done so much riding and avoided the rain. The forecast the next day was mixed, but with the train station next to us, even pouring rain wouldn't be able to stop us from making progress.

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July 3rd: Handegg to Disentis/Muster

We woke up the next day to sunny skies, which lifted our moods and got us ready for our first substantial day of climbing. The climb up to Grimsel hospice actually gave us to sunny skies.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Near the hospice, a staff member from the hotel caught up to us and told us the hotel had billed us incorrectly, and we owed them more money than they'd thought. We paid it and they graciously invited us to a cup of coffee at the hospice, but that would have added gratituous climbing to a day that promised a lot of climbing already, so we declined.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

The top of Grimsel pass saw a shimmering lake, as well as a good view of the Furka pass, clearly taller than the Grimsel, with a descent into Gletsch between us and the pass proper. The descent to Gletsch was as fun as usual, long straight stretches separated by consistently engineered Swiss hairpin turns. At the bottom, you could look up and see from whence you came, knowing that you're not nearly close to done with climbing for the day yet.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Climbing the Furka pass is initially a gentle experience, until you cross the railroad tracks and just before the Hotel Belvedere the road suddenly turns up at a 12% grade. The day was warming up and we no longer had to wear leg and arm warmers at that point. Past the Rhone glacier, which is a shadow of its former self, the grade eases up a bit and then levels off until the pass summit sign.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

Pass the summit, the grade is easy until you hit the hairpin past Hotel Tiefenbach, where hairpin after hairpin greets you as you work your way down to Realp and Hospental. That day, headwinds greeted us, but that meant that some turns gave you sidewinds instead, necessitating a judicious speed reduction. Once in Hospental, we searched in vain for the supermarket, which was probably closed, and settled instead for a restaurant at the foot of the St. Gotthard pass.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

The plan was to ride St. Gotthard and then head over to Biasca and then either climb Lukmanier pass or ride down to Bellinzona. Italian-speaking Switzerland frequently has better weather than the northern sections. However, a perusal of the weather apps on the phones indicated that this usual situation was in the process of being reversed. Chur was projected to have better weather than Bellinzona, so we changed our plans to ride the Oberalp pass instead. This type of weather information on-the-go was unavailable until relatively recently, and we were more than happy to take advantage of it.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

I'd remembered Oberalp pass as being an exceedingly easy pass, but that was based on memories of climbing it early in the morning when fresh. Despite the relatively easy 8% grade, it's still 600m from bottom to top, and a bit of a drag in the warm afternoon sun. By the time we reached the summit with the lake and cafe, Arturo had proclaimed that he was pretty darn tired. It turned out that he had bonked without realizing it, since an ice cream later he was ready to roll on.

From Tour of the Alps 2014

I'd remembered the beautiful ride between Ilanz and Versams from the 2005 tour (later replicated in the 2007 tour), and hoped to make Ilanz to start the next day fairly early, but it was already 6pm and so we found a hotel using TripAdvisor, which had a 3 person room and a half pension, as well as being a short walk from the famous monastery in the town. The monastery was closed in the evening, but we were hopeful for the next morning.

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July 2nd: Rosenlaui to Handegg

We woke up in the morning to gloomy skies, confirming the decision yesterday to not rush the day. With that in mind, Arturo and Hina went to the Rosenlaui schlutz after breakfast, reporting that it was indeed wilder and more natural than the Aare schlutz visited 2 days ago. After that, we headed down to Meiringen to see the Sherlock Holmes museum and for Hina and Arturo to mail stuff. The activities of the past 2 days along with the weather had convinced Hina that her summer dresses were superfluous, as well as various heavy electronics. I had failed to convince her that she did not need both her Kindle and her iPad, however. Arturo mailed off his old jacket now that he had a spiffy new one.

The Sherlock Holmes museum wasn't open until after 1:30pm, so we decided to skip it for this tour and headed up the Kirchet pass to eat at the Lammi restaurant. Unfortunately, the owners of the Lammi had decided to close for the day until 4:30pm, so we were out of luck there as well. Instead, we rolled down to the hotel Alpina at the foot of the Grimsel pass and had lunch before heading up the pass.

At Gutannen, we stopped at the grocery store for some bananas, chocolate, and some rest. "For some reason this climb feels much harder than the previous couple of days!" said Arturo. "That's because you're carrying  a load today and you were riding unloaded yesterday!" "Oh, that makes sense!" A group of Koreans came down the mountain on the cleanest mountain bikes I'd ever seen, indicating that their bikes had seen less dirt riding than our road bikes had. One of them dropped by Arturo's bike and played with his GPS before Arturo could stop him, screwing up Arturo's settings for a while, though not actually causing him to lose data.

As we rode up the mountain the clouds got lower and lower and the light sprinkles became more and more substantial, until at the hotel Handegg, we could see the fog and rain up ahead, causing us to stop for the night. At the hotel lobby my heart sank when I saw that they were hosting a conference, but it turned out that the conference wasn't big enough to occupy the entire hotel, and there was plenty of room for us.

I'd last stayed at the hotel on my first trip to the alps in 2003. Back then, we didn't have time to explore the facilities, but this time not only were the prices comparatively lower, we had time to visit the spa, sit in the hot tub, and try the sauna. Since Handegg had wifi, I could also call home and make sure that all was well. The food was comparatively good, though not stunning like Andrea's cooking. I told Arturo and Hina to keep their expectations low for the rest of the trip, since not everything could be like Rosenlaui, though Handegg was pretty good, and better than I remembered.

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