July 1: Madulain to Bergun

Despite the rain last night, the morning brought us beautiful sunshine, giving us motivation to ride the Albulapass. It was a shortish ride today, so we got going only at 9:00am, and began by riding to the Vogl at the bottom of the Albulapass to buy bananas.

Riding up the Albula pass from the La Punt side has less climbing (less than 700m) but in exchange the initial switchbacks are at 12% grade. We gained elevation rapidly and the day was warm. We stopped at the trailhead which would have taken us to Madulain for water and snacks and a skiier with summer skis (essentially inline skates with long board) passed us. She must have been an Olympic caliber skier as she rapidly distanced us.

Boen worked really hard and soon we were at Alp Alesch where there was some sort of summer camp program for teenagers. Boen stopped to play with the goats while we waited for Bowen. It being warm, we refilled our water bottles after Bowen joined us and we kept going up the hill. The slope became more gradual once the road finished its series of corners, and the vistas opened up. Grand, wild, and desolate, Albulapass is one of the prettiest passes in the alps. Kids on mountain bikes went up the hill with vim as we waited for Bowen at one of the more photogenic spots. Once he joined us we went quite a bit faster and were soon at the summit where we took photos at the Albula Hospiz.

The descent on this side of Albula is equally stunning, with distant views at the top and then twisty turns and corners as you coast through the famed "Glacier Express" train route which at the summit uses a tunnel so as a cyclist you wouldn't even know there was a train through the mountain at all!

We stopped at a waterfall to hike to it, walking a little bit pass a barn. Even though the forecast was for thunderstorms in the afternoon, we could take our time as it was still early and we had time and the sky still looked completely blue. My real destination, however, was Palpunogasee, a pretty alpine lake that I'd always wanted to hike around but never found the time to do so. As previously mentioned, on a climb it's a hard sell to take time to do an extra hike knowing you have more climbing to do, and the last time I descended in this direction Bowen was cold and didn't want to walk.

The circumnavigation of the lake was as scenic as I had hoped for and we took our time. When we finished, we rolled down to Bergun and Hotel Piz Ela which we had booked the evening before, having found that all the other hotels were full or outrageously expensive. The hotel's reception was empty, but a visit to the restaurant at the back found the owner who was receptive to letting us check in early, park the bikes, and leave our luggage in the room!

Lunch was at the Vogl down the street supplemented by ice cream and chocolate at the bakery across the street. After that, we pondered what to do. I looked at Alltrails and decided that the Railroad Adventure Hike from Preda to Bergun was doable in the time we had left. We walked to the train station in Bergun where the train was uncharacteristically 15 minutes late, and took the train one stop up to Preda, which in other places would have been a nice alpine village with lodging but despite the railroad company's attempt to grow a village there never developed.

Getting off the train station, we found the well signed tail with no problems, and it was indeed an exciting hike, taking 2 hours to do what the train did in 15 minutes. The trail follows the train tracks, but from below and above, and you get remarkable vistas that show off classic pictures of the Glacier Express railroad. Since there's only one track, the frequency of trainspotting on this track is twice the frequency that you expect, since you get one train in each direction per hour. It's even more than that because you see the same train multiple times as the track twists and turns at well below 6% grades in order for the train to make the climb without resorting to a cog railway setup. We saw more than one photographer standing in place waiting to get their perfect shot of the train as it negotiated those corners.

At this point, we were starting to get clouds around us. These escalated to an occasional raindrop here and there, nudging us to quicken our pace, which was not a problem as the hike was mostly downhill. This hike was definitely a highlight of our stay in Bergun and I was glad that we'd finally had a chance to stop there. The hike was also punctuated with signs providing a history of the railway construction as well as interesting facts about the area.

Finally, the trail dumped us out onto the main road which we could take into town. We would find out later that we'd missed the final section of the trail, but no matter. At this point rain became a light drizzle. As we walked into town thunder was heard and it was no longer a drizzle. We dashed to our hotel as we spotted lightning flashes and walked through the hotel door just as the thunderstorm came down! We had made use of every dry minute of the day!

We took showers, did laundry, and had dinner at the hotel restaurant, venturing out only for our after dinner walk. The day had cooled down a lot because of the rain and it was even a little chilly but Bergun was beautiful, justifying our spending the extra time here.

That night, I observed that we'd have to take the train to Munich on Saturday, necessitating that we be in Lindau, Germany on Friday night. It was usually not a good idea to book a hotel this far out, but it was a Friday and Lindau was an impacted destination. We booked the Hotel Das Ludwig near the Lindau train station so we could stay on the island proper for Friday. I did the math and noted that we'd be in Lenzerheide on Wednesday night, somewhere along the route to the Bodensee on Thursday night, probably in Austria as it would be much cheaper than Switzerland. The end of our tour was in sight!

Review: Ortlieb Saddlebag 4 liter

 I'd been using the old style Ortlieb mini handlebar bag. While it's satisfactory for most of my purposes, it had several drawbacks, chiefest of which was that by using the front of the handlebar, you have to find alternative locations for your front light. When you add up the bag, the bag mount, and the additional accoutements to mount the front light, it's actually substantial weight. On the tandem it doesn't matter, but on my single bike I really would prefer as light a setup as possible, while still making it possible to mount a radar tail light.

The only model I could find that fit all those requirements was the Ortlieb Saddlebag 4L. I ordered one and discovered to my dismay that the mount didn't fit the Ritchey WCS saddle! Fortunately, Pamela Bayley had sold/given me a smaller Ortlieb seatbag and that one came with a mount that worked. (I would later replace the screws that came with the newer bag with ones that work) Since all Ortlieb saddlebag mounts are cross compatible it was no issue to use them. My complaint about this design is that it's unnecessary --- I would much rather have had velcro wings which would have been less finicky.

The saddlebag slides onto the mount, and ties to the seatpost using a velcro strap. I was worried that I would feel the saddlebag with my thighs while riding, but to my surprise this turned out to be a non-issue. The drybag style flap clips off to the side and by tightening the straps it becomes narrow enough that thighs clear the saddlebag with no problems. One disturbing thing about the bag is that invariably there's sufficient air in the saddlebag to make it bulge a little, so sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get the air out. A valve would have been useful though that would have increased the weight. As a result of this air, sometimes that bag will rattle especially if it's not completely full.

When I go on a really lightweight ride, I replace this saddlebag with a mini bag that uses the same mount and has much less volume. It's little enough effort to switch that I do it as a matter of course. But for bay area riding the 4L bag is what you want: you can put in a windshell, arm and leg warmers, and snacks and tools for an extended ride while still having room for your radar. If you pack really light it might even suffice for an overnighter, though that's not in the cards for me as I would need to pack a CPAP machine and this bag just doesn't have sufficient volume for that.

For commuting, this bag will NOT fit any laptops. But bikepacking style saddlebags won't fit any laptop anyway. For carrying a laptop you still want the traverse style saddlebag.

The bag is a little expensive but it did everything I wanted it to do. Recommended.

June 30th: Zernez to Maudalin

It was cloudy as we had breakfast early on Monday morning. After we packed and started getting the bikes out, the landlady showed up and told us our room wasn't clean enough and I had to give her 30 euros as a cleaning fee to get her off our backs. It started drizzling as we left the apartment, and the weather was coming from Berninapass, so all hope of riding the Bernina pass were crushed.

Riding the road back to the tunnel was straightforward. To my surprise, we didn't find any pacelines to draft off of, so we had to do all the work ourselves. Racing a 8:45am deadline, we slowed several times to let Bowen get back onto our draft, and arrived just in time to find that the bus wasn't there. The bus driver was late! When the bus driver showed up after 15 minutes, he had to hook up the trailer first, and then we had to put the tandem into the van. Since we were the only customers for that shuttle this was not an issue.

Arriving on the other side of the tunnel at 9:21, we started the climb up to Ova Spin, which is an easy climb from the 1600m tunnel. At the top of Ova Spin, we met a British couple who complained that they were sick of climbing mountains, having come up via Grimsel, Furka, Lenzerheide, and Albula. They were eager to get to the Alto Aldige bike path so they could have flat riding to Turkey. Ova Spin is not a real pass, and doesn't even have a pass marker, just a bus stop to commemorate your achievement.

The descent from Ova Spin to Zernez is fast and easy. There was some construction, which put a damper on our top speed. But the rain had stopped completely so while the roads were still wet we didn't get a single drop of rain on our jackets. At the bottom we stopped at the covered bike path bridge where we took off our jackets and leg warmers and prepared for the climb up the Maudalin.

Disappointingly, the bike path quickly dumped us back onto the main road after bypassing downtown Zernez. We had plenty of food from Livigno, so we didn't need food, so that was of no concern. To our surprise, the day started warming up as the sun emerged from behind the clouds. We started getting concerned about our chocolate melting, so we stopped and ate all the chocolate before starting a series of climbs that would take us up the Inn river towards Zuoz.

The road gave us beautiful views of the Engadin valley, including the river at times. I'd never seen the road from this direction before, and when going downhill you don't actually have a lot of time to gawk, especially since last year we were doing it while being chased by a thunderstorm and a postbus.

Arriving in Zuoz, we found the Spar around noon and had a supermarket lunch. During lunch, we looked at lodging options and decided that the Madulain lodge was a good choice. We booked it online and proceeded to buy dinner and breakfast, since the Madulain had a shared kitchen and the village itself was too small to have a supermarket!

Loading up the bike, we rode towards Maudalin. Somehow, Google maps detoured us onto a bike path (I would keep learning that Google maps is bad news on a bike tour) that ended up on dirt. It was pretty and of course we had plenty of time so it wasn't a concern, but it was pretty warm. I was surprised that it was so warm at 1600m, but then I reflected that Livigno was at 1800m and it felt pretty warm there too! Arriving at the Madulain Lodge at 1:00pm, we realized it was too early to checkin and the place was unstaffed. Our solution was to go for a hike!

We locked up the bikes behind the lodge, switched to walking shoes, and Xiaoqin proceeded to find a hiking path for us to use. The Engadin is super steep, so was the corresponding climb. We took our time, knowing that we had until 4:00pm or so before the automated system would grant us access. The path led us to castle ruins overlooking the valley. The views were nothing short of glorious. Hiking on, we found the fork, one direction of which would take us to the Albula pass, and the other would take us back into town.

We would see Albulapass tomorrow, plus the hike back to town would be far longer if we went that direction, so hiked into town, where the route opened up (once the trees are gone you have a clear view), and we had expensive Swiss ice cream at the Hotel Chesa Colani before getting to the Madulain Lodge where we were finally given key codes to unlock. The clear skies had given way to clouds.

Inside, we were given two rooms in one wing. No one else was in the wing, but the kitchen was shared with the other wing. Since we were earliest, we took showers, did laundry in the kitchen sink, and prepared dinner and ate it. As we were in the middle of dinner, other people moved into the other wing and started using the kitchen too.  Soon, it started raining in earnest and we finally had the promised thunderstorm around 6:30pm. By 8:00pm, however, it had eased up a bit and we could take a short after dinner walk without being thoroughly soaked, though we did not dare wander far from the lodge.

June 29: Pontresina Panaromic Hike

We got up early, ate breakfast, and got onto the bus which looked like a small airport shuttle to the top of Bernina pass. The bus was a few minutes late, but in true Swiss fashion, it sync'd perfectly with the bus that would take us to Muttas Muragl, the funicular railway that would take us to the start of the hike. It was already pretty warm despite the early hour, and the bus delivered us just in time to miss the previous train, which runs every half an hour. That gave us plenty of time to buy tickets, and it turned out that they opened up the funicular less than 15 minutes after we bought tickets so we could get in.

The funicular took us to a beautiful location with a zipline, and swings, and a nice playground. It wasn't very crowded, being early, so we took our time and looked around. Far to the south we could see the St Moritzersee and the Silvaplanarsee, beyond which was Maloja Pass which defined the border between Switzerland and Italy.

Starting the hike, we were impressed by the views of the Bernina Glacier as well, and of cousre the many wildflowers along the trail. Whenever there was a river crossing, there was a nice bridge. The entire trail was well maintained and pretty.

To my surprise, there was even a tunnel on the hike. We knew we would likely miss the 12:00pm anyway, so we took our time, stretching out the walk. When we got to the finish, the location where the ski lift would take us back down, Boen used the bathroom while we sat enjoying the cool breeze.

Back down in Pontresina, all the shops were closed, but we could buy ice cream and there was a bakery with some snacks available, though all at Swiss prices. When the bus came, we boarded it and the afternoon bus had no transfers, taking us all the way back to Livigno.

In Livigno, all the stores were open, so we bought supermarket lunch, dinner to cook, and Xiaoqin replenished her supply of contact lens solution. For grins, I asked how much a Fenix was, since apparently Livigno had its own tax regime, so things should be cheaper. I was disappointed as the sale prices weren't any better than what I could get in the USA.

After lunch, I chatted with the land lady and asked for another pod of laundry detergent so we could do laundry, and then I took the kids to the swimming pool where we had several runs with the water slides. It wasn't as much fun as Mayrhofen and it cost a lot more, but it was a hot day and the pool gave us something to do.

We made dinner and then went to bed early. The forecast was for rain, so our plan was to ride to the tunnel, ride to Zernez and then towards Albulapass. La Punt had expensive lodging, but the village just before that was a lot cheaper. It was also a lot less climbing so the kids wouldn't complain.

June 28: Trafoi to Livigno (with bus transfer from Santa Maria Val Mustair)

Late in the evening, Arturo had asked me what alternatives to Bolzano there were for getting back to Munich, as all the trains from there were booked on Sunday! I replied "Landeck", and he grabbed the last bike reservation from Innsbruck to Munich, as the train from Landeck back to Innsbruck didn't need bike reservations.

We got started at breakfast just as it opened. The breakfast was elegant and they even came by to ask us if we had egg orders. After that, we packed, delivered luggage to the RV, and began the climb to Hotel Franzenshohe where we would regroup for ice cream and snacks. The climb was beautiful and not very steep, but we would regret not starting earlier as it warmed up very quickly. We would later learn that this was the start of a big heat wave in Europe that would kill many people in the southern European countries.

Boen wasn't feeling as strong as he did yesterday, and at one point when I misjudged a corner I had to stop as another cyclist came down on the same side of the road we were on, and we had to walk. Bowen caught up to us and teased Boen for having to walk, turning the tables on their usual brotherly dynamic. Of course, Boen wasn't going to take that lying down and quickly poured on the power and distanced his brother.

At the 22nd hairpin we stopped at the Hotel Franzenshohe and had ice cream. I tried to persuade the others that the hiking trails behind the hotel were worth exploring but I got no takers. Both the heat and the remaining amount of climbing had taken their tolls on people's morale. I realized then that if you're going to schedule a hike during a bike ride, it is best to do it on the descent after the day's climbing was over. I would put this theory to the test later on in the trip.

The last 700m up to the summit was fairly straightforward, but not straight. The road zig-zags through 22 hairpins and the air got thin enough that even though we were acclimated slowed us down. But after the last hairpin the road actually becomes gentler and you get to ride that last half km in a euphoria and with lots of people cheering you on.

At the top, we got bad news. The road to Bormio was closed due to a landslide. We had seen no signs about this, and the website we consulted about it yesterday evening was updated at least a month ago. I was distressed because we had non-refundable hotel reservations in Isolaccia. After confirming that there was no way down to Bormio, we resigned ourselves. First, we ate lunch. Then, we would get our luggage from the RV. Before doing that, however, I realized that we were carrying a jersey that was too big for Boen that he never wanted to wear, so I bought a new Stelvio jersey for Boen and then we gave Stephan a bunch of equipment we weren't going to use for the rest of our tour to bring home. Otto Senior had had enough of driving steep, narrow mountain roads with an RV. Arturo had to return to Munich the next day, and Mark wanted to ride back to Zurich. This truly was the breaking of the fellowship. I had no plans other than to make it down to Santa Maria. Otto and Boen both said: "See, this wouldn't have happened if we'd chosen to ride the Silvretta instead!" We would later discover via Mark that Silvretta had a similar closure! Late spring rains really did a number on all the roads in the area.

We rode down the Stelvio to the Umbrail pass intersection, and rode down it. Unlike the last time I descended the road, I didn't have to stop to let the brakes cool, since the tandem only had the two of us on it. We stopped briefly at Hotel Alpenrose where we had stayed in 2022, and then back down to Santa Maria. At Santa Maria, we said goodbye to everyone else. Xiaoqin would observe that Boen looked unhappy, but after he saw everyone being happy and waving his social instincts took over and he calmed down instead of becoming upset.

It was 3:00pm, and Xiaoqin and I debated staying in Santa Maria. "But what's the plan tomorrow?" said Boen. "We climb over Ofenpass!" "No!" I then observed that we were right in front of a bus stop that would take us over Ofenpass to the Livigno tunnel. Livigno had a lot of lodging despite it being a Saturday, and would be higher and cooler than Santa Maria. It would also mean that the bus took us over Ofenpass. The only question was whether the bus would take our bike, including the tandem. I tried calling the postbus info line but it being a Saturday they weren't taking any calls. We had nothing to lose (there was plenty of lodging in Santa Maria), so we could just wait.

To our delight, the bus was towing a huge bike rack behind it, and the Roadini and Ritchey Road logic easily fit on it. The tandem wouldn't fit, but the bus driver calmly just opened up the bottom compartment of the bus and helped me slide the tandem into it. No decoupling. I'd never climbed Ofenpass from this direction before, and it was clear that it was much steeper and harder than from the other direction, indicating that Boen's instincts about not wanting to ride it was well founded. The scenery was nice though!

At the Livigno tunnel, we got off and stood behind some other cyclists for the Livigno tunnel bus, but when the designated time came the bus did not show up! One of the cyclists had stayed in Livigno for the past 2 weeks and we asked him if it was frequently late and he said "No, it'd always been on time." Another pair of cyclists were also caught up in the Bormio closure and were hoping to ride all the way to Bormio that evening.

Fortunately, Swiss bus drivers are a lot more reliable than Italian ones, so at the designated time, the Swiss postbus arrived and we boarded with our bikes. Once on the bus and assured that we could get to Livigno I booked an apartment near the bus stop for 2 nights.  The kids were tired so rather than made them ride all the way to Livigno I paid the absurd bus fare to go all the way downtown, reasoning that we'd get to ride to the tunnel 2 days later if the forecasts were correct.

Once downtown, however, we had to ride uphill to get registered with the apartment management company who then checked us in and released payment to the apartment owner and then we had to ride back to just past the bus stop. The apartment building was freshly built and they were still painting the garage. We were let in and showed the facilities which included a good sized kitchen. We were told that the supermarkets actually closed pretty late (at 8:00pm) and the apartment washing machine was available for us to use. So we walked out to dinner at a nearby restaurant and shopped for breakfast after placing our orders.

The kids were exhausted and it was clearly time for another rest day. I had decided that we should visit Pontresina to do their panaromic walk. Pontresina was so expensive that the money we saved by staying in Livigno would more than pay for the expensive bus + mountain funicular + cable car ride to Pontresina. The town of Livigno also had all shops open on Sunday, unlike Pontresina where no supermarket could be had. That meant we could cook dinner tomorrow night, saving us even more money. This cushioned the blow of losing our non-refundable lodging fee.

The others safely arrived at their respective lodging half way back up the climb to the Reschensee.

Review: Novelist as a Vocation

 I enjoyed Norwegian Wood enough to check out what Haruki Murakami thought about his career as a novelist. Novelist as a Vocation is an original, unique work on the topic. Murakami is humble enough not to prescribe his working style to anyone else, and his unique life means that he has a lot to offer in his thoughts.

The early essays focus on his start as a novelist, and how one day he decided to write a novel, hand-wrote a manuscript over a few months, and then decided it was trash. He then gave up pen and paper and got out a typewriter and rewrote the story in English, not his native language. He claimed that this experience forced him to use simplified language and short words, and after he was done he translated the chapter(s) into Japanese and finished the novel that way, winning a literary price. What a unique experience and insight! By the way, this probably explains why Norwegian Wood didn't feel very much like a Japanese novel. The guy is completely steeped in Western literature, music, and even culture!

His thinking about writing a novel is that a novel is a uniquely inefficient way to get a message across:

Someone whose message is clearly formed has no need to go through the many steps it would take to transpose that message into a story. All he has to do is put it directly into words—it’s much faster and can be easily communicated to an audience. A message or concept that might take six months to turn into a novel can thus be fully developed in a mere three days. Or in ten minutes, if the writer has a microphone and can spit it out as it comes to him. Quick thinkers are capable of that kind of thing. The listener will slap his knee and marvel, “Why didn’t I think of that?!” In the final analysis, that’s what being smart is really all about. (kindle loc 225)

I love that rather than the moaning and groaning about how hard writing is, he talks about how writing was never hard for him. He basically works on the side as a translator of English books, and only writes when the urge consumes him:

 I never write unless I really want to, unless the desire to write is overwhelming. When I feel that desire, I sit down and set to work. When I don’t feel it, I usually turn to translating from English. Since translation is essentially a technical operation, I can pursue it on a daily basis, quite separate from my creative desire; yet at the same time it is a good way to hone my writing skills—were I not a translator, I’m sure I would have found another related pursuit. If I am in the mood, I may also turn to writing essays. “What the heck,” I defiantly tell myself as I peck away at those other projects. “Not writing novels isn’t going to kill me.” (kindle 956)

There are some interesting things that betray Murakami's protestations about his character. Early on in the book he has an entire chapter devoted to how he was glad he didn't win this prestigious prize for upcoming new writers. Later, he writes about how the Japanese criticism of his work led him to leave Japan to write Norwegian Wood so that he didn't have to listen to the critics while he was writing. Clearly the guy is much more sensitive to criticism than he lets on.

I love that his writing habits is to do a certain number of pages a day, and then stop. No more and no less. He also has a devotion to physical fitness, having run an hour a day for almost his entire working life. This of course disturbs the common image of a writer:

I have the sense that no one is hoping that a writer lives in a quiet suburb, lives a healthy early-to-bed-early-to-rise lifestyle, goes jogging without fail every day, likes to make healthful vegetable salads, and holes up in his study for a set period every day to work. I have the anxious sense that all I’m doing is throwing a damper on people’s sense of the romantic. (kindle loc 1624)

Finally there's a great implicit criticism of Japanese academic approach to schools and teaching. Murakmi always refers to himself as being a mediocre student who effectively dropped out of school (he did finish his degree but over a period of years) to start a Jazz cafe. His criticism of Japanese schools will give you much to think about if you were to apply it to the Bay Area parenting hothouse culture:

There were lots of kids who had better grades on English tests than me, but as far as I could tell, none of them could read a book in English from cover to cover. Yet I could easily plow through an entire book. Then why were my grades in English class so mediocre? The conclusion I came to was that the goal of English classes in Japanese high schools was not to get students to use actual, living English. Then what was the goal? There was only one: for students to get high marks on the English section of the college entrance exams. At least for the teachers in the public high school I attended, being able to read books in English or have ordinary conversations with foreigners was beside the point... This goes beyond English, or the study of foreign languages. I can’t help thinking that in almost every subject, Japan’s educational system fundamentally fails to consider how to motivate each individual to improve their potential. Even now the system seems intent on going by the book to cram in facts and teach test-taking techniques. And teachers and parents live and die by how many of their students and children get into various universities. It’s all kind of sad. When I was in school my parents and teachers always warned me, “You’ve got to study as hard as you can while you’re in school. Otherwise when you grow up you’ll regret not having studied more when you were young.” But after I left school I never thought that, not even once. For me it was more regret that I hadn’t done more things I enjoyed doing. Being forced to do that kind of rote memorization, I felt, wasted my life. (kindle loc 1774-1798)

All in all, the book is short, but full of stuff worth reading. I certainly found it more enlightening or maybe even enjoyable than his fiction!

 

June 27: Pfunds to Trafoi

 

It was clear and beautiful in the morning, perfect for our climb up from Pfunds. We rode up the road a bit and then descended to the Pfunds campground to drop off our bags. After that, it was a ride on the bike path until Voderrauth, where we rejoined the main road rather than staying on the bike path.  The bike path there would take you along a series of unnecessary climbs while the road on a Friday morning had relatively little traffic.

After a few galleries, we crossed into the Swiss border and the road got appreciably smoother as it went through a series of galleries before descending down to the river at Martina. At Martina, we stopped at the water fountain to refill our water bottles and then crossed the border back into Austria to begin climbing Nobbertspass. This was my third time climbing it and it was by far the easiest, having started when fresh and on a relatively cool day.

At the top, we regrouped. Xiaoqin's power meter had drained, and with Bowen's Edge 830 broken, we just moved the battery from his power meter onto hers. My power meter battery had also drained yesterday, but I had replaced it last night. Boen's power meter battery was also drained, but I hadn't brought the charger for that power meter so it was going to stay dead the rest of the trip.

When everyone had arrived, we descended to Nauders and bought lunch at the Mpreis supermarket. We didn't eat there, however, as it was still early and I knew the perfect place for a picnic. Following the bike path towards Reschenpass, we noted big displays that indicated that there was huge cycling event soon to happen. Then I remembered that Nauders was famous for the Night Race that was happening tonight! It was a good thing we weren't planning to stay in town that evening as there was likely to be no lodging available!

Part of the bike path was closed so we backtracked a bit and then rode towards the Italian border, where we stopped to take the obligatory picture at the zero kilometer marker designating the start of the Alto Aldige bike path that could take you all the way to Lake Garda, Verona and Venice if you were so inclined.

The weird thing about the border is that the climbing doesn't stop! It keeps going uphill until just before the Reschensee. Once we hit the Reschensee, a right turn took you to a playground with a zipline, a shaded park bench, and a water fountain, ideal ingredients for a picnic lunch. Of course we had lunch there, and took turns on the zipline as well.

The ride along the Reschensee bike path is gorgeous. It's not flat, but undulates enough to grant you dramatic views of the famous half-buried church tower designating the town that was drowned when the dam was constructed, as well as the lake proper. It is truly one of the prettiest bike paths you can use and it dumps you right on top of the hydro-electric dam that created the lake. From there, it's a series of fast and furious descents starting with the Lago della Muta Haldersee and then dropping all the way to Clusio, then Laudes. The bike path has been re-routed in recent years and now there are no longer any wacky turns to unwanted places but drops you directly into Glorenza.

In Glorenza, there's a hotdog stand that Arturo has waxed lyrical about for years, having missed it last year when it was closed as we were headed down to Merano. This year it was open and he bought everyone who wanted a hotdog one! What was new to me was the fresh strawberry vending machine next to the hot dog stand, and we bought berries from there too. From here, it was a hop, skip, and a jump to get to Prato Allo Stelvio, where we filled our water bottles before starting the climb of the East side of the Stelvio in the afternoon heat.

Fortunately, this afternoon wasn't that hot, and to my surprise, since the last time we came by this way, the Italians had finished building the bike path from the bottom of the climb to the first bridge, the most annoying section of the Stelvio. This separated bike path not only granted peace and quiet to a cyclist climbing at a low speed compared with the prevailing motor traffic, but was also right next to the river, for maximum cooling effect and scenic beauty! So the climb was very pleasant, and Boen and I took advantage of it before it disappeared just before the first gallery marking the final ascent to the village of Gomogoi.

From Gomogoi to Trafoi was steep, with a short section at 12% grade, but it was also high enough that the worst of the heat was behind us. Boen and I had long gotten rid of our helmets for maximum climbing pleasure, and we arrived at Trafoi in due course at the Hotel Madatsch. At the hotel, however, we realized that Otto Senior had been riding, and wouldn't be back for a while --- it turned out that we had missed him coming the other way!

When he did arrive, we rode with him to the campground and picked up the luggage, then rode back to the hotel to check in. After we checked in, we went back just as Bowen and Xiaoqin arrived with Stephan and Otto. We got settled in. The hotel was fancy, but we'd booked cheap rooms and hence the view was better outside the hotel than from inside the room. But the room was big and the elevator worked, and there was even a balcony where we could dry our clothing!

A fancy hotel like this even had free snacks, potato chips, pop corn, etc. As we were starving, we grabbed the free stuff and sat outside to enjoy the scenery. Dinner was great, and we were starving so everything tasted good. I made multiple rounds to the salad bar, which in Italian fashion was never really refilled so the good stuff disappeared early.

After dinner, we walked up the street and discovered that the road was blocked! Arturo spoke to the manned blockade and we were told that this was the Stelvio Night event, where only bicycles, pedestrians, and so forth were allowed on the mountain until 8am! If we hadn't already paid for the hotel we might have been tempted to ride it. Well, not really, we'd already done plenty of riding that day! A glorious alpenglow surrounded us on our walk and we felt ourselves fortunate.