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Day 4 - A mixed bag
The hotel receptionist was unequivocal - 'tomorrow is better. Today will be rain'. Much discussion ensued over an amazing hotel breakfast. What we all agreed on was that we didn’t come all this way to ride up the stelvio and have no views. James looked at the camera on the top of the Stelvio which appeared to have a grey blanket covering the lens. Trevor and Bridget were undeterred and opted climb the Gavia. The other four of us opted to ride down to the valley floor. Bormio is already over one thousand metres up from sea level. There was segregated bike path almost all the way to Sandolo 20km away.
The ride there was fantastic. Our photos this week will just not do the views justice. Just after Sandolo though the heavens opened with a proper rain storm. Rachel, Fiona and I planned a return ride on the route we came on. James went looking for another mountain to climb.
On the way back we realised just how much gentle downhill coasting we must have been doing earlier and I had completely failed to notice the nasty climb in the middle 4km. Fiona may have been last up but once over the top she suddenly put the hammer down and I got dropped. I can catch two women I thought. I was wrong. I could not. I have no idea if she snd Rachel planned it but I was well and truly spanked.
Meanwhile James had gone up one mountain, got caught in thunder and lightning, decided not to try going back down in the rain and opted to try another way back. This took him up the Gavia and added another 50km to his ride. Or did he plan it all? He's already climbed more metres on the warm up rides than I planned for the week. The bloke is an animal.