Day 64: Bruneck to Sterzing

June 15, 2022

Major international cycle route, so WTF??

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Ben ParkeThe SS road is the official detour. I just looked up my gpa data, and that’s where everyone was routed last year. Maybe something changed since then, but perhaps the sign was referring to an on-ramp for the autobahn?
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2 years ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Ben ParkeSometimes when a driveway crosses a bike path you can see a big sign - bike path ends, then on the other side of the driveway, bike path begins. Maybe it was something like that, but it's sure there was not sufficient signage for whatever it was.
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2 years ago

Ben ParkeTo Steve Miller/GrampiesAbsolutely agree. I encountered two detours in that area and both were poorly signed. It looks from the map like you ended up on the opposite side of the valley from where the route should have been running. Map apps have the road currently listed as the official route. You would think Italy could get around to fixing things a bit quicker than this though. It’s been nearly a year.
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2 years ago

The story follows pretty normal lines, illustrated by the first photos below, before it takes its first twist. As usual, I looked at the other stored bikes, in this case in a spare section of the restaurant. It felt like a lot, but of course not up to the 30+ bike agglomerations we have seen elsewhere.

In front of the albergo all was calm, again the usual early morning appearance of what can seem very active in the evening.

We headed off up the Rienz river, which no doubt was running through its own early morning routine.

We passed through town, with me thinking that as claimed yesterday, it really did not have an ugly or overly busy outer city. And within 1 km we were out in the fields. In this case, potato fields. Now because this was to be a bit of a special day, you get to listen in on the inane conversation that sometimes occupies people cycling together: "Oh look, potatoes", "Yes and they are already in flower", "Well great, when we it Austria we will be able to count on pommes with our schnitzel."

Followed by "Oh, look dog training, take the photo. Get the whole setup not just one dog, eh."

But in addition to these innocent exchanges, there was one other line of inquiry: "I think something is rubbing with my wheel", "Maybe just mud, let's stop and bang on the front fender", "No, it's in the rear".

So we stopped, about a km out of Bruneck, and had a look. It was a weird situation. A little screw goes through the front part of Dodie's fender and holds it to the frame, and away from the tire. This screw had completely backed itself out, but rather than just fall to the pavement, it was hanging around between the fender and the tire. The rubbing sound came not only from the screw but also from the fact that on the inside of the fender is running a wire in a guide. Without the action of the screw, the wire and guide were rubbing on the tire!

Since the screw was now in my hand, the fix was just to screw it back in, right? Not quite. There was no room to get the screw in and tighten it. The only way would be to remove the wheel. But removing the wheel with Dodie's bike is not so simple. It has a seven bolt system for securing the wheel and adjusting the chain tension. And it has the internal gearing, with the hard to reinstall cable ending and tricky "yellow dot" gear adjustment. It's not that I couldn't do it, but it would be a real pain, slight learning experience, and take time, out in the sun by the trailside.

I had noticed one bike shop as we left town, the GPS spotted one a little closer but for either it was back to town for us.

We landed in front of the ForBiker shop, and we were in luck - it was open!

Drawing on some of our French experience, I said to Dodie - "Go in and appear to be a really desperate pathetic tourist". That was easy, because it was true.

"Julian" came out for a look, and pronounced the expected "We are really busy and could not possibly look at it". But as you see in the photo, Dodie turned on the charm, or the pathos. Julian, sweet boy, relented, and took the crippled bike inside the shop. Fifteen minutes later it was fixed. He also tightened the headset, which is something that had been concerning Dodie for some time.

So a big shout out today goes to Julian of the ForBiker shop in Bruneck. He put us back on the trail.

Back on the trail meant back to the potatoes and the dog training. We dutifully repeated the conversations, until we finally burst out into new territory. Who knew what new adventures would await!

The first new thing we saw was twin church towers each with their own design. I already had a photo like this from yesterday, and accused the navigator of going in circles. But no, this was an all new twin tower event, so here it is:

Just for the record, these were yesterday's towers - all different!

From this point the cycling-touring was again pretty standard. We saw a "castle", and one of us argued that a real castle needs towers, preferably with pennants. The other held that a "schloss" is still a castle and does not require pennants.

The river we had been following had some exciting rapids or damming.

But for a lot of the time it was a good quality, level but boring path by either the rail line or the river.

To the credit of the radweg people or maybe the local tourism people, on the path by each town is a panel giving the town historical highlights and things to see, if you divert only a little and go in. We tended to look at their maps and to guess just how far some of the delights might be. For example, this church was supposed to have a super interior, but until we were able to make this telephoto shot it seemed to remote to cycle over to.

Here from the radweg you see the rail line and the river, and the town on the other side, with sights that may or may not have been worth the diversion.

As we approached Muhlbach there was an interesting ruin, but right now we have no history for it. The town itself seemed mostly built on the side of a hill. Though it was quiet in the centre, there did not appear to be any true focus, such as a church or square. There was a nice water trough, though, where we sat to eat our sandwiches. A nearby sign described how until they cleaned up the piping system (hundreds of years ago), troughs like this were a prime source of disease.

We climbed out of town, high onto a ridge, and ultimately could look back down to the town.

Next we entered an area very reminiscent of the Adige valley, where so much fruit is grown with carefully espaliered trees.

We saw a bit of cherry orchard too, and one tree straying too far onto the path, ha ha! There were also strawberries being grown under cover and in trays about three feet off the ground. It looked like a good system, with the berries hanging nicely from the trays.

Next up was the town and area called Fortezza. The river Eisack valley is narrow there, and a fortress was built to control the area. But a dam was also subsequently built, creating a reservoir behind. From a cycling point of view, all the fortressing and damming and highway too created a twisting route.

One we entered the actual town of Fortezza, we were mildly attracted by some colourful buildings, but we were mainly intent on following the radweg and getting on with the project of reaching Sterzing.

We ran into this detour, which we thought was uniquely Italian. It had been there so long that the grapes will be harvestable on the barrier.

We got around that detour and cruised out of Fortezza in good order.

We were doing that cruising, not a care in the world, when we came to a sign that clearly indicated that the bike path was ending, and that the way ahead was on highway SS12, and bikes were not permitted. I wish I had taken a photo of that sign, but I definitely stopped and had a second look at it, as we retreated. There was SS12 with a bicycle, a red circle, and a line through it.

Dodie checked the GPS, and found that the track was actually up on a ridge beyond SS12 and another autoroute. There seemed no way to get up there, meaning that we were stymied, but Dodie found an underpass, and with that we were able to climb to the ridge.

After the underpass, we climbed up here.

We could look down to the roads we were not allowed on.

Well, the path became rougher, but oh well.

Until finally this!! This, by the way, is directly on our GPS version of the "official" Venezia-Munchen bike route.

Well we could not go back to the big road, but maybe we could go forward. Not that we cut that ribbon, we just went under it.

This was a steep cliff, the whole thing a washout caused by rocks and water coming down the mountain.

We took the bags off the bikes and gingerly carried them across the washout. I am afraid of heights, and really there was just one foot between the foothold and the cliff. Carrying the bikes here was an exercise in mental control for me. I just looked at the innocent ground in front of me, and not the drop down to my left!

We totally reassembled the bikes on the other side and carried on. To add drama, there was loud thunder and it started to rain. We got out our rain gear and carried on.

We carried on, that is, until the next washout. This was decision time. We had no idea if there would be a way through up ahead. And every washout that we dangerously danced by would help to seal off our backwards escape. So - we crossed washout #2. Same thing - all packs off, carry bikes by precipice, reassemble.

Looking upstream. When the floods and boulders came down, this would have been quite a violent place.

There were actually six washouts, but for the last three some repairs had been attempted and we crossed without the same amount of trauma.

This whole tale is of course completely factual, but my cousin Lorna did chip in this conceptual illustration!

The bike route sign was only slightly comforting!

We came out on the left, and thought the direction sign pointing to what we had just come through was a cruel touch. But actually no one could access this area, as you see from the blockade below.

This water coming off the mountain was more controlled.

The bridge was blocked at the far end! You can just guess what Dodie did to that blockade!

Unbelievably we made it out. For entertainment, zoom in to our track. You can clearly see us going crazy at the three wash outs. Dodie looks a little stunned here, but she wants to point out that though she sometimes stresses over small things, when the chips are down she is a real trooper.

Yikes, we landed ourselves right into a Kathleen Classen blog title.

I would like to report that the rest of the ride into Sterzing was a dawdle, but no, there was significant up and downing. The path was nice, though.

After climbing, we could look down on the road we just came from.

The town of Sterzing was a pleasant surprise, with an extensive and attractive historic centre:

We found our hotel - sort of. It is called the Mondshein-MezzaLuna. We arrived just before a giant tour bus that disgorged dozens of people to swarm the hotel. Fortunately we are in the "annex", itself a big building. Our instructions were another puzzle we did not need. We had to find the annex and its garage, then enter a code into a not very obvious keypad in a dark corner - needed my flashlight - and then find the elevator - turned out to be behind one of four unmarked doors. The elevator uses a key or it will not obey your floor request. This did not work, so I carried all our stuff up the many steps. All in a day's adventure - this day, anyway! Tomorrow, looking forward to fighting those package tourists for breakfast! Dodie says her money is on us cyclists, stoking up for the Brenner Pass.

What Gave Meaning to Life today? That one foot of path that did not wash out, allowing us to pass.

Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 3,603 km (2,237 miles)

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Kathleen ClassenWe are veteran ignore the detour types as well, but haven’t had an adventure quite like that! What a day for the two of you. A difficult situation made more challenging when you throw heights into the equation.
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2 years ago

Suzanne GibsonYou are truly survivors!
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2 years ago