Vrsic Pass
The weather delay didn’t quite work out as I’d hoped. It was still raining when I woke up in the morning and was forecast to continue to do so for the rest of the day. I wasn’t going to hang around though because I really wanted to ride.
The prospect was a bit scary. By my calculations it was going to be like the climb out of Jelenice to the mountain redoubt only three times longer. I wasn’t in great shape coming into this tour and I had expected to have serious miles under my belt before I reached the mountains. In other words I had doubts about my ability to make it.
Glorious failure trumps* cowardly avoidance every time so I donned my rain gear and headed uphill.
(*my apologies for using that word)
The climbing started more or less right away. It was slow going and the rain was coming down but it was magnificent. Almost silent except for the sound of rain, Spring springing with full force, wild dense green forest all around. There was very little traffic on the road and that added to the feeling of being in the middle of nowhere.
I reached the first of the 24 switch backs and was alarmed to find the surface changed from smooth blacktop to cobbles. I didn’t fancy having my teeth shaken loose for the next several hours but thankfully the cobbles were only on the switchback itself. Phew.
I knocked out the first two or three switchbacks quite easily and thought I was doing great. (Furious mental calculations were telling me I was an eighth of the way up and one more switchback and I’d be a sixth of the way. I do a lot of mathematical gymnastics when I ride and it’s really annoying.)
The problem with numbered switchbacks is that the numbering implie linearity. That was certainly not the reality here. It took forever to get to number 4 (or was it 3, my calculations had caused me to lose count). There was a lot of climbing whether in switchback territory or not.
I used a really low gear. The trick is to find a speed where the effort of turning the pedals is not exceeded by the effort of maintaining balance. The sweet spot is probably around 2 mph but I didn’t really look at my speed because taking my eye off the road led to me getting the wobbles.
As I got higher and higher there was more and more snow at the side of the road. I was warm from my efforts but I could tell that the temperature was pretty low.
It was great to reach the summit and I felt like I had accomplished something. It was really cold though and I hurried to get as much warm clothing in as I could before dropping into the downhill and the Soca Valley.
It was really steep and the rain continued to pour. Within a few minutes I was freezing. I got colder and colder as I descended and the faster I went the colder I got.
I figured I had two options. I could pull over to the side of the road and face certain death through hypothermia or I could continue my descent. If I continued my descent I’d also likely die of hypothermia but it would come quicker because of the windchill and I wouldn’t have to suffer for so long. There was also a tiny chance I might actually make it to the bottom. So on I went.
I was colder than I’ve ever been, my thinking was slow and I felt lightheaded. I stopped every few minutes to do some jumping jacks to generate a little warmth. When the road became less steep I hadn’t pedaled once in what seemed like hours. I wanted to pedal to warm up but my fingers were too numb to move the shifters.
I managed to get into a high gear somehow and began to pedal. Hope surfaced and I began to believe I could make it.
The scenery was fantastic but I barely saw it in my hurry to reach my hotel and get out of chilly wet clothes and into some nice warm dry stuff.
Needless to say, I made it. And yes, getting frozen did trump (sorry) cowering on the couch.
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