First, how has it already been 10 days? On one hand it doesn’t seem like it’s been that long, and on the other work and normal life at home are a distant memory. Second, while today is a couple miles short of my longest ride, that ride involved mostly going downhill. This one involved entirely going uphill which means it was my hardest day. Oh, and it was mostly uphill into a headwind too. I’m pretty sure I get extra credit for that. I’m also trying to figure out why I picked Mals as my stopping point and not someplace, oh I don’t know, not up a unpleasant hill at the end of a long ride?
Like I said, it was all uphill. Not pictured, the headwind.
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? I actually woke up before my alarm this morning. I had a very quiet and peaceful night of sleep, and I didn’t have to smell cigarette smoke at any point. Even street noise was minimal. Best sleep of the trip I think. Since I didn’t feel tired enough to warrant going back to sleep, I got up, finished packing, and ate breakfast. I’m pleased to say that this youth hostel offers a more varied breakfast. Much better rolls with several different options, all of which were much healthier than the standard white rolls. These were dark rolls, most with seeds. There was also a giant bowl of yogurt instead of those silly little cups of yogurt. Only one type of juice and sadly no cheese slices, but there was a variety of different prepackaged spreads. Covid precautions could potentially have something to do with that, but logically that wouldn’t make sense. At any rate, I enjoyed the breakfast, even without a cheese assortment.
I was checked out by 9:30 and on the bike on my way out of Meran. The route out from the hostel is much more scenic and easy to navigate than the way in. Ride to the Passer and follow it more or less to the Etsch. Remember that breakfast I just ate? I maybe should have carb loaded a bit more. The hardest and longest climb of the day starts right outside Meran. It lasts for about 4 miles with the last bit taking you up a series of 6 switchbacks along a waterfall on the Etsch. Fantastic views back towards Meran, which you definitely earn with the ride up there. It took me around 45-50 minutes to do those 4.5 miles. I am not fast uphill....
At the top of the switchbacks. The worst part was the climb leading up to the first curve. After that it was manageable. The view from the top is great.
Beyond that point things at least leveled out enough to do 8-10mph. I’d walk you through the whole ride event to event, but there weren’t any specific events. I stopped at a bakery in Naturns. It was right by the Radweg and I felt like it would be a mistake to pass by such a conveniently located bakery. I ordered an Erdbeerschnitte, an apfelstrudel, and some sort of danish ryoe thing. I ate the first two immediately. The Schnitte was okay, but not on my list of the 5 best. The strudel turned out to be more of a cake than a strudel. No flaky crust. Rather disappointing. The Danish type thing I ate several hours later to buoy up my spirits.
Speaking of needing to buoy up my spirits, there were two sections of dirt. Conveniently they both occurred during steeper parts of the ride. I think it’s not permitted to pave roads in protected wildlife areas. It did provide a very wild feeling, but it also meant having to get off and walk a couple times because it was steep and my rear tire kept slipping. That is a problem with recumbents clad with touring tires.
Also speaking of needing to buoy up my spirits, about that wind. It started up right around when I hit 2,000 ft in elevation. It mostly was blasting in my face. While it wasn’t enough to make it feel like I was pedaling through quicksand, it certainly did not help my forward progress. At one point near Mals it hit me sideways and I had to do a bit of extra maneuvering to stay upright. And then there was the time I was trying to navigate a tight corner and encountered someone coming the other way cutting the corner. I had to reach out and grab the railing to keep myself upright. Which brings me to another subject: I was basically the slowest thing on the path today. The fine folk of Südtirol are definitely avid cyclists. Most of them own one of two types of bicycle: the race bike, and the e-bike. They both go nearly the same speed. You can tell the difference by the clothing. The race bike people wear spandex, and the e-bike people wear normal clothes. They both make the same sound as they fly past: whoosh. The people going the other direction also make that sound, but if you blink those people are gone. In two days I can be one of the crowd going the other way. And I will enjoy every bit of that 40 mile downhill coast!
Now normally you would expect that all this means the ride was miserable, and while it had its negatives, like the cold up around 2,500 ft, especially when the sun disappears behind the clouds and it sprinkled a bit, it was actually a very nice ride. Going as slow as I was, I really was able to immerse myself in the experience. Another bonus of having to work your way uphill is when it does get quite chilly the higher level of effort does help prevent the need to dig into the bags for extra clothing. Bonus! The pictures included here do not come close to doing this ride justice. I’ve flipped through them over supper and none of them are remotely close to what it’s like to bike up into the mountains. I don’t think any camera can capture the magic. And they certainly can’t capture the experience of riding it with a recumbent loaded with 30 pounds of clothes and cameras. That you have to experience in person.
I have also learned the art of finding a bathroom in europe. They can be found in train stations. Now this only works if you are riding near a rail line. Fortunately for me nearly all of my riding this trip is along the rail line. The station in Prato allo Stelvio near the Famed Stelvio Pass has a mediocre bathroom, but the station itself apparently won an award last year for being an exceptional station. I took a little shortcut to avoid what seemed an unnecessary excursion to the town of Prad and ended up instead in Sponding. The station was right around the corner and also had an elevator which I was able to use to get under the tracks to the Radweg on the other side.
I passed through one very interesting town today, Glurns. It appears to have a complete medieval wall around the town. It’s not very large, but it’s neat to see a town like that up in the mountains. I’ve no idea why I didn’t pick that as my accommodations location for the next two days. I’m not sure Mals even has a town gate. Granted I’ve only seen the train station and my hotel so far. And the hill up to my hotel of course. I’ve seen that too. By the way, this is where the train tracks end. No trains go the rest of the way up the mountain so if you want try get to the Reschen See you have to ride. There might be a bus, but I think that would be cheating, wouldn’t it?
It also may rain tomorrow. Today mostly threatened rain. I asked the lady at the hotel if it was always this windy up here. She said not always, but that I should be glad for the wind today because without it, it would have rained. I briefly considered which I would prefer and I ended up agreeing that wind is better than rain. At least with wind you can still take nice pictures.
There were several of these bunkers along the Radweg between Glurns and Mals. Somber reminder that war happens even in beautiful places
Rain or shine, tomorrow it’s off to the Reschen See. It’s a 25 mile round trip, and, shockingly, it involves another big uphill. The ride starts at 3,400ft here in Mals and tops out at 5,000ft. Nearly all of that elevation gain happens in the first 5 miles. Or at least 1,200ft of it does. The worst of the climbing starts at 1.9 miles so it’s actually 1,200 ft in about 3 miles. 400 ft per mile.... yeah. That’s going to be awful. Those first 5 miles will take well over an hour. After that things are relatively level and the downhill at the other end will be super. I’ll be able to do it unloaded as I stay in the same hotel tomorrow night.
I really can’t think of anything more that happened today. Just uphill for 40 miles into a headwind with really super scenery. In two days I ride back to Meran, and then the next day I ride back to Brixen. That will conclude part 1 of the trip. Part 2 takes me to Bruneck and Toblach where I’ll get to see a different part of the Dolomites. Oh, and presently on the other side of the mountains on one side is Switzerland, and on the other side is Austria.
Today's ride: 40 miles (64 km) Total: 281 miles (452 km)
