September 3, 2021
Day 16
St Lorenz outside Bruneck to Toblach
This is the end of the line as far as loaded touring, not counting the short ride from München back to my hotel near the airport. Any remaining rides would be day trips with just the minimum. I’m ready to be done with loaded riding, especially uphill.
My ride today started with retracing my route from yesterday as far as the Seilbahn station in Percha. You’ll recall there was an issue there with trail closure. I went into it in great graphic detail yesterday so I will spare you the reprisal. I will simply add that I met a local lady near the closed section of the trail. She mentioned that it was closed and I told her how I’d been seeing people riding through there yesterday and had followed suit after having a confusing experience with the badly signed detour that was leading me in the opposite direction. She told me it goes up into the hills through the fields and meadows. I explained how I had had quite enough of that type of riding and had gotten through fine the previous day and would try my luck again. She said she would let tourist information know the detour signage wasn’t very good. We wished each other well and I headed back off down the trail.
It was not long until I reached the area of the great tree carnage. Much progress had been made since yesterday. As I rode past, I mentioned to a worker that I had tried the detour and gotten lost. He told me today is their last day of work and tomorrow that stretch of trail will reopen. They still haven’t cleared the tree on the other side of the last tunnel though. I had to haul my loaded bike over that, but we both survived.
Beyond that it was all new riding. I had no idea what to expect. I’ve not seen much video footage of that stretch of trail, but I knew it was all a more or less steady uphill grade. I can report that Bikeline has correctly noted the elevation profile. It is all up minus a couple very brief downhills, both of which were steep enough to convince me to not ride that route back.
There are a few small towns along the way with some semblance of services. I did not find an open bakery though. The closed between noon and 3pm thing seems to be common in these small communities. I had thought about grabbing something from the local grocery store before leaving and ended up regretting not having done so.
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The new portion of the ride was overall boring. A large portion of it passes through forested area on loose gravel trail. It was a long slow slog, precisely what I feared it would be, but I was determined to ride a continuous line so I sucked it up and rode on.
I must add a short bit here about the three versions of the town of Olang. There’s the low one, the middle one, and the upper one. One of them actually had a public restroom. However, there is no bike route through any of them and I personally found the rode a little too busy for my tastes. So points for public restroom, but offset by the loss of points for no separate bike path.
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Finally a few miles outside Toblach the Dolomites peaked out over the meadows. That did perk up my mood a bit, but unfortunately uphill riding offset some of that. It was also supposed to be around 70 Fahrenheit today, but it’s been humid and in the sun at this elevation it can be quite hot. I ended up rather sweaty and I apologize to anyone that had to smell me today. I promise I’ll shower and wash my clothes at some point before tomorrow when I will likely get all sweaty again.
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As always my gps was a little iffy getting me directly to my accommodations, but my PocketEarth app saved the day again. I’m staying in the youth hostel which appears to be part of some grand old hotel thing. It’s a huge and old style building. I’ll have to see if I can track down any sort of history on it.
I was not expecting anyone to be in reception when I got there around 2pm given the closed form 12-3pm tradition, but thank God they were open and I was able to dump my bags in my room. The weather was nice and it was not so late in the day that I couldn’t do anything else. I went down my list of things I wanted to do while here and settled on taking the bus up to the Pragsser Wildsee. I didn’t figure I needed to spend an entire day there and it is close enough to not require an especially long bus ride. Currently they have a ticket reservation system and you must reserve online. When I checked last night there were tons of spots open. That was still the case today. In fact, for most of the ride there were only two of us on the bus. On the ride back right now it’s just me and the driver. And he drives and brakes very fast. I’m assuming we’ll both survive the drive back and maybe I’ll get to eat supper a few minutes sooner.
The Pragsser Wildsee if one of those super famous tourist attractions. Supposedly it’s at least partly because it appears in some popular TV show. I’ve never heard of the show and I don’t recall the name of it either. I’ve just seen pictures and it was recommended by a friend so I wanted to visit it. My guess is the lighting earlier in the day is more favorable than the afternoon, but I still had a nice walk around the 2.23 mile path around the lake. Some places are quite wide and sort of flat, others are narrow and involve steps going steeply up the side of the cliff face. The cliffs appear to be primarily granite and in places it looks like snow. It is not. We’re only at 4,900 ft in elevation. That is not snow line right now.
I have nothing eventful to relay about my hike around the lake. I took a lot of pictures, though given the time of day they aren’t super spectacular. It was a nice hike but I don’t think I need to return to this location either. I would recommend it on a sunny morning. I think the water color would be more appealing that time of day.
I’m now headed back to the youth hostel and will try to locate somewhere for supper on my walk back from the bus stop. Tomorrow I have not decided if I want to ride or hike. If I hike it will be the Drei Zinnen. If I bike it will be the Dolomites Radweg to Cortina D’Ampezzo. Both would be nice experiences and the weather looks to be pretty good tomorrow as well. I’ve been very fortunate with so much good weather this trip.
And now an addendum to the day. While my hostel looks pretty sweet from outside, the inside, at least in my room, is ready for an update. Specifically the bathroom. The shower area needs at minimum a fresh round of caulk. The furniture is dated, thought functional. There is also no soap in the soap dispenser, no spare rolls of toilet paper, and no shelf in the shower to set my shampoo bottle and tiny bar of soap. So, if you want decent accommodations, I’d steer clear of the Toblach hostel. I’m here for 5 nights....
Oh, and there’s no outdoor place to eat breakfast. If it’s a basic breakfast, I’ll probably skip it and find a bakery. The hostel seems to be pretty full and so far mask wearing in here seems sketchy. And finally, I have still never been asked for my proof of vaccination. Italy may talk a big game, but they don’t seem to be acting on it here in Südtirol.
Today's ride: 21 miles (34 km)
Total: 476 miles (766 km)
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