Last riding in the Dolomites

After three nice nights at Schloss Dolomiti (and three epic buffet breakfasts), it was time to move on.  

On the way over Passo Pordoi a couple of days earlier, I'd scoped out the opening times of the gondola up to Sass Pordoi, and while we'd not finished our rides early enough to head up before their closing time, they were up and running when we arrived by car on our relocation drive.

The gondola ascended about 800m in the space of a few dramatic minutes, and at the top, we found fantastic views, a bit of snow, and a cafe.

We soaked it all in for a good half an hour, and it was fun for the riders amongst us, to see the roads we'd ridden from above.  While there was a walking track, we headed down the way we'd come up!  

We followed our cycling route to Passo di Falzarego, and it was fun pointing out to Mum some of our ride highlights.  No trouble with road closures this time, we were soon hunting around Cortina d'Ampezzo for a carpark.  In the end, we decided it wasn't for us (or it decided we weren't for it), and we ended up having a lovely lunch 10 minutes out of town.

From there, we followed our noses in the general direction of our abode, in Lorenzago di Cadore (not to be confused with San Pietro, Santo Stefano, Vigo, Laggio, Pelos, Lozzo, Domegge, Calalzo, Pieve, Tai, Ospitale, Valle, Venas, Cibinana, Vodo, Borca, San Vito or the four other comunita di Cadore that I can't find on Google Maps).  

Once we got to our Airbnb, the ladies headed out for a vino, while I suited up and went for a ride.  We were perched above a lake, and I hoped to do a lap of it, visiting at the far end, a spot we'd driven to a few hours earlier.  It turned out a full lap wasn't possible, but I crossed the lake a couple of times on bridges, and enjoyed a bit of time on a converted railway line.

I also did a bit of hike-a-bike, and found some epically steep road to ride up, but eventually made it to the dam.  The bike was a much better vehicle from which the "driver" could enjoy the views.

And, a turn that was bloody awkward in the car, was a piece of cake with a bit of forewarning and on a highly maneuverable bicycle.  

I was feeling very ready for dinner by the time I'd finished the grovel up to our village, but the lovely light helped keep my legs turning over.

We went out for dinner at a nearby ristorante, and I ordered what turned out to be a humungous calzone.  We hadn't bought breakfast supplies, and I wasn't keen on going driving, so I stopped eating once a breakfast sized portion was left.  The waitress didn't seem to have much of a sense of humour, or I completely butchered my witty "calzone per la colazione" comment to her...

That slid down well for breakfast, and once I'd realised our host was providing real coffee for use in the also-supplied stovetop (rather than instant), we rolled out well caffeinated too.  

The first loop I'd mapped had been a massive 160km mission - well beyond our legs and willingness.  My second attempt clocked in at just under 90km, and riding it clockwise would see us starting and finishing on a downhill.  Given I'd finished my previous evening's ride on the first descent, I was amazed at how long it took!

We stopped in Vigo - you guessed it - di Cadore to buy some fruit for Sarah, who'd bemoaned overdosing on pizza and being in desperate need of some vitamins!  Not long after that, I pointed out to her some running mountain water for some cooling too.

The first climb of the day was not insignificant, ascending 1000 metres over about 16km.  But, the gradient was never too savage, and for the vast majority of the climb, we were in shade provided by the pine forest we were riding through - or the road itself, when we hit some switchbacks in the upper quarter.

We'd bought some raspberries at the shop, and we made them last almost to the top.  It didn't take me nearly so long to decipher the road markings, which had the kilometre number written below the decimal point, which was in Roman numerals.

Raspberries finally demolished at 14.6km from the bottom...

The top of the climb was labelled Sella Ciampigotto, but rather than immediately descend, we had a few kilometres riding across a basin.

After admiring a cow-enhanced view to the north, we stopped in at a "bar" which sold coffee, booze, cheese and meat.  We stuck with the first of these, and I dared to order due cappucini per favore, despite it being a couple of minutes past noon.  

We passed another marked summit, then climbed to yet another.  Just beyond it was a van supporting about 10 riders, none of whom showed any interest in us, and couldn't even muster a single "ciao" between them.  

A few minutes into the descent, Sarah hollered at me from across a ravine, and it turned out her front brake had vanished.  It returned a few minutes of careful descending later, thank goodness.  

The riders started passing us just as we reached a stunning artificial lake, and I resisted the temptation to speed up, and instead enjoyed a few minutes of flat - and sedate - riding.   

At the far end of the lake was a dam, below which was an incredibly deep gorge.  I'd initially thought we might ride over a saddle at this point, but that would have added distance and climbing, and also would have bypassed what looked to be a good lunch point.  

The road to Ampezzo was quite something, and included five tunnels through the rock.  These were unlined, generally unlit, and cobbled.  We didn't have front lights with us, so pretty much had to let gravity take its course and hope like hell we didn't hit a hole! 

The gorge continued almost all the way to Ampezzo, but views into it were generally obscured by the forest.  The aloof roadies passed us near the bottom while we were taking a photo stop - the silver lining being that Sarah was relieved of modelling duties, which would have involved her riding back up the hill a little bit!

We had to deviate off our loop at Ampezzo to find lunch, but once we'd found a place, we enjoyed a couple of panini (Caprese - with mozzarella, fresh tomato and prosciutto).  

The climbing began again after lunch, and it looked like we'd ascend about 800m over three distinct sections.  The GPS data had a bug in it, which I suspected would be a tunnel (if not a bug, we had a very nasty spike to ride up...!).  It turned out to be a whopper, a full 2.2km of well lit, beautifully paved downhill!  

Our gelato cravings coincided with the tail end of siesta, and it became obvious that we were going to be shit out of luck, even in one decent sized town that we passed through (not yet something di Cadore...).  

While we couldn't marvel at the quality of the ice-cream, we can report that the stone work in this part of the world is absolutely stunning.  We did wonder if the interiors of these buildings are modern, but boy-oh-boy, do the exteriors have a classic look!

After managing to get a cold drink and our bottles refilled at a bar, we began the final ramp - a 300m climb up to Passo Mauria, beyond which we'd have a 9km descent back to base.

The adjacent mountains were spectacular, but unfortunately the light on them wasn't great.  Eyes are better than cameras at times like this. but we'd had a good fill of Dolomite peaks over the last few ride, so cannot complain.

There was no sign of activity at the pass, and the signage was almost completely obscured by stickers that motorists (and cyclists, I guess) had deemed fit to add.  

We had the road almost to ourselves, and it was a nice way to finish one of the better proportioned loops of our trip so far!

Our next destination is Trieste, which doesn't feature at all in our "100 Greatest Cycling Climbs" guidebook!  I'm sure that we will find something else to do!

Stats:  my solo ride was 42km with a surprising 820 metres of climbing.  The loop ride with Sarah was a sweet 88km with 2085m ascended.  At a guess, we had 4km or so in tunnels!  Temperature range was 21 to 38 degrees.