Now that we finally made it to the city of Cortina, surrounded by jagged peaks of the Dolomites, we would have a couple days to do what we wanted as we stayed at our hotel for three nights. The catch was, the weather wasn’t supposed to be helpful. There were varied reports, but all essentially said count on rain for three days. The major difference was on how high the percentage was for each day.
Because Kristin wasn’t able to ride I wanted to be able to let her do something fun for the first of our days. There’s a series of three gondolas/cable cars/trams (depending on your interpretation of the transports) that take you from the city at about 4,000 feet above sea level and whisk you to over 10,000 feet in less than 30 minutes. But when there are clouds all around you, you can’t see what you’re really doing. Or what you want to see.
The first car up was nice. You could overlook the city and see the aging bobsled run from the 1956 Winter Olympics winding between buildings as we rose to the first stop. There is a mountain bike park with some trails and man-made features that are accessible from the first stop, but you could only see a few brief sections of the trails. They were either fall-line descents or fatty fat tire loose and fast corners. Basically everything that I’m terrible at on an MTB.
We jumped into the second trolley into the clouds and it didn’t take long to lose sight of the city, the mountains and just about everything else around. Save for one quick glimpse of a ski lift far below on the rocky ledge above the first section of cliffs, it was a 360º light gray aura.
We transferred to the final carriage and climbed further into the cloudy abyss. When we arrived at the top we were reminded of the 4º C weather report from the base. The winds were blowing steady, but we climbed up the staircase along the south edge of the building that had been erected on the top of this 3,000 meter chunk of rock. How they managed to get the supplies and workers up there consistently to build it all, was an interesting exercise in imagination.
There was another couple on the ride up with us that were set to go off and, I assume, down climb the mountain based on the small daypacks they had. They also were sporting their climbing helmets, so it was good to see another user group that tries to use small bits of plastic and foam to “protect” against catastrophic elements of earth.
We couldn’t really see much outside the bar and summit station so we went inside for a hot chocolate and a Coke. The cars went back and forth every 20 minutes, so we had a bit of time to gaze into the fog. When it was time to descend we were hoping for a break in the clouds as high as possible to maybe see something more, but it wasn’t until we arrived at the top of the first that we were able to regain any orientation. While on the descent, I asked the operator about the cars working in the wind and how bad the winds could get, even though I was expecting to get some response in broken English. But it was an ex-patriot of 10 years from Chicago working that day. He asked many questions about the shit show that is American politics and you could certainly get a sense of which side of the extremist debate he had been conversing with. After a bit of banter about the messy that the money game is, we talked more about the similarities of Cortina and say Aspen or Vail. From the ridiculous expense to try and buy a small apartment to the number of foreign workers that flood the area for ski season to work. It was interesting to hear of the parallels only separated by a language and ocean.
After the adventure into the clouds we walked to a few bike shops around town to see if there was anything rad that we couldn’t live without. The first shop was more of a locals shop with interesting club kits and memorabilia on the walls. I grabbed a track jacket after the owners son offered me a discount. I think half of the folks on our tour bought something from Gigi’s shop. Including a complete bike and a bike frame.
We headed back into the heart of the shopping plazas to see what else we could find, but the first two were more main line product stores that you could probably get anywhere in the world. Later in the evening we happened to come across a shop that had only Wilier (pronounced Vil-e-yay) bikes. Since Kristin rides a Mimosa made by Wilier she wanted to see what they had. They had a jersey that actually fit right off the rack. No alterations needed.
From there we went to dinner with our friends, Tom and Rhoda, at what had to be the out of towners restaurant since it was several nationalities other than Italian there for dinner. But that is just because we wanted to eat before 19:30. After that there were many locals in for a meal. Gotta love those regional customs.
And all the while, Kristin seemed to be doing better with her awareness and everything. She was determined to ride her bike the next day, whether or not I was willing to allow it or not. I was trying to figure out how I was going to keep her off the bike, and it didn’t seem like there was a way other than sabotage.
No ride, so no track to review.
