We got up and packed to roll out deeper into Italy. The route would take us back nearly into Slovenia before heading west deeper into the Dolomites.
The road was a gentle climb into the valley and the temps were just perfect. Kristin said she was good to go and everything seemed to be going well. There was a pretty good group of us together for the first “climb.” I put that in quotes because for one of the few times, there were only a couple brief sections of road that had any ramp to them.
As we rode through the valley there was a bridge with an amazing view to the north of the valley rim to the north. Several of us all stopped for photos, as we traded cameras and snapped away before continuing on.
As we crested the final section of the climb we popped out on the other side to see a ski village with a gondola climbing high into the rocky ridges to the south. I don’t know what kind of snow they get here, but I sure hope they get a lot of it. I think this is where they invented rock skis. There wasn’t any part of a ski run that had any kind of plant growth on it. Just scree fields galore.
We pressed on, but it wasn’t long before the road started to change. We began a descent like none I had experienced yet. It was loaded with super tight switchbacks, and tunnels. And switchback-tunnels. I’ll add, the tunnels had zero lighting and we didn’t have lights on the bikes. It was nearly impossible for your eyes to adjust fast enough from the bright sunny day just a split second before freewheeling into near dark at 35 miles per hour while trying to complete the turn in the tunnel.
I was kind of in front of the group of eight to ten riders. And I had Jay, mister Clooney if you will, on my six. He’s recording with his GoPro and commenting about my line and them about how slow I’m going. I figure that I’ve already started the descent and if I can let it fly with no one in front of me, I may as well let gravity do its magic with this tank of a body. Before I know it, we are ripping down the mountain, cutting corners and accelerating out of corners like any decent car driver would do. As the road flattens out a bit I pull off to wait for Kristin and get our of ear shot of Jay. He’ll talk your ear off just because he knows it will annoy you.
Once we get down to the bottom of the steep section and regroup, I notice that Kristin isn’t doing all that well. We make it to the van stop just up the road a ways and she realizes that all of that sensory processing of the steep descent has taken its toll on her mind. I press for her to take the van and she agrees.
Most of the others had already departed so I was off to the races to try and catch back on with anyone. We were to ride a bike path for a ways, but there were forks in the path as the “interstate” and other highways wove together in spots along the narrow valley floor near a river. I managed to catch up and grab my first true Italian pizza of the trip for lunch. And an amazing WiFi connection. They were equally fantastic.
The temps were climbing as was the road. We had the option of riding the famous Zoncolan near the end of our ride, but I wasn’t up for a monster ride as I wanted to get back and check on Kristin as soon as I could. Instead I decided to go full gas on the final climb to our hotel for the night. The legs weren’t responding all that well, but I managed to find a good “gear” over the top and eventually miss the turn to the hotel. After a bit of a bonus climb back up to the hotel I went to check on Kristin.
She was doing better, but she started having some dizzy spells and almost fell over in the lobby. She went for a nap while I did a couple of things and when I went back up the room she admitted about having another spell. I told her she was done riding and that I couldn’t have her experience one of those spells while riding, let alone on some tricky descent in the middle of the Dolomites.
I was crushed to have to say it. But not nearly as crushed as she was about losing an experience that had been saved up for, trained for and planned on for nearly two years.
