Day 21 Trento to Canazei

I had a bit of a decision to make. If I was to complete the "Home to Rome" trip I had to take the train back to where I caught it in Mollaro and start cycling from there, however this meant another climb which would make it impossible to get to Corvara where I had hoped to get to. I decided to take the train, mad I know, but I want to make the complete trip. NOTE: This was acceptable for Mark Beaumont in his Round the world Record, after his crash with a car, so it was good enough for me.

We got up early as my train was at 8.25am and Richard had a 95k bike ride to Verona airport. Checked out at 8.00am, DISASTER, I could not find my Caxton Euro Card. I paid for the food last night in town and left the card there (must have been looking elsewhere). I paid with my UK bankcard and we headed back to the Restaurant. They could not find it, there were different staff, they suggested for me to come back after 10am when they could ring someone and ask where the card had been put, it was all a bit vague. I had to make a quick decision, and decided to cancel the card and head for the train station. Richard and I said our goodbyes and parted. It was great to have his company for the last week, we had a really good time with some tough climbing, great desents and good beer drinking especially at the tops of the Fluelapass and the Ofenpass.

I just made the train for the 50 minute journey back to Mollaro (Note on price 2.9Euros for me 1 Euro for the bike and there was room for 38 bikes. Great value). It was already quite warm as I heaed back up north along the hilly roads through the villages we cycled yesterday. At Dermula I joined the S43D and started heading East. I slowly climbed through umpteen little villages up to the Passo della Mendola (1343m), it was a boring climb and getting quite hot, but somewhere on the climb I passed the 2000k mark. A quick stop at the top and then the desent. I was hoping not to desend too far as I would have to climb all that height again. But I was wrong. The east side of the Passo della Mendola is like a cliff face and the road twists through 13 hairpins down the side of it. The road was great, but like a race track. As it was a Sunday the Italian motorbike racers were out to join the German motorbikes, add to that cars and very fit Italian cyclists all racing each other down the mountain, trying to avoid the cars and motorbikes coming up, great stuff. At one point a Merc overtook me, it was then overtaken by a cyclist and at the same time a motorbike overtaking the lot, while still trying to avoid the traffic coming uphill. Crazy.

The only downside of the desent (if you parden the pun) is that it seemed to never stop. I just keeped going down and down until I reached Ora at an EL of just 250m. This valley, just south of Bolzano is absolutely lovely, but baking hot. I stopped in Ora for food and drink before the inevitable climb. I normally like the heat but this was getting too much, but I had no choice and toiled away on what was busy roads. I slowly climbed back up to 1110m and was not even rewarded with another "Passo". In some ways this was good as it meant no desent, but I felt I dseerved one. I biked onto Cavalese and stopped to watch the football. Least said about that the better, Our defending was about as bad as the Linesmans performance (Stuart, I bet you have never done a blunder like that).

After that, the road slowly climbed through the skiing villages of Predazzo, Modena  where I started to get my first views of the Dolomite peaks, before I arrived in Canazei at 8.10pm over 12 hours after checking out from the hotel, a long day.

Its looking like I am going to have to pass on my day off in Venice, I am pretty tired after 8 days in a row of cycling, but do not think I will be able to catch up on the distance I have lost today without skipping the rest day. On another point my normal cycling buddy, Dave was meant to join me from Trento to Venice, but due to work he could not come, this is a great shame for both of us. We have managed to sneak away every year for a biking trip since 2002.

Todays stats
Distance 122.04
Climb 2514m (most so far)
Riding time 6.37.51
Average speed 18.4kph
Total time 12.10