MS Global 2007 : Stage 5
Passo Palade, Passo Mendola
Mike sampling the local produce
Today's route was meant to include two loops; one at around 80 kilometers and another at around 40 kilometers. We decided that since we were on the eve of our ride up the Stelvio with it's nearly 10,000 feet of vertical climbing - we should conserve our energy and limit the ride to the first loop. This turned out to not be such a bad idea when we saw the first climb of the first loop.
Our ride leaders returned from marking the route to declare this section of road a "wall". They were not so far off in their description. The steep sections offered up to 14% grade. But everyone paced themselves at their own speed and our group wound their way to the top of the day's first challenge past miles of grape vines and thousands of apple trees. Who knew the Dolomites were a popular growing area for every kind apple known to man. Red Delicious apples the size of grapefruits hung from trees in huge clusters. It was hard to resist the temptation of stopping and stealing a few.
The second climb of the day was a little more merciful. There were lots of switchbacks and plenty of shade. At the top we stopped for a leisurely lunch in the warm sun. Nobody seemed in any apparent hurry to descend back into Bolzano. Although when we got started, the route sped along fairly fast. And before we knew it we were back in town.
All of which added to the sentiments of our friend from EMD Serono, Gordon Nelson who just felt like he hadn't done enough riding at that point. He looked down at the computer on his bike and stated that he'd really like to do 10,000 feet of climbing today. So, eager to make our friend happy -w e polled the troops to see who wanted to continue on and do the second loop. We had two additional takers: Morgan Zbinden, from Serono Merck of Switzerland and Erik Schmidt, one of our trusty ride leaders. We designated a support van and the group was off.
We took a few shortcuts to get to the continuation of the route only to find an additional ride leader, Jon Heideman and two other participants waiting to join us - Day 2 super stud Tammy Lucas and her training partner from Ft. Collins Jack Irving. We grabbed Jimmy D (also from Ft. Collins) who joined us in the van to cheer our champs along and off we went.
Jimmy has a small addiction to chocolate crème Hit cookies, so we tossed him a full sleeve and a bottle of water for the ride. He helped us navigate up and over the passes marking our proximity to the guard rails and obstacles in the way. The roads were fairly narrow in some parts dropping down to about a car's width in some places. I think Jim's sketchiest report was that our van was about 1/8th of an inch from a barrier!
But with the riders on a mission to complete the final challenge of the day - and at such an extraordinary level - there was no room for mishaps. Especially with Gordon's goal of getting to 10,000 feet. We needed to be at the ready for whatever our riders needed.
We watched with amazement as these six made there way through the "extra" loop. Even more impossible to imagine while they this was all taking place was that Jack and Tammy have only been riding seriously for the last year and a half or so. And here they were climbing all this way. It was really something to see.
We rolled into Bolzano about two and a half hours after the rest of the group to find Tyler had organized a game of baseball in the hotel courtyard. Our six comrades arrived to a round of huge applause and cheers from their fellow riders. Their effort had not gone unappreciated.