A family holiday taking bikes to Cortina d’Ampezzo brought an unexpected day pass for a big ride whilst Holly and Cath had a day relaxing with books, shopping and ‘Going Ape’
Strangely my back issues didn’t figure in my thoughts on planning a mega route combining a few of the marked MTB trails north of the town, which I think must mean I am finally nearly there with my rehab…
All the routes start with a blast up the cycle track that runs past Cortina on an old railway line, including a lit tunnel! I then forked off onto the first climb of the day on the ‘MTB no. 10 route’ up to a pass at Forc Lerosa. The climb just went on and on, getting steeper and steeper until I had eventually to get off for a few bends as I couldn’t keep the front wheel on the ground! Eventually after a short level section in the high meadows the track cascaded back down the mountain to join the MTB no.12/13 route up the main valley to Rifugio Sennes.
I really struggled on this climb, running out of food and water eventually limping into the Rifugio and downing a huge plate of Goulash and Dumplings before heading off towards my next huge decent.
The hairpins on the way down into Rifugio Pederu were amazing and just went on and on, culminating in a final very steep paved series of switch backs which left my brakes ticking as they cooled at the bottom. There then followed another monumental climb up to Rifugo Fanes where I sampled yet more home cooking ( not sure they appreciated my smelly attire at this point) before tackling the final 100m or so of climb up to the final col above.
From here it was mostly downhill, kms and kms of it, firstly through meadow pastures before diving into woodland, down and down.
I finally came out back on the main cycle path back into Cortina exhausted as it began to rain, realizing I had just done over 5 hours on the bike, 60km and 2700 metres of climbing and my back didn’t hurt a bit.
The Whyte E5 was the perfect tool for this trip, soaking up the bumps on the descents but the pro-pedal and front fork lockout keeping things under control on the climbs.
An amazing day, up there in my top 5 of best rides ever I think.
