Tour of the Alps photographs

Ken Roberts writes:

[ about photo 44 with bad pavement ]
It is on the southern side of the pass, not far from the top, where
the main road goes in an unlit tunnel. I had no lights or
reflectors, so I used the path instead.

Yes I remember that tunnel was pretty dark, and not short (but with
fairly good pavement inside).

The problem is that the upper end has a curve that obscures the exit
and leaves the unlit bicyclist riding into complete darkness. The old
road still allows walking around the outside. For the Giro d'Italia a
few years ago that road was graded but that's gone now. Before the
tunnel, the cliff looked like this:

http://tinyurl.com/7nsry

Jobst Brandt

wrote

The problem is that the upper end has a curve that obscures the exit
and leaves the unlit bicyclist riding into complete darkness. The old
road still allows walking around the outside. For the Giro d'Italia a
few years ago that road was graded but that's gone now. Before the
tunnel, the cliff looked like this:

http://tinyurl.com/7nsry

Jobst Brandt

I remember buying a poster of that photo from the Palo Alto Bicycles catalog
years ago. Is the poster still available?
--
mark

"Ken Roberts" wrote
I slept in Bormio, which I thought was located better for doing the great
climbs of Stelvio and Gavia. And I also liked the city layout and
architecture better than Livigno with it's "duty-free" focus, and the
mountain views from Bormio were more mountain-y.


Any camping / hostel type accommodation in Bormio?
--
mark

Mark who? writes:

The problem is that the upper end has a curve that obscures the
exit and leaves the unlit bicyclist riding into complete darkness.
The old road still allows walking around the outside. For the Giro
d'Italia a few years ago that road was graded but that's gone now.
Before the tunnel, the cliff looked like this:

http://tinyurl.com/7nsry

I remember buying a poster of that photo from the Palo Alto Bicycles
catalog years ago. Is the poster still available?

No it isn't and the original color slide was destroyed by the printer
of those posters when the shop went bankrupt. However, a good one of
this poster was digitally photographed and is the one at the URL
above. You'll notice it has much resolution. That's the best we
have.

Jobst Brandt

Antti Salonen wrote:
In early August I made a two-week trip to Austria, Slovenia and Italy.
This wasn't a dedicated cycling trip, because we travelled from Finland
by a car, and none of my three travelling companions had a bike with
them. We typically spent two or three nights at the same place and in
some cases the others went by car to a new location while I rode a bike.

In total I covered 870 km in 14 days, although I only rode on eight
days. This was my first riding in mountains, so I tried to keep the
total mileage fairly low. I was fortunate to be able to ride an unloaded
racing bike, because I was always either returning to the same place or
then my luggage travelled by a car. The were four longer rides ranging
from 145 to 190 kilometers, while the others were relatively short and
easy.

I'm not good at writing travel reports, so I put some photographs online
instead. I carried a tiny Canon Digital Ixus 40 in the pocket of my
jersey, and it took surprisingly good photographs for a camera of such
small size. The photographs with captions in English are he

http://www.helsinki.fi/~aksalone/2005-08-15/

The first serious climbing was on the second day on the bike, in
Austria. The first 120 kilometers on that day were pretty easy, but then
started the gruelling, relentless ascent to south on the Grossglockner
road up to 2504 meters from sea level. The last 13.3 kilometers had an
average gradient of 9.2 % and this turned out to be the toughest single
climb I would encounter. My lowest gear was 39/29 and my average speed
was a bit less than 10 km/h. A compact crankset would've been more
appropriate.

Near the end of the vacation we spent three days in Livigno, from where
I could cover many famous mountain passes like Bernina, Stelvio and
Gavia. The toughest single ride was from Livigno to Bormio, then over
the Gavia pass to the Aprica pass, down to Tirano, and finally to the
Bernina road and back to Livigno. This was 189 kilometers, including an
outrageous 4500 meters of climbing, at an average speed barely of just 21
km/h. I took the following day relatively easy, so two days later I had
the energy for another 145 km ride to see the Ofenpass in Switzerland
and ride up the mighty Stelvio from Prato and then back to Livigno.

I was blessed with great weather, with hardly any rain and not too hot
temperatures. I'm convinced that the Alps in the summer offer the best
cycling on Earth. The roads are good, the hotels good and reasonably
priced (if you go that way) and the scenery absolutely gorgeous.

-as
Thank you for sharing the photos of your trip. Wonderful!