Sierre to Airolo
Oof that was a tough day.
It started well continuing up the Val d’Anniviers in beautiful morning light, happily peddling along in my happy zone.
The post coffee break section was fuelled by the excellent pastries snaffled from the hotel breakfast, my snaffling is now at expert level!
And then the climbing really started, unfortunately accompanied by too much traffic - motorbikes, over sized campervans and Porsche drivers sadly also like alpine passes. 10% gradients are hard enough without being overtaken too close at deafening speed, my swearing got worse and worse.
There was some light relief at Niederwald, a beautiful village where Caesar Ritz was born, the youngest of 13 children in a poor peasant family. He was apprenticed in a local hotel then left to seek his fortune in Paris, rapidly becoming rather a good hotel manager.
As we approached the lunch location at an old military airfield in Reckingen, the views were almost like being in a Swiss caricature.
Fuelled by another yummy picnic and two Nutella doughnuts, I was feeling strong and ready for the hardest part of the day up and over the Nufenen Pass, Switzerland’s second highest paved pass at 2478 metres. I did my usual approach of trying to keep my heart rate at a sensible level by spinning my legs and pausing for a breather when needed, but it was a relentless gradient and I started to feel really dizzy and sick which I haven’t experienced on a climb before. I must be getting sensible in my old age because I decided I had to stop and lovely Ben drove me up the remaining revolting switchbacks. I still felt a bit wobbly at the top but took some photos of the glaciers and put on lots of layers for the descent.
I descended even more sedately than normal, but made it to the hotel in Airolo and the usual post-ride routine.
It started well continuing up the Val d’Anniviers in beautiful morning light, happily peddling along in my happy zone.
The post coffee break section was fuelled by the excellent pastries snaffled from the hotel breakfast, my snaffling is now at expert level!
The next break was next to a hanging bridge which I didn’t fancy walking across in cycling shoes and was definitely not for anyone who doesn’t like vertiginous drops.
And then the climbing really started, unfortunately accompanied by too much traffic - motorbikes, over sized campervans and Porsche drivers sadly also like alpine passes. 10% gradients are hard enough without being overtaken too close at deafening speed, my swearing got worse and worse.
There was some light relief at Niederwald, a beautiful village where Caesar Ritz was born, the youngest of 13 children in a poor peasant family. He was apprenticed in a local hotel then left to seek his fortune in Paris, rapidly becoming rather a good hotel manager.
As we approached the lunch location at an old military airfield in Reckingen, the views were almost like being in a Swiss caricature.
Fuelled by another yummy picnic and two Nutella doughnuts, I was feeling strong and ready for the hardest part of the day up and over the Nufenen Pass, Switzerland’s second highest paved pass at 2478 metres. I did my usual approach of trying to keep my heart rate at a sensible level by spinning my legs and pausing for a breather when needed, but it was a relentless gradient and I started to feel really dizzy and sick which I haven’t experienced on a climb before. I must be getting sensible in my old age because I decided I had to stop and lovely Ben drove me up the remaining revolting switchbacks. I still felt a bit wobbly at the top but took some photos of the glaciers and put on lots of layers for the descent.
I descended even more sedately than normal, but made it to the hotel in Airolo and the usual post-ride routine.
The language change today was quite something - breakfast in French, coffee break in German and dinner in Italian!
Ben took some amazing photos today - I can almost forget the pain…
Ben took some amazing photos today - I can almost forget the pain…
Comments
Post a Comment