The Mountain Diaries Day 1: August 16th

With a 2.30am start, and a day of travelling, it was always going to be an easy day of riding to stretch the legs and familiarise ourselves with Bormio, in the Lombardy region of Italy, and home for the next couple of days. Despite arriving at Innsbruck airport to rain and failing to convince the ‘Hitler-like’ Austrian at the car rental that whatever angle or whatever light I tried to park the Seat Altea under it just wasn’t the same size as a VW Touran (the car we’d booked to cater for our bike/bike box/kit bag requirements). "Zee Altea iz a super car. What's wrong, don't you like?" His argument was that it was in the same group as the Touran. Despite clearly stating when booking “Touran or similar”, the Altea fell a long way short of the mark. Hire car companies, they’re all crooks. After multiple attempts at getting the bike boxes & kit bags in we finally got the boot closed and hit the road. Destination Bormio!

The weather was steadily improving and the scenery spectacular straight from the airport. It was hard to keep the eyes on the road ahead and not on the surrounding mountains that's for sure!

On arrival a superman style bike build and kit change would have left Clarke Kent short of breath. The weather was now perfect, warm and still. People sunbathing in the mountains is always a good sign.

As time was getting on we decided on an easy 2 hour ride climbing to Bormio 2000 ski station. The view over Bormio town below was superb and the foot hills of the Passo dello Stelvio, Italy’s highest pass, could be seen. With a fresh formaggio e prosciutto panini in Mr W’s back pocket the Stelvio was glistening under the early evening sun.

An Italian icon, from either direction it's a masterpiece with switchbacks that slice their way to an oxygen deprived 2,758m. Still with daylight we descended to the foot of the climb and started the ascent. Remember, don’t start something you can’t finish. As we climbed our way high above Bormio it was clear that we weren’t turning back until we’d reached the summit. It was never part of the plan to ride the Stelvio from this side, especially on our arrival day, but the opportunity was there so we had to take it.

It was getting colder. The light was dwindling as the day began to sleep. What a climb. The pure scale of it was enough to keep you transfixed on the road ahead. Hairpin after hairpin the Stelvio was ours.

OK, I openly admit that if we’d planned on riding this legend on our travel day then a little more clothing probably should have been worn and a bit more food taken for the ride, which turned out to be more like 3.5 hours instead of the planned 2! By the summit we were just below a dusting of snow, breath clearly visible as the clear mountain air was exhaled. It really was cold now and the prospect of over 20km’s of descending, back to 1,225m, with the chill of the night on top of us was not a welcome feeling. Luckily we were able to get a couple of copies of the Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper (quite fittingly with coverage for the Granfondo Marco Pantani results on it) to shove up our jerseys and a couple of cotton caps from a stall just shutting up at the top. Amazingly this little stash cost exactly the change that we had from the panini bought earlier, how’s that for luck? Or was it fate?

Concentration was needed on the descent with a combination of wind chill and dark, wet, tunnels on the lower sections to remind us that this was only day one and we had a lot of riding ahead.

Incredible. What a ‘warm-up’ ride. Conquering the Stelvio from Bormio was never on the cards at the start of the day, or even when we set off for the ride, but you know what it’s like, sometimes kids just get carried away. Now the ascent of the Stelvio from Bormio was with us forever. Cold, dark descent or no cold dark descent, either way we'd made it and it felt great. Tomorrow was another day and the prospect of the Mortirolo (arguably one of the hardest climbs in the world) followed by the Gavia was getting ever closer. Bring it on, I can't wait!

Day 1 col count: 2 – Bormio 2000 & Passo dello Stelvio