Today’s update will be brief (Ed: I guess I lied); as I’m starting to write. it’s 11:15 and we’ve got an early start planned tomorrow.
Leaving from Filisur at about 7am, we were already partially up the Albula Pass. so immediately we were into the climbing, real mountain roads, no warmups.
About 45 minutes in, the route leveled off briefly and we stopped at a charming bakery for carbs and coffee in Bergun.
After breakfast, the climbing continued and we found ourselves criss-crossing the train that was meandering its way up the same valley. It’s interesting how the train is forced to take different routes, looping back on itself and using more tunnels, because even these narrow-gauge trains are unable to handle the tight turns and higher gradients found on the road.
Slow and steady climbing eventually yielded a summit where we had coffee and watched other cyclists roll up from both directions.
For a ride that took the better part of two hours uphill, including breaks, it took about ten minutes of white knuckle cycling down.
We spent a bit of time riding through the valley.
Then we stopped for a bite before climbing up San Bernardino Pass from the St. Moritz side.
For both major passes of the day, we started riding together at the same pace but eventually split up as conditions warranted. My preferred pace is a bit slower, which protects my knee (which is improving every day) and gives me opportunities to snap pictures like this one:
And this one:
Eventually the whole group made it up:
Similarly, Harald descends like a bat out of hell and, well, I just don’t need or want to go that fast. On a twenty minute descent, we’ll lose touch and then regroup at some agreed-upon point at the bottom.
On the way down, we did get separated but in a strange way where somehow we both thought I had gotten in front, but turns out I was behind. It was no big deal to resolve and it’s funny to replay the chain of events that led to that situation. I won’t replay those events here though.
It’s interesting to me how although usually we’ll ride together (as in within 10ft of each other, both on this tour and back home), the moments of riding on your own that can organically develop (if you let them) can be very rewarding and refreshing as well.
Once down from San Bernardino we stopped in to a small bar for some NA beers to celebrate the first day of high mountain passes. We used the time to book our hotel and began planning for tomorrow.
After a quick stop at Lidl for supplies for tomorrow (most grocery stores are closed on Sundays), we were able to settle in at our nice room, well-positioned for tomorrow’s riding.
Altogether, another relatively short day by mileage at 101km, but that includes 2100m of climbing so let’s asterisk that just a bit, ok?
One last thing to mention: completely by chance, our rented room is associated with a Japanese/Italian vegan restaurant right next door. So we took it as a sign and treated ourselves to a six course dining experience, which was most definitely awesome and light years ahead of what we’ve been eating for the last 4-5 days.
