Alps 2024 — Day 7: Selva di Val Gardena to Pieve di Cadore

A good rebound for us after an exhausting day yesterday. Still a lot at 102km and 2000m of climbing, but most of the climbing was done by 1:30 because the three passes (Sella, Pordoi, and Falzarago) came in relatively quick succession.

But first, we’re in another hotel with decent Internet, so here’s some video goodness:

We had a head start on the first pass (Sella) because of our long day yesterday. But the first thing we had to do was descend from our hotel-on-high to the main road. 100m lost right off the bat! 😭

Beautiful views of the Dolomites on all sides as we ascended the Passo Sella.

It was as relaxing an ascent as we could expect, and given the early hour there was little traffic. Gradually we began to see things pick up as the recreational riders woke up. A few from behind us, but when we reached the summit there were a lot of riders from the other direction along with early bus loads of hikers using the excellent regional transit system to position themselves for a great day of hiking the high Dolomites!

The descent was a bit shorter than usual because we would almost immediately turn off and begin to ascend the Passo Pordoi.

We saw our first pro team riders, five from Bahrain Victorious and their team car were descending the opposite of us. It happened too fast for a picture.

So it’s not even 11:00 and we’re headed down the second pass. So many bikers out now so were able to descend with many other riders around. That was fun because you could use them to cheat your way around the corners a bit.

Halfway down the descent we stopped for water and, while leaning my bike on something I shouldn’t have, my bike took a little tumble. It ended up bending my rear derailleur, although I wouldn’t find out until I shifted to my easiest gear about 30 minutes later at the start of our last climb. A small fall like that normally wouldn’t be a big deal, but because of how heavy these bikes are it hit with enough force to bend either the frame or the derailleur itself.

Luckily, my bike shifters have a useful fallback mode for just this scenario (i.e. switching from indexed to friction shifting for your bike nerds). With Harald’s help (mostly lifting the bike up so I could spin the wheel and crank freely), we were able to adjust the limit screws and get back on the road in just a few minutes. Phew!

The last climb was the Falzarago and it turned out to be quite enjoyable, if not a bit tiring. Mostly unremarkable, which is fine, except towards the top where there were some interesting tunnels and rock fall guard tunnel features. You grow a bit numb to the majesty around you when you’re out in it all day!

and…

With rain in the distance, we didn’t linger. We descended down into the beautiful city of Cortina where we ate a late lunch on a bench in front of the cultural museum. At this time we decided we were up for another hour or two of easier riding, which lined us up with a hotel in Pieve di Cadore.