Alps 2024 — Day 11: Vipiteno to Rablà via Merano

Last night I started feeling a bit unwell and found I couldn’t eat very much and my stomach was upset. This isn’t uncommon for me, but it was still frustrating when in an ideal situation I’m eating a lot at the end of the day. On an earlier part of the trip I might have been disruptive to our plans, but we already had a relatively light day planned, so I hoped I would just be able to suck it up and power through.

Woke up and didn’t feel much better, but we didn’t have a hotel breakfast that I was missing so I drank a bit of  juice, we loaded up our bikes and away we went. We’d be climbing the Jaufin Pass which, on the opposite side, would have us descend to Merano.

The ride started out cool and confused. For some reason, our bike computers weren’t showing the route with the details we expect (like turn by turn directions) and it took a bit to diagnose why: I had been playing with the route the day before and had reversed it (i.e. changed it to Merano to Vipiteno) so the computer was struggling to get us to the “start” on the other side of the mountain. Once we fixed this, we knew right where to go and started our ascent.

I mentioned it was chilly. Cold enough that I started with my lightest wind jacket that I will sometimes put on for long descents. We warmed up pretty quickly as we plodded away at the 1150m climb. We expected it would take us about two hours. Light automobile traffic and quite a few other cyclists made the climb enjoyable. A few good views, particularly towards the top where we burst past the treeline.

The pass topped out at 2094m (6870 ft) so the air was definitely getting thinner up there. With the cooler temps at high altitude, I stopped about 100m from the top to put on socks. I would appreciate them on the descent as well!

Socks and sandals

We didn’t linger and began to descend quickly. For the first half, Harald found some faster descenders to follow and quickly left me behind. But we regrouped and then we finished the descent together with another rider, breathing fumes of a couple of cars that should have pulled over to let us by, but didn’t. In general, bikes can go down many of these descents much faster than a car — that applies even for slow descenders like me!

The last 20km to Merano was a gradual downhill (that almost put me to sleep) on mostly gravel trails with a lot of other cyclists. The timing worked out perfectly because we’d reach the Merano train station just as Nicole was arriving from her series of train trips from Amsterdam starting the night before.

After a quick bite at an outdoor food shanty, Nicole caught the train up to Rablà where they have a vacation rental for the week. Harald and I began the last stretch of our journey: 10km with 200m of climbing. Nicole was there well in advance of us and was texting pictures of the pool.

1100km and nearly 20,000m of climbing through four countries is more than I ever dreamed we’d accomplish.

It’s time for a nap by the pool!