Transalp - day 6

That's how the Transalp typically works: one climb for breakfast, one for lunch, and some fun stuff in between. Today we climbed out of St. Vigil through a valley, nicknamed the "Grand Canyon of the Alps". It lead us up again into the Dolomites, it was just beautiful - but tough. At one point I passed a Pro girl crying on her bike. Later in the day I heard she had to stop due to stomach problems.

We hit some really steep climbs, and sometimes had to push, before descending, just to realize another climb with 1200 m veritical was waiting. This climb ended in some sweet singletrail up and downs, and I must have had one of the best days on my bike ever.

Frank and I stayed together the hole time and continued passing other riders. Just before the top of the following final climb of the day we had to push hard for a moment in order to catch two guys that passed us the day before on the last downhill, and we didn't want them to be ahead of us again.

The last 10 km were great technical downhill into Alleghe, down on singletrail and over ski-slopes, through little cobblestone alleys in mountain towns, along some abandoned old Italian farm-houses, and finally in a dried out river-bead, leading to a lake where the finishing area was waiting for us. We made up another 4 minutes on the guys we just passed before the downhill.

Another successfull day, we finished 62nd, which improved our overall position to somewhere around 80th place.

Moving up

Alex (and Frank)


Hard to believe, but there are trails through the Dolomite Mountains...