Day 3 broke with the promise of heavy rain, but somehow the forecast for its arrival kept being pushed back giving us a chance to complete the Sella Ronda circuit before its arrival…the race was on!
The field notes tell us that Sella Ronda is a mountain massif that connects the valleys of the high Dolomite plateau: Badia, Gherdeina, Fodom and Fascia. It is a popular destination for mountain bikers, road cyclists, hikers and randonnee (cross country) skiers. Although most people in this area speak Italian and German, the local dialect is known as Ladin and is an old branch of a Romance Language (much similar to Swiss Romansh). Although derived from vulgar Latin, each valley has its own version of the language and identities are closely connected to which dialect a person speaks.
We rode from our hotel up to Arraba and turned north on the first of our mountain pass climbs then towards Campolungo and descended into Corvara – the start of the famous Granfondo Maratona dles Dolomites where tens of thousands of cyclists gather every year in July to tackle these same passes. From there we headed up to Passo Gardena, arguably the toughest of the 4 passes and then to Passo Sella, which provided some beautiful vistas before descending and then climbing to the final pass known as Passo Pordoi.
Approaching Corvara…
Stalla Ronda climbing up the second pass, Passo Gardena…
Looking back down Passo Gardena from about halfway up. It is 8.3km long and averages 7%. I got down to 5kph or less on some of the steeper sections… A lovely French lady kept passing me on her E-bike. She continually encouraged me and other riders to keep going. Her husband was on his roadie feeling the pain, so she would stop to wait for him to catchup so we kept passing each other. These E-bikes are amazing in giving people access to days like today. Kudos to her!
My favourite view of Sella Ronda from the top of Passo Gardena at morning tea. It popped out from the clouds for a while. you maybe able to see some walkers ascending if you look closely with a magnifying glass!
Looking down to next descent with Sella Ronda on the left, before heading up the third pass…
Climbing up 5.3km to Passo Sella, everywhere you looked were moody mountain peaks…
There were rain showers developing in the distance, one pass to climb and descend back to Arraba for lunch…
I had received the team horn for the day, its apparently an honour for achievement the previous day. Not sure exactly what I had done to deserve dragging this around the mountain, but thanks Maxi and I had fun honking it at bemused tourists..
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The view across to Passo Pordoi, only problem is there is a big valley in between us…
Halfway up the final pass looking back to Passo Sella, it looks so close but it was well over an hour and a lot of pain and sweat ago….
Steve and his sister Michelle, Pete and I we finally made the top of the 6.5km Passo Pordoi with Sarah not far behind when we took this shot. The sense of satisfaction was extreme, but we had small hail hitting our helmets around about now and still the final, long sweeping descent into Arraba…
Arraba is way down in that valley, its a long beautiful and pretty fast 9km ride down dropping over 630 vertical metres and we had extra incentive, there is a storm front sweeping in from the top left of the photo. The race was seriously on as we didn’t want to be caught on wet road roads coming down. This was one of the best parts of the whole day.
The rain caught me with about a km to go. It was very cold and very heavy, but luckily I got into our lunch spot without mishap and tucked into a beautiful bowl of Carbonara. yum yum…
The whole circuit was about 67km and climbed a total of just over 2000m. The quick riders did it in about 3.5 hours but our little crew were happy to get round in about 4 and half. Most of the climbs averaged out around 7% with some challenging pinches into double figures.
As a post script a few of us rode the 7 km back to the hotel in the rain, we got quite cold and wet even with our gear on so I couldn’t imagine having been able to achieve this ride if the rain had turned up even an hour earlier
The grandeur of the Dolomite mastiffs is breathtaking in their scale, which photos cannot even begin the capture. This was easily one of the best rides most of us had ever done and there were many good stories of ‘daring do’ around the dinner table that evening,