Ultimate Alps 2018

This morning I sit on our hotel balcony in Mieming surrounded by mountains and the weather a little like I feel - dull with a little bit of drizzle. Yes, this, like all good things, is coming to an end. But the tour had a last day of adventure for us. Another 220 kms / 4hrs 30 of great riding.  I did not set the trip metre until 10 kilometres into the ride and the bike computer told me today was our fastest day at an adverage 51.5km/h.  We started out from Bolzano head along some narrow streets and onto the road up the Sarentino valley. A road lined with orchards and vineyards with a lot of tunnels and turns built so the people up in the high valleys town could access Bolzano to work replacing a 100 k journey with a 20/30 k one. The path lead us to the Pennes Pass.  We where in high country above the tree line again.  The road was of baring condition but there was an amount of road works. Road work can be a good thing. They force you to stop and, as long as you can b...

Today is the rest day. This means that we stay in the same hotel two nights in a row. The ride option was 350 kms in and around the Dolomites. Marly, Robyn and Anna had all decided that they could do with a day off the bikes. Ramon had plans to make a short ride and I opted to go with him. Our aim was to be back in Bozen for lunch. We had breakfast at 7 and were on the bikes and away by 8. It was old school touring using maps. Ramon had a good system of writing out the names of the towns we had to go through in order and then we needed to look for signs to those places and follow them. The instruction from Axel on how to get out of town work perfectly and we headed toward Brenner. We needed to turn off to Blumau. We stopped thinking we had missed the turn but after consulting the maps agreed we need to go a little farther. The turn off revealed its self and from here we simply followed the road, stopping a couple of times for photos and to put on a jersey as the temperature dropped as ...

The title is written as it is because there was one of each in today’s travels. Today was the shortest of our journeys, just 154kms from Madonna Di Campiglio to Bolzano. Jonas leaded today and we made our first stop for coffee at shop in Stenico. We sat on the sidewalk and conversation turned to other Edelweiss tours. Robyn mentioned that she had seen they had one called Castle and Breweries tour. Jonas responded to explain that that took in a chunk of Eastern Europe. Robyn replied I am not interested in the breweries much but I would like to see the Castles. Jonas then points up the hill across the road and says “There is one there.” So we made a impromptu decision to visit. The walk up the hill was good excerise and the view of the castle was interesting. We walked through the court yard but from there you had to pay and we did not really have the time or the inclination to do so on this visit. The morning had started off with a shower forcing us into our wets at a brief roadside sto...

As a group we are all starting to wear out. None of us want to admit it but these solid long days are taking there toll. While another 70 kms of the windy type track was an option, we opted for a shorter day. Our destination was Madonna Di Campiglio, a town focuses completely on skiing in the winter and hiking and mountain biking in the summer. To get there, we need to be away by 8.30 to catch the ferry across Lake Coma at 9.20. The ride along Lake Lugano was pretty casual with great views of the lake. The road dropped of the east end of the lake and wound through a hilly part with a few hairpin turns but never really left the populated area. We rolled down the hill and basically straight on to the ferry. We just made in - the next one is in an hour. Lake Coma is known for the holiday playground of the rich and famous. George Clooney, Madonna and Ben Spies own or have owned houses on the Lake. It is a beautiful spot, very large area of water it took about 30 minutes to cross on the fer...

We have now completed 4 day’s of riding, Today was shorter 224 kms but riding the hardest, at least I could, the best we could average was 44kms/hr. The morning started with a train ride down from Zermatt. In my feedback I will suggest Zermatt be the rest day. The problem is I am guessing it would be expensive and there would not be a ride from here option. The problem they have in planning these tours is that they have to convince people like me, who have before this never done a long ride and average less then 60km/hr, that we are getting good value. By the time we got in tonight the whole group is keen for the short ride tomorrow.  From the train, a short walk to pick up our bikes out of the lockup. We had to fuel first and then ride the same road out as we come in on 40k or 50k and then through a complex section of turns and out on the road up Simplonpass. This road was much more commercial with big trucks and buses but wide and over taking was pretty easy. Good fun as each of ...

This morning I am up early to get a shot of the sun rising on the Matterhorn. I had no idea when we signed up that a night in a hotel in view of the Matterhorn was part of it. The Matterhorn is the highest mountain in the Alps stands at over 4000 metres, only half the height of Everest but twice the height of Kosicosko. Our third day on the bike was 260 kms and a bit shorter but we took that time up during the ride with some additional stops. Again there were lots of winding roads = that is what we came for. The highlights was the stops. The first a ferry ride across the lake that our hotel overlooked.  The next, a cafe beside a river from which you could see the snow melt rush by about 30 metre below you into a gap in the mountain. Next, we had a picnic by a stream. The temperature was well into the 20s and I took the opportunity to take off my foot and cool my feet in the stream. It was so cold that after a while you got an icecream headache in your feet when paddling.  Our ...