She is a hot!

Our Room Hotel Dolomiti

Balcony View 

Our room is on the 4th floor and has a balcony that provides us with some pretty beautiful scenery.  The one downside of the room is the beams which are almost impossible to not knock your head on.  Since the clock on the tower is always beer thirty, disaster is always just a second away.

Marmolada

Today's ride was Moena-Marmolada-Moena.  There were two passes - Passo Fedaia and Passo San Pellegrino.  The ride was reported to be 87.2 KM with 2240 meters of climbing, although my Garmin said the day was 90KM with 3,140 meters of climbing (10,000 feet for you Americans!).  Today was much harder than yesterday.  The first pass, Fedaia, was the more scenic of the two.  There were points where you would ride over a bridge and there was a sheer drop inches away from you.  It felt like a stiff wind could push you right over it.  Since today was Sunday there was a lot of activity once you hit the top, which ended at a dam and had views of the Marmolada, which is the highest peak in Italy.  We saw one pro cyclist from Etixx Quickstep go silkily by at the top.  This pass is also a mecca for motorcycles.  So suffice it to say there was a lot of action up there.  The descent off of Fedaia is famous and has steep parts and tons of the classic switch backs.  Going around a switch back, it is very important to look through the turn to your exit point.  If you do that you glide smoothly through the turn.

Classic Passo Sign

Bar top of Passo Fedaia

Looking up the switch backs Passo San Pellegrino

The Top

The descent took us to our lunch spot at Lago Alleghe.  We hiked up into the town and bought ham sandwiches and a slice of cheese.  "Sandwich" is probably a stretch. It was a large roll stuffed with Proscuitto Cotta, no condimenti.  We added the sliced cheese to give it some moisture.  But it hit the spot and we ate it on a pier on the lake.  It was very hot and we had no shade so I dipped my feet into the cold mountain water.

Our Sag Wagon Stash

After lunch we headed to the Passo San Pellegrino.  This is a beast of a climb, especially today as a good part of it was climbed in high 90's to 100 degree heat.  There are a lot of tunnels in the area and the tunnels are not that fun on a bike because they are dark and wet.  The picture above was a stop to drink ice cold water and refill our bottles.  You can make out the switch backs if you look closely.  In about 2 km from this point the hard parts start which include stretches of 16% and 18% gradients, all done in the heat!  Making the top was a welcome relief.  I pulled off to the side took off my shoes, drank my water and had some fruit puree.  The descent off of Pellegrino was really fun!  It wasn't too steep and it did not have sharp switch backs and allowed me to really open it up, just don't tell Lynne!

Chillin after ride

Back at the Hotel we had well-earned cold beers!

For dinner Lynne and I hiked up a hill for the best pizza in town.  We were soon joined by our two guides and we had a nice dinner, finished off with some limoncello.