Haute Route Dolomites, Stage 4.

Haute Route Dolomites, stage 4. Short but sweet, erm, no... rather sharp!

We were told in the briefing last night that the organisation had made an early decision to cancel the Stelvio ascent. The only real climb of the day, and also neutralised the descent down to Bormio pre Stelvio ascent. So the stage was pretty much going to be 2hrs or less at full whack!

As some of you may have read on my twitter page, the organisers in their wisdom decided to start the field in 75-100 riders at a time in reverse order,. Why, this is still a mystery. There is no logically reason that I or anyone I have spoken to can think to do this. It meant the faster riders who were racing for position and every second would be catching and overtaking at pace the slower riders down the field on the descents and ascents. I found this problem out first hand on one ascent and then the following ascent.

So the day started with the same climb as the time trial the day before. then descending down for a few k’s and another short climb, this time much steeper. This one sorted me and Andrea out a bit. As the nature of a shorter day with shorter climbs there were attacks left right and centre. and as usual I was dropped several times then clawed my way back. On this second steeper climb me and Andrea were distanced. I knew he would more than likely catch up the group on the descent where he would drop me of course. Once we summited I noticed the descent was fast and not technical so kept Andrea in view until the descent flattened off. He had caught the second group on the road and I could see I needed to bridge the 200m gap. I hit the pedals hard and soon got on the back of their group. I had earlier told Andrea I would help him where I could and if I could, we were a group of 6 and doing through and off, looking ahead the lead group was 500m up the road so I did as promised and hit the gas full on to close them down. Initially I felt like I had superman legs, ploughing 410-420 watts, but after a minute they soon disappeared and my weak legs came back. I had done my job though and we were near enough with the leaders again.

A small village followed where the lack of out riders nearly caused our group to stack it into the side of a Renault Twingo. That narrowly avoided we hit the next short climb and yes you guessed it, attack after attack, and yes you guessed right again I got dropped. I would say I lost 45 second once I hit the summit, then the problems with the lower order people prevailed as expected. Trying to ride the descent fast but safe I found many cars caught behind people descending very slowly. While I would have overtaken them I was not happy to risk it on blind corners and with cars and lorries ploughing up the opposite direction. Once again no out riders in sight.

I had completely forgotten how long the final climb was when bleeped our way through the timing mat. I just hit some numbers that I found maintainable and suffered the head wind like everyone else. 10 minutes on I spotted a red Haute Route sign ahead, these are the distance to the summit signs.... I presumed it would say 5k to go, but no, 1k to go....! Good and bad, good as the time would be off in about 4 minutes, but bad asI had paced myself for a longer climb. Not to worry, I was soon over the timing mat and at the Punto van scoffing my face (something I am becoming renown for). This is not a good thing...

The neutral descent was a great ride and good warm down. Once in Bormio our guides thoughts from the night before were proved right, they should have made the Stelvio decision on the day as sun and pretty clear skies greeted us in Bormio. Not to worry as we are to be woken up tomorrow by the climb of Gavia and 3500m of climbing for the day. Hopefully the old legs are working well in the am.

Ciao