Haute Route Dolmites, stage 7. Cold....

Haute Route Dolomites, stage 7. Erm, just cold!

Well as with all Haute Route stages the final stage is generally shorter and a lot less climbing. Today was no different, though we did have a super climb to start with, the Passo Giau. The warm up we got was the cup of coffee we had for breakfast as the climb started instantly from the race village of Cortina. We were also expecting a chill day, the start time was 07:00 so most of the valley was still in shadow and went I first opened the door of the hotel hell it was cold! Clothing choice would be important, with this I made a little error.

So off we went, bleeps all over the place as the timing mat worked overtime. Immediately the top guys kicked it off. Bloody hell, here we go again. Reluctantly I tried to limit the gap but this was a battle I would lose either quickly or slowly with plenty of suffering. Away they went and I got into rhythm, I was not feeling too bad and felt I was keeping the lead group sort of in sight. Once 30 minutes of the climb was dealt with I started to see frost on the grass on the side of the road, I glanced up and saw we were entering the snow line in the mountains. Immediately I thought to the up and coming descent which could have some ice on it.... gulp...!!

After looking up that once I had a good gander around, the Dolomites really are my favourite mountain range to look at! If you get the chance I would say some of the pictures from todays stage will be epic to say the least. I might even be in some spoiling the view.

I saw ahead the lead group had split and what remained of it I was catching, Andrea was there so I knew he was not on a good day as I was catching him. We summited as a group pretty much and I grabbed my bottle. I saw Andrea getting on his huge jacket and I knew I had made an error. I had my windproof on all the climb and just undid the zip a little bit. Now descending I could feel the chill on my face but was still warm at this point. The first corner had a out rider whistling and shouting “ICE ICE”.... Great start to my confidence and putting the wind up me with a huge descent to get down. As usual I took it pretty easy, every time I saw a wet patch I presumed it was ice. It was not but best be safe than sorry. A couple of the riders overtook me in this 10k section, Andrea being one in the 3k of it I would guess. He was showing off his skills and he also caught the leaders up, probably taking 2 or more minutes out of them on this technical downhill.

I on the other hand had got to the valley below and was asking my legs to do some work as we now had 40k on 1% down or flat to go until the final climb of the week. The legs really were on strike, I feel they must have got super cold without me knowing. I have been colder in the past but this time I had to try to get some power out, this was not working one bit. As I was going very slowly people were catching me up, I tried to join their groups but only lasted a few seconds until my legs decided that was enough. A long time followed where I was wanting the mileage counter to move faster (but it did not). Then all of a sudden there was a timing mat... hurray, last climb.

The sun was now doing its business well and I had warmed up. After a couple of minutes on the climb the old legs were back in business. I had just caught a group before the climb with one of our Punto Tour riders in, Ralph. He was in a tight battle for his age group. After the first few k’s of the climb I told him to stick to my wheel and I would keep a consistent pace. I was not sure where his competition was but thought I might be able to help him. We did the rest of the climb a decent power and coming to the line emptied the tank with one of my pathetic sprints on the hoods.

Once done I could now feel my left knee was not in a good way, I can only think it was upset with the temperature on the top and down the descent of the Giau. In the end a good job the race finished today. Oh and stats going up the Giau, -2 was the lowest temperature. and average over the first 90 minutes was 0. Jolly good...!

So thats another Haute Route done, just off to the prize giving, we have heard good food this week!!

Ciao