Tutti Dolomiti Stage 4

Fiera di Primiera to Canazei

Strava: 99.73 km, 3,187m, 6:40, 113 shifts, max speed 77.5 kph

This was truly a day of fun cycling in the Dolomites! It had everything. Each of our passes today has been featured in the Giro d’Italia many times. We left at the usual time, 8:15. Our first climb, Passo Rolle, started pretty much right away. I guess I was feeling a lot better than yesterday and it had less climbing and distance than Cima Grappa yesterday. Anyway, it was fine cruising up – it took me over two hours for the 1,250m but who’s counting? I had a banana on top then a high speed 8 minute descent to a junction where we turned up our second climb, Passo Valles. This one was shorter but kicked at the end (steep). This was our first time over 2,000m and a really nice, longer, descent took us to lunch down in the lowlands, 1,200m below.

I enjoyed lunch then had my chance to hitch a ride but I felt I was close to full power and could ride the whole stage. We thanked Ben and Dion for lunch, then headed off, a little more downhill, some tunnels (one fast and squirrely), then we turned up the road to our final pass of the day, Passo Fedaia. This one was different. The final 5 km was a real test of mental and physical capacity. It felt like climbing forever at 13-15% and just when it got really steep, it started snowing. First just a few flakes but for a while it was blasting down, sticking on me everywhere except my (bare) legs and my gloves – my hands run hot. It was a situation where you know you’re ok, you only have a kilometer to go and even at the glacial pace you can manage, you’ll be there soon, so you just keep going! The snow stopped as I arrived at the pass and I added two more layers for the decent. Ben took some nice photos and we were off.

The last descent was 14 km, nice and fast and smooth although there were three traffic lights protecting one-way sections that I spent more than my fair share of time at. At the last one, we blew it off and rode the sidewalk. We pulled in to the hotel below Canazei and Wijnand had the onion soup cranking! Everyone was really happy. I guess this type of day is what we came for.

After snacks and soup we went inside and got a room, parking our bikes in a very well equipped ‘bici’ room. I sat outside on our balcony, warmed by the sun and video chatted with Katie back home. Then a 10 out of 10 shower! So much salt to wash off!

We had a super relaxed and fun dinner in the hotel. When I walked in I saw a massive buffet plus a nice salad bar. So I filled a plate with everything non-meaty and then filled a giant bowl with salad. With a beer from the bar this was a great dinner! When I was about 3/4 done, someone passed me the dinner menu. The top item was “Appetizer Buffet”. After that were four options for the first course and four for the second! I was already full but went for a first course, passed on the second, then had coffee ice-cream for dessert. I figure that any day you climb 3,187m/10,456′ you can go as big as you want on dinner.

And just like that, the biggest, hardest stage of the whole tour is done. But we’ve found before that the numbers don’t always tell the whole story, so stay tuned here…