Geoff Bailey joined Orwell this year with a view to repeating David Fitzgerald's Stelvio trip from last year, and undertook it last weekend. He writes about his Alpine adventure below!

My Gran Fondo Stelvio Experience

Geoff Bailey

I joined Orwell Wheelers this season with a view to training for the Gran Fondo Stelvio.

I travelled with a UK based events company styled 5034 (www.5034events.co.uk) run by the apparently relaxed, but ultimately well organised, Dudley Samuels. The event is based in a small town in Northern Italy close to the Swiss border that doubles as a winter ski and summer cycling resort. The event is in its 4th year and has being growing strongly with over 2,800 cyclists from partaking in one of three distances 65km, 135km or 151km. Each distance starts in Bormio and finishes with a 22km climb up to the top of the Passo del Stelio. The climb itself, while graded HC, is not too bad, but when it comes at the end of the 151km ride, which included the 11km Mortirolo (with an average gradient of 13%), it proved very challenging.

My training commenced at the end of February when I joined my first Orwell weekend winter spin but my participation was a bit sporadic until after Easter when I was able to commit to a minimum of two rides per week. The Tuesday evening ‘hills’ were particularly beneficial. I generally went out with the faster group, but more often than not was hanging off the back, but it did mean I had to work very hard not to lose them completely. Thanks to Peter and the lads for their patience!

The trip itself was good fun. I joined up with the 100 strong group travelling with 5034 in Milan Malpensa airport at lunchtime on Thursday 4th June. Flights to Milan from Dublin are evening flights which meant I had to travel the day before which wasn’t ideal. The coach trip to Bormio was a little over three hours including a stop for drinks and a snack. The route took us past Lake Como and up through the alpine foothills which was a pleasant enough journey. Thursday evening was spent putting the bikes together and socialising in the bar before the group sat down together for the hotel dinner. The accommodation package was half board and the food in the Palace Hotel was very good. The evening menu was very Tyrollean and reminiscent of 4 course dinners I’d had in Austrian ski resorts, albeit with an Italian twist. You got up from the table having eaten well, accompanied by decent Italian wines. Not necessarily ideal preparation for cycling, but it definitely met my second objective of enjoying the trip and meeting some new and interesting people from various walks of life.

On Friday 5034 organised a ride up the Passo del Gavia, however, the testosterone filled Iron Man participating crew with whom I was traveling thought this more of a ‘rest day’ cycle and opted to climb the Passo del Stelvio and go down the other side for lunch before returning back over the Passo del Stelvio. It was an enjoyable day with the climb back up being noticeable more steep than the climb from the Bormio side. The scenery was relatively barren with few trees, the mountain sides were grass lands interspersed with fingers of scree slides and many fast gushing streams bringing down the snow melt. There were plenty of cyclists, but even more motor cyclists. The scene at the top was what I would imagine a bikers convention to look like...large, leather clad, German speaking men were in abundance.

We did the Passo del Gavia the following morning. This was a spectacular ride up a beautiful valley: initially travelling up tree lined switchback bends, but then above the trees the narrow road gripped the side with steep cliffs above and below before eventually plateauing out at the top where the landscape was winter like with snowy tops and an ice lake. After coffee we, returned to Bormio for a delicious lunch in a street restaurant along one of the cobbled streets of the old town. The Gavia deserved more respect than we gave it and my legs were now tired after two days of >25km long, uninterrupted climbs.

Sunday 7th June was the day of the main event. We breakfasted at 6:00, did last minute preparations and went to our starting grid at 7:00 ready for the 7:30 starter's gun.

There was a pro-racing group that were in the front grid, followed by a large group of licensed riders doing the mid or long route with the group doing the shorter route being kept to the back. It was a chip-timed event, so for those looking to compete on time, being near the front was not critical. The first 35km was all down hill and taken at a decent pace. The route took us down the valley to Tirano along roads closed to traffic. We encountered the first proper climb at 47km which took us up 500m of vertical to the village of Teglio before returning to the valley floor and doing a shorter climb on the other side of the valley which marked the start of the return to Bormio.

The split between the mid and long routes took place after the 80km food stop, when those doing the mid-route took the gradual climb back up the valley, whereas those doing the longer route were diverted up the Mortirolo. All I can say is that it deserves its reputation! I had listened to Sean Kelly commentating for Euro Sport only two weeks previously that the side we climbed was even harder than the route chosen for the Giro d’Italia! We climbed 1,200m in 11.4km. It was relentless: the main saving grace being that the narrow road we climbed was largely in the shade.

With 2km to go of the 11km climb, we hit (another) 20% stretch and simultaneously a patch of very rutted concrete path. It proved too much for everybody that I could see in front or behind me and we ended up walking for 100m or so until we could find a stretch less steep to get back on the bikes. I negotiated this hill with a standard compact on the front and a 32 on the back, I was so glad I moved up from the 28 I had on only a week earlier. The food stop at the top was a most welcome break - orange segments, strawberries and half bananas accompanied nice tarts and plenty of drinks.

Next we descended the Mortirolo to the valley floor and made our way back to Bormio. There we participated in the last main food stop before the final 22km climb up 1,560m to the Passo del Stelio. It was a very different experience from the climb I did two days previously! It was hot (30 degrees C) and I had just cycled over 135km! The climb that had taken me just over two hours on Friday now took me nearly three.

There was much soul searching and only the firm image of a nice cold beer at the top kept me moving.

On reaching the top the first thing I did was to buy that beer! (see photo)

Would I do it again? Yes definitely, but I would be better prepared. If you are starting from a relatively low fitness base as I was, three months preparation is not enough. I would also aim to lose more weight - while I was lighter than I was the same time last year, I was still 8kg heavier than when I was a more competitive cyclist - that is a lot of dead weight for the legs to drive up long and often steep hills!