Fargo and Away

Today’s ride was a big one, with four climbs totaling over 8000 ft of climbing over 62 miles. The voices were loud at the start — “your legs aren’t read my for this,” “you don’t have enough water”, “you’ll never finish”, “better tell the guides to look for you by the side of the road.”

So that was what was in my head as we pulled out of the hotel parking lot.

As we got going we quickly got into the first big climb of the day.

Every place you look in the Dolomites is either adorable alpine village or imposing piles of granite. It’s impossible to stop and capture everything and photos are never adequate. It’s like you’re in a Pixar simulation of the alps. Your mind says, that can’t be real. But it is.

The Sella Ronda is famous both for skiing and cycling. The Sella Group is a set of ski resorts in the Dolomites. The Ronda is the route that wraps around them.

The Sellaronda route is one of the most popular bike routes in the Alps. Once a year, they close the route to cyclists, and over 20,000 riders complete the circuit.

Today, we shared the road with lots of Porsches, Miatas. Corvettes, and Ferraris; and a lot of motorcyclists and tour buses.

The first climb was about 4100 ft of climbing over 18 miles. It was a long climb. But as the miles and elevation ticked by, my self-doubt started to fade. This was helped immensely by just how gorgeous the scenery was. At one point, I passed a cow that appeared to be just checking out the mountains and the riders by the side of the road.

There were several moments during the road when I found myself laughing out loud that such a beautiful place exists and people call it home.

Our van met us at the top of Passo Pordoi so we could fill our water bottles and have a snack.

Once the biggest climbs was complete, we had two descents and two more climbs before lunch. The views kept getting better and the ride more exhilarating.

The views from the lunch stop at Val Gardena were among the best.

Leaving the lunch stop we may have crossed paths with a supermodel cyclist influencer. Investigations are underway.

After lunch we had a thrilling descent that was momentarily interrupted by a motorcyclist accident. The rider looked shaken but ok. His motorcycle was toast and was being hauled away.

We had one more climb for the day to Passo Campolonge before we began the 20 mile descent to the hotel.

Our guide, Henry, joined us at this point and immediately shoes us how real cyclists descend mountains. We had no chance in keeping up, though Steve did try.

We got back in just after 5 pm, and had some beers on the patio before dinner.

We spent time on Instagram and Strava looking for the supermodel influencer cyclist. We *may* have found her but nothing conclusive as yet. Stay tuned.

A big dinner and a lot of wine and our day was done. Time to turn in. Tomorrow is another ride.