Back - Part III

Day three saw us move from our hotel in Bolzano to our next base in Ponte de Legno located around 120km away. We elected to ride instead of taking the bus... mainly to avoid being bus sick, again...

This saw us take in 2 decent climbs. The first was the Passo del Mendola 10km @ 6% gradient. Then a gradual downhill for 50km before the start of the Passo del Tonale a monster in its own right with an average of 4% over 40km!!!!!

The after noon temperatures cooked us reaching over 30 degrees for most of the final climb. I felt  pretty strong and out of the 15 riders that start this ride only 6 finished.. So i was pretty pleased to survive the day.

Beautiful rolling orchids were littered everywhere on the climb through Mendola.

Self-Portrait
Insanely beautiful vistas dulled the pain.

Halfway. Over the Mendola and on our way to Tonale!

At the top of Tonale with `LazyE`, the climbing machine.