Another great, big day in the Dolomiti.

I had good weather today and took advantage of it with a great ride in the Dolomiti.  For me, another big day, around 3100 meters of climbing in around 110 kilometers.  Most of the route was new for me, which adds some fun and a little anxiety as I take off for my days adventure.  Fun day, and I am too tired to describe too much, but will do a couple of observations and some captions for the pictures.  One fun thing was when I was descending from Passo Sella to Canezei,  I saw a Cannondale team car and around 10 riders climbing the big pass.  A few of them were obviously really going fast, and it was fun to see.  The weather was cool, but any rain held off until I returned to the hotel in Ortesei, living right today.  Until the last climb, I had on arm warmers and knee warmers with the gore-tex shell for descents.  I do like it cool, though.  Again, what a wonderful, but challenging place to ride a bike.  Sweeeeeeet!

Passo Sella, Costalunga, Niger, and Pinei, another big day in the Dolomiti by ridingwithcosimo at Garmin Connect - Details

Here we have the first of the four obligatory pictures of the signs at the

top of each pass - Passo Sella.

Passo Costalunga.

Passo Nigra

And finally, Passo Pinei.  I was pretty beat at the top of this one, as 

it was around a 1000 meter climb from where I joined the road, just

above Bolzano.

I stopped to take off some clothes and check the map on the way down

from Passo Nigra, and turned to see this view back up the valley.

Beautiful.

This is the road in the valley, a slight down hill, which made for

some fast kilometers on the way to the turn off for Passo Costalunga.

The Dolomiti in the clouds at the top of the first climb at Passo Sella.

I took this picture just to verify that these crazy grades really do happen here.  28% - ouch.

Not on my route today, thank goodness.