Sella Ronda Bike Day 2009

Hello from Val Gardena, Italy. This might just be the most beautiful place in the world. Today was Sella Ronda Bike Day. The Sella Ronda is a 55 km loop in the Italian Dolomites that includes 4 mountain passes; Passo Gardena (2137m), Passo Campolongo (1875m) , Passo Pordoi (2242m), and Passo Sella (2244m). (Profile here) The roads were closed to all motorized traffic from 0900hr to 1530 hr to celebrate Italian cycling.

At least 10,000 cyclists participated starting from various locations on the route, mostly riding in a clockwise fashion.

We (my son Blake and I) started from St. Christina shortly after 0900hrs and climbed from here to the Sella Ronda, a further 350m of climbing. The weather was perfect, about 12C, sunny with the occasional cloud.

The atmosphere was very relaxed with bikers on all forms of 2 wheels, from mountain bike to road bike, from kids on 20 inch wheels to tandems towing kids in trailers. There were lots of road teams out for (I assume) recovery rides and the occasional hammer head blasting up the road. The descents were quick but not race fast as the various bikes and caliber of riders required a degree of conservatism.

The scenery was spectacular as we basically circumnavigated a dolomiti massif. Many of the restaurants, cafes, and refuges went out of their way to provide exceptional service to the many riders. Blake and I stopped for lunch in Arabba, a town about half way through the ride and grabbed a sandwich to fuel our ascents of Passo Pordoi and Passo Sella.

The same route holds the Maratona dles Dolomites race in early July. The winning time in this year’s race was 2:02:50. Blake and I rode the route in 4:55:00 with a stop for lunch and many conversations.

Any day on a bike is a good day, and celebrating Italian cycling along the route of numerous Giro I’talia’s makes it that much better.