Today we, my son Blake and I, climbed the Grossglockner, another epic pass in the Austrian Alps.
While Stelvio (Stilferjoch) claims to be the highest pass in the Italian Alps at 2750m, the Grossglockner claims to be the highest pass in the Austrian Alps. It peaks out at 2540m, just 30m higher than the Timmeljoch, that "other" Austrian pass which we rode in the Tour TransAlp. Blake and I rode the pass in the northerly direction, which in retrospect after riding it, seems to be significantly harder than the opposite direction. The major part of the climb is about 18 km long and gains about 1950m in elevation. This results in a "difficulty score" of 288 which is significantly harder than Stelvio at 194.
Blake and I warmed up with a 15km ride along the river leading to the base, and then headed up. The first sign as we started up caught Blake’s full attention. “Achtung, high pass, grades at 12%” Oh, oh, what are we into here? In fact, the average grade going in a northerly direction is about 10%, but there are definitely sections with grades as steep as 15%. Going the other direction the average grade is only 8%.
Thank God for compact cranks as we rarely ever seemed to get out of our lowest gear for the vast majority of the climb. A good portion was spent standing up and mashing the cranks.
Part way up we passed the toll booth and things started to get really crazy. The wind picked up, the temperature plummeted, and snow started to appear all around us. From lessons learned earlier in our adventures we had made sure we were carrying a windbreaker and the jackets came in handy now. But, as we continued to climb, it became colder still until eventually we stopped at a pullout and had a discussion with my wife in the accompanying van. Blake decided to bail out as we had been climbing for almost 2 hours, and he was starting to become hypothermic. From Blakes 13 yr old perspective...
The Grossglockner was an experience. (Notice how I didn’t say good or bad!)
When we pulled the van over to the side of the highway and got out of the car I thought to myself, “Where’s the pass?” I then was informed from my dad that we would be having a warm-up of 5 kilometres or so. So I think to myself, not that bad, right? Well, my dad was quite mistaken. It turned out that we had to ride 20 kilometres, which would be a piece of cake in any other given time, but your attitude changes when you know you’re about to climb THE HIGHEST PASS IN AUSTRIA!!!! So we ride out on the road through the rolling farmlands, which was fairly nice. We saw a waterfall on the way, went through a small village. I was quite happy with the ride so far, until we got to the base of the pass and I saw the sign that said, “12% Grade, 33 kilometres.” And the climb begins... 
Instantaneously after you see that sign you’re on a 12% grade, in your lowest gear, and heaving on the pedals; climbing the first switchback of the Grossglockner. I look at the people getting shuttled on buses up this huge pass and can’t help but be a little bit jealous. But I keep spinning the pedals, looking at my PowerTap, and trying to stay above 10 km/h. (sounds easy, actually quite challenging!) We climb for probably 40 minutes until we finally see my mom in the van, stopped just after the toll booth. She tries to convince me to get in the car and quit, but my dad steps in and tells me to suck it up and get moving. We climb for another 20 minutes until we get to a little downhill. At this point we’re at snow and jackets are on. We start on a short downhill, and once we get down to the bottom, the REAL Grossglockner begins. The pass steepens, and there are no more trees around you. All I could think about was having a hot chocolate at the end of the ride. (And it’s supposed to be summer...) We climb for another hour in the snow, until we reach a spot with a huge headwind, and that took everything out of my legs. We ride for another ten minutes until we see my mom, and I have a decision to make; either keep going to the top, or get in the car and get warm. I was convinced that there was still another good hour and a half of climbing, so I got in the car while my dad put on every piece of clothing that he had in his bag. So my dad was off and my mom and I drove to the top. I was disappointed later, because there was only another half hour of climbing, but the way I think of it, I rode 9/10 of the highest pass in Austria, so I was pretty proud.
Out came the arm warmers, the skull cap, and the leg warmers; on went another jersey, and an insulated jacket. And then I headed on up to the top! As I rode on it became increasingly clear that the road had been recently plowed as I had to avoid the snowbanks on the side of the road. The wind increased even more and I must say even with all my clothes I was quite chilly when I reached the top. I could not feel my toes,or my fingers.
The top, or what I believed was the top, came fairly quickly but involved a trip through an unlit tunnel of unspecified length. There was ice on the road, and I was concerned that once in the tunnel, the road might be quite slippery. Kim drove through the tunnel behind me with her lights on which gave me sufficient light to see my way. Once out the other side we were treated to the view of multiple families playing in the snow and tobogganing down the slope beside the road.
The road then cruised along for about 7 km as it made its way over a saddle toward the next pass.
Once over the next pass we were treated to a spectacular view of the surrounding mountains,
before we started the long descent. On the way down, I hooked up with a couple of Austrians doing the out and back from the north side and we ripped the downhill passing cars through the switchbacks.
The temperature rapidly increased so that once again as we hit the bottom we were sweltering in about 28C heat. With all my warm clothes, I presented quite a sight when I pulled over to jump in the sag wagon.
If you are into climbing on bikes make sure that you put this one on your list of must do's.
If you think that your fitness is not up to snuff, do the climb heading in the southerly direction as the gradient is significantly less.
The course wound through the grape orchards of the Trento wine region and I have to say was very enjoyable. The initial climb: not so much!
Yesterday’s effort took a lot out of a good proportion of the field and it seemed like a great many of the competitors decided that today was a cruise to the finish. Not so the infamous chocolatier Thomas Haas who blitzed by me about halfway up the climb and “won” the prime!
After this ride, I can now see the attraction of road racing; what a natural high!
The descent included probably the scariest moment so far in the race. About halfway down, while traveling at about 55km/hr we entered a totally unlit tunnel about 1 km long. As could be expected… you could see nothing. Not the walls, not the roof, not the road surface… Oh yeah, not any of the other 10 riders you entered the tunnel with. How there was not a major crash is beyond me…I personally just started yelling “Don’t hit me, don’t hit me, don’t hit me”, hoping that the sound of my voice would “encourage” others riders away from me. When I saw the “light” at the end of the tunnel, I have never accelerated so hard on bike in my life figuring that the sooner I was out, the safer I would be. Absolutely INSANE!
“Supported” we headed down the other side for another crazy 45 km long train ride. On this descent I just decided to hide well back in the group and save my energy for the last big climb of the day. 
It turned out that this was good planning as again the “Mediterranean” heat started to take its toll on those that had expended a lot of energy pushing the head wind on the descent. In my group, people started popping off the back in droves as we started the slow climb up to Passo Mendola.
Stelvio is extremely intimidating. The start seems to meander up the valley. At about 10 km in it starts switch backing seriously up the side of the mountain and at about 13 km in you look up and see the “wall”.
The wall seems like an endless number of switchbacks and it literally goes straight up the side of the mountain. You can see it all from the bottom and it really does strike some serious “apprehension/fear” in your heart.
Of course, as could be expected, the weather took a significant change for the worse at exactly this time with a nasty head wind and very cold rain when riding/looking toward the wall. Most of us had dumped our “warmer” clothes at the start as it seemed that the chance of rain/snow was extremely slim. We all paid the price now. Thankfully the switches facing away from the “wall” allowed us to warm up a bit before we bit back into it on the switch above. We eventually made it up to the highest point in the entire race (2750m) only to find a bunch of junior ski racers just finishing their morning training and coming off the snow loaded with skis. Slightly incongruous!
As Dave and I started to descend toward the Passo d’Eira, the skies opened up and the lightning and thunder roared all around us. We both saw one lightning bolt hit a cell tower just off the side of the road and the thunder that followed just about knocked us off our bikes. The rain might as well have been biblical in amount. It just poured! Neither of us had real rain gear, and personally, I just made the decision to just get it over with as fast as I could. The descent off of Passo d’Eira was crazy. The road was a river with dirt and ditch debris sweeping over the road about 2 inches thick. I just thought mountain bike and let the thing go. 
By the time I reached the finish in Livigno, I could feel neither my fingers or my toes. It felt just like winter riding in Vancouver! The organizers at the finish were fantastic, attempting to deal with many hypothermic riders as they came across the finish. 