What can you say about a pass that has 49 switchbacks to the top with the last 20 or so up a vertical wall?
What adjective can I use to describe this day? This was the day that we had been thinking about all winter long!
Dread, worry, anticipation, concern, fear, enthusiasm, pain, abuse; I could go on and on.
With the temperature at about 28C, the day started with some serious heat as we left Naturns for a 35km neutral ride to the bottom of the Stilfserjoch, Stelvios’ official name. It seemed the weather had finally changed to the heat that we had expected for the race. Stelvio is about 23 km long and climbs about 1900m for an average gradient of about 8%. By our calculations it was the toughest climb of the race rating a difficulty of 194 compared to Cypress’s measly 76. By all accounts the climb started well with several of the boys attacking off the bottom. Jamie Armstrong flew by me vowing to be the first to the top; Thomas Haas was not far behind. The rest of us settled in for the long climb. The scenery was spectacular and on the way up the first several km. I had the chance to see our descent route from the mountain bike TransAlp three years earlier.
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!Down we went on the other side with the temperature increasing by the minute until at the bottom we were again sweltering in the Italian heat. Almost immediately we started the second big climb of the day, the Passo Foscagno. As we reached the top, a quick look ahead revealed we were still in for some excitement as in the distance one of the biggest thunderheads I have ever seen was hanging over the last pass of the day, the Passo d’Eira.
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. Although I thought that Dave’s and my ride was cold, the riders behind us had it even worse as the storm moved toward them. Dave and I may have suffered for maybe 20 minutes; many at the back were in the rain for almost an hour or more. Day 5 will certainly be remembered as an epic a ride as could be imagined.
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. 
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.
and celebrating Italian cycling along the route of numerous Giro I’talia’s makes it that much better.
Like good Canadians they had our water bottles embedded in the snow banks so that they were good and cool for the descent off the top.
I looked at my speedo once and thought I didn’t want to know how fast I was going. It just went on and on. I don’t think I have ever had that much of a rush riding a bike. The ultimate high!
This must be our rest day, tomorrow we start what I think is the crux 2 days of the race. First, over Stelvio (difficulty 194, Cypress is 76), and then 180 km day with 4 major passes including Passo Gavia, the site of many Giro I’talia memories. 
to Solden, the site of the opening events of the FIS Alpine World Cup. Once again the weather was stellar. 
Just like yesterday, the day started with a 20 km neutral start, only today it was all downhill. When we reached the first climb, the race would be on. As in past days, we discussed again whether it would be better at the front or the back of our start block as we descended the first 20 km. We elected for the back but as soon as we started it became abundantly clear to me that this was the wrong decision. So began a rather tiring next 90 minutes.
Eventually, all that remained was a long 40 km uphill slog into Solden. We put our heads down and pushed the pace as high as we dared pulling past several other trains as we approached the finish.
Once again, thanks to all the volunteers who make these events happen! 
You know who you are. Tomorrow is hump day. The race will be one half over. 
We also had a great surprise from our support crew in the middle of a long day.
Once up the initial climb, we passed a large reservoir and most of us thought the climb was over. Not so! A second reservoir was farther up the pass, and the in between section had several nasty 12 to 15% section to test our metal. Once over the top it was a quick downhill to Ischgl, although many of us suffered through rain showers on the way in.
The weather improved and for the first day we saw not a drop of rain. The sun broke through on multiple occasions and helped raise everyone’s spirits even as the gradient of the climbs tried to knock them back down. 
Sonthofen put on a great start and we had a neutral roll out for about 8 km before the race was on. Racing began at the bottom of the first big climb; 
I picked this location as our jump off point because there is some really spectacular scenery in the local area and it is just a short ride to Sonthofen. Yesterday we tooled around Fussen and checked out the Neuschwanstein castle.
Our intention was that after lunch we would spin our way to Sonthofen. As fate played with us, it started to pour as we toured the castle and despite waiting through lunch for the rain to stop, it did not let up. Plan B quickly became “Let’s drive to Sonthofen and maybe get a ride in there.” The drive was spectacular and by pure chance (we were following the GPS directions) we drove right down the first climb that we will attempt in the race. Everybody’s eyes tuned in and we surveyed the first of many climbs we will see in the week ahead. Much bravado filled the van about how it did not seem particularly intimidating. I guess time will tell!
Everyone hunkered down under the awning and we all got to know each other a bit better.
My partner is Dave MacLennan who is a colleague from work. This is his first road race also and he is a little leery as to what the week ahead will bring. I think that his biggest worry is not the length or breadth of the race (he has cycled across Canada) but the tight quarters that a peloton will bring and the possibility of “road crashes”. It is my opinion that in a lot of crashes most of the variables are out of your control. Hopefully we will be in the right place at the right time, and not the opposite.
While my partner and I were racing the TransRockies last year we talked to several of the original organizers of the mountain bike Bike-TransAlp from Europe. We had heard about the road version of this classic race the year before, and knew that there was a good possibility that they could assist us in getting an entry. We had had such a good time racing the mountain bike version as a group of four with supporting driver that we thought why not expand the idea and bring over a larger group. In November our plans came true when we secured 10 entries. Since then we have been training hard, while looking forward to a wicked week of riding.
Stelvio is an intimidating beast. The approach to the pass displays the entire 24.5 km., 1850 m climb including its 49 switchbacks in its entirety. Can we say “mess with your mind?” This winter I found this website that describes the difficulty of a climb in numeric terms. The formula is (H/D*100)*4 + H2/D + D/1000). My local mountain Cypress comes out with a difficulty of 76, Stelvio has a difficulty of 194! Ouch!!!!!
Uli Stanciu says “It is not only the master route of this race, it's also the toughest stage of all Jeantex-TOUR-Transalps ever: almost 181 kilometers and a difference in altitude of 3,770 meters - that will command respect even from the best.” .
Conditions could not have been better for racing. The last few weeks have been very dry which hardened the course up. Rain the day before the race knocked the dust down and provided a very tacky surface ideal for racing. 
A new course record was set by Max Plaxton who literally blew the field away. By the time he exited the Alice Lake loop he already had a 2 minute lead on the other elite riders and he extended from there to the finish winning by almost 5 minutes in 2:30:15
Steed riders ripped the field. Notable results in the top 100 included Matt Green finishing in 6th, Andy Traslin in 12, Justin Mark in 38th, and Mike Traslin in 71st. The better half of the Steed team was well represented by Melanie Vaughan finishing 4th in Female Elite (116th), Carey Sather 3rd in Womens 40-49 (431st) and Calindy Ramsden 1st in Womens under 20 (476th). Full results at 
Our hotel was on the main square of Cusco and the walls of a few of the rooms dated from the Inca empire circa 1400. The quality is quite amazing; there is often less than a millimeter between adjacent blocks. The engineering and quality of the work is such that local earthquakes regularly send walls from the Spanish conquest crashing to the ground while the Inca ones remain upright and 100% intact.
Our first ride started with a climb of about 300 m starting at about 14000 ft. Altitude has a funny way of making sure that any testosterone is checked at the door. Pretty much everyone found their own rhythm and spun up the climb, arriving at the top when their personal fitness level allowed it. Once at the top we were treated to a day of riding on a portion of the Inca trail. 
We found portions of the trail very flowy, as we cruised by small settlements and farms. 
Other sections were very technical with very steep rocky steps and significant exposure off the side of the trail. 
Two sections stand out best in my mind; the first was a technical descent through a narrow creek gorge with bridges made of weaved 1 to to 2 inch tree trunks crossing from one side to the other. The other section occurred a little later in the day as we exited the gorge and wove our way around the side of the mountain that had made up the left side of the trail. One second we were riding along in a fairly enclosed place, and the next we exploded out in to the open with the view off the right side of the trail showing a small city about 2000 ft straight down below us.
Most of the farming was done on small terraces leveled off the side of the mountains. Surprisingly, when you think that we were riding at altitudes up to 15200 ft., one would imagine our surroundings would include massive peaks covered in snow. Perhaps because we were only slightly south of the equator there was only small amounts of snow visible and only on the occasional peak, most of which we were told had elevations in excess of 20,000 ft. Our rides in the high Andes very definitely gave you that feeling of isolation; we were riding trails that very rarely see people other that local inhabitants, let alone mountain bikers. Jayo our guide arranged for us to have lunch one day with a local farming family. Our meal consisted of locally grown corn (the kernels are three times the size that we see here in Canada) and potatoes (potatoes were first discovered in Peru and then taken back to Europe) washed down with coca leaf tea. Afterwards we were treated to a display of locally made handicrafts by the village women. 
On the last day we finished by riding right into Cusco. The view as we descended down into the city was spectacular, and as we made our way through the city we descended many sets of stairs and would our way through a maze of side streets and alley. 
Eventually we finished right in front of our hotel in the main square of Cusco…high fives all round for a wicked Peruvian adventure.
