On the road today...

[basilic]

The rest of the pictures.
Passo Sella in the morning sun


Dam lake at the top of passo Fedaia


Climbing Giau


Weather vane at passo Giau


Passo Rolle


In Renon (near Bolzano)


Snow on Stelvio above Prato (on Sept. 1).

[Dalai]

Snow on Stelvio above Prato (on Sept. 1).

I'm meant to be leaving winter and coming to where it's warm... Wasn't going to pack extra kit for colder rides.

Hopefully this was aberration!

[basilic]

Mid-September when you bike above 2000m you should expect anything, but that was a bit early and unusual (and I was not equipped for it). But you'll get a few coldish days and maybe rain.

[makoy]

[Mikeno]

Love This Thread

[djm]

Another one of these...

Low intensity ride for two and a half hours. Time trial tomorrow, crit Saturday and Norwegian Cup race Sunday..






Filling up the glycogen stores in these guns

[Guerdi]

Basilic, what a trip !

From paradise (Giau) to hell (Stelvio).

Can you tell more about your saturday's ride ? On that particular day (Sept. 1st) I was hesitant to do the "Alpenbrevet" with a friend or visit Eurobike. Finally I decided for the latter, and was glad I did.

[Routier]

That cake


I love these late summer evenings, they're just perfect for a quick blast

[nspace]

I did a 593km tour around Northern Ontario (Canada) to some places I've never had a chance to see. Saw lots of really nice scenery along the way. I've never done any touring before, nor have the equipment for proper saddle bags and things, so I rigged up a compression bag on the front bars, a top tube style iphone case for gels/camera/phone (and custom made some cue sheets the size of my iphone to fit in the sleeve) and set off for 3 days with a change of clothes for off the bike, and my credit card.

Here are a few photos:

[Esterhas]

Cogswell Dam, Angeles National Forest

[Dalai]

Where is this

which is

Front Cover of Jobst Brandt
South Side of Gavia Pass, Italy

?

By any chance is the 2nd picture taken just down the hill around the corner in the 1st picture?

Going by comments in http://www.cycling-challenge.com/passo- ... oth-sides/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; the photo may in fact be taken on the old cliff road now avoided by the tunnel on the south side? Mountains in the back ground line up nicely.

Comments and photo from cycling-challenge.com

As I approached the much-feared tunnel, I noticed the old cliff road on the left. Collapsed cliff roads replaced by tunnels are a fairly common thing in the Alps, but they are usually fenced off. This looked open, so I explored.

A terrible surface, so I pushed my bike. But unbelievable cliff views. As I continued I came upon several memorials for a military truck that fell off the road in 1954 killing 20 or so young soldiers.

Amazingly the road was still passable. And as I neared the main road, three mountain bikers came flying down:

[makoy]

last 30km itt before the dua race on sunday. time to eat some steak

[HammerTime2]

Dalai, good find on the Gavia Pass road. The guard "rail" looks even skimpier than in the Jobst Brandt Palo Alto Bicycles picture I posted. The only date I can put on that picture is that it was in the 1980-81 catalog, which came out in about September 1980. And you can try to guess the age of Jobst. My guess is that it is from the '70s.

So are you actually headed there shortly? Please report back. and hopefully with some good pictures, especially of this old cliff road. Where does the old cliff road connect (if at all) to the main Gavia Pass road (or whatever it's called)? Being a chicken myself, I'd probably stick to riding up it rather than down it, but that looks precarious enough, not to mention with mountain bikes screaming down it as you climb. Maybe 25 or even 27 mm tubulars would be in order.

[djm]

On the road, letting the commissaire control my bike on the jig..

He even had a caliper with him.

[diegogarcia]

Round our way birds are singing. Englands green and pleasant land on top of the Mendips once more. The last image is a legacy of World War 2. Plans to invade the UK started back before this in 1937 when German spies were busy buying ordinance survey maps of the UK from book stores in London. The Germans also actually used AA road Atlas's for the finer details, thus issuing up to 20 map books for 'invading' infantry soldiers, entitled 'Militargeographische Amgaben uber England'. The Gestapo also issued thier own book called 'Informationsheft GB' and 'Sonderfahndungsliste GB' but on the whole, the main threat would come from the long range bombers at night.

So during the second world war, local farmers, MI6, the home guard and Shepperton film studios would create a fake city designed to look like my home, Bristol, as the Germans would see it from the air. The result is something like this, pock marked greenery that never ceases to amaze me. I love it up here. Paradoxically, so peaceful now. There are huge crater holes doted all around and still some no go zones due to unexploded bombs. The Mendips was always considered a large landing zone/staging post for a German air assault on the South West UK so oddly, these mounds, tumps and craters actually help stave off this threat as there would be nowhere to land a plane. The tumps and mounds we see up on the Mendips today are mostly man made due to this. Incredible history all around in my opinion, very humbling, inspiring and a great place to be on a push bike.