Bolzano-Innsbruck, the most challenging stage of the tour

We knew it from the beginning. The most challenging stage of our tour would be the third stage,  with a distance of 140 km and more of 1.000 m of elevation. It wouldn’t be such a  challenging stage with a light race bike, but it is a little bit different when you’re full of luggage on your bike.

So far we have been lucky with the weather and the same is for this stage. A light cloudy sky and an acceptable temperature of 4-5 C when we left Bolzano and started to rise towards  Bressanone first and Vipiteno later. The bicycle lane  is surely nicer and safer than  the main traffic road, with several cars, but there is a substantial difference in terms of elevation because  the bycicle path between Bressanone and Vipiteno keeps going  uphill and downhill. This is not exactly what you need in order to prepare your legs for the final and more challenging part of the uphill between Vipiteno and the Brennero pass.

Getting to the top of the Brennero pass is always a big satisfaction but discovering  that the total amount of uphill is more than 1.500 m….is even more rewarding.

Just the time to have a warm drink to recover the long uphill from Bolzano and it’s already the time to ride downhill to Innsbruck. It’s not exactly  easy, considering that you have to ride for almost 40 km sharing the  road with  cars in the darkness.

Relying  only on the light of your bycicle in this situation is exactly the best way to understand how important the quality of your light is when you’re cycling at night in the same road with  cars.

At the end we arrived at our  hotel around at 7.00 pm after a challenging day. Just in time to feel in our hotel the earthquake that happened 15′ later with the center in the middle of our track between Bolzano and Innsbruck. It was not of important magnitude, but, anyway, nobody paid  particular attention to it because after such an  intense day we were longing for  a shower a for a good night’s sleep to recover as much energy as possible.