Day 15 - Gavia and Mortirola in Reverse
Sunday 21 July 2019
We are camping for two nights at Presanella so today will be sans luggage. It is more fun hooning around on the Alpine roads without panniers and the heavy bag full of camping gear strapped on the pillion.
The downside is that today is Sunday and on any given Sunday in Italy a signal goes out for every nutter who owns a bike or a fast car to get out on the roads and practice for their eventual suicide.
Today is no exception. Our plan is to ride over Passo Gavia and down into Bormio for lunch. Depending on how we feel we may ride up to the summit of the famous Stelvio pass and maybe if we have time we will drop down the Umbrail Trial to Santa Maria, just to include Switzerland in the list of countries visited.
Our plan doesn’t start well. After climbing up out of Ponte di Legno onto the start of the Gavia pass road proper we arrive at a police road block. There is a cycle race on today and the road will be closed to traffic until 1pm.
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| Police say No |
Time for a quick rethink. We simply reverse the route in the satnavs and head for Passo Mortirola first. This is a new one for me. It is narrow and twisty but doesn’t seem a very long climb and I am surprised to see that is stands over 1,800 metres up. But of course we are starting from over 1,100 metres in Temù.
As expected the locals are out in their droves and often we are in a procession of cars and bikes weaving up to the summit.
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| Lots of bikers out on an Italian Sunday in July |
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| At the monument on the summit of Mortirola |
The ride down in the direction of Bormio is lovely. It is mainly wooded and traffic seems lighter. However the extent of the madness that overcomes some Italian drivers on any given Sunday becomes apparent as we near the bottom of the road.
The first I know of it is the sound of a powerful engine and the sudden huge screaming of tyres under great strain. A black car comes skidding sideways around the hairpin in front of me performing a near perfect handbrake turn before accelerating fast up the road past me.
Either he was very good or very lucky, but either way it was an incredibly stupid thing to do. The road was very narrow and other vehicles and cyclists were everywhere. You will just have to wait for the video to see the full stupidity of the driver. Oh yes, I caught it on video.
He was followed by three other boy racers though they came around the tournante with more circumspection.
And so to Bormio for a pasta lunch in the cobbled streets of the old town. I’m not sure we were supposed to ride into the centre but we can’t read the signs properly can we? After all they are in foreign.
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| Lunch at a small cafe in the old town of Bormio |
We are both in agreement that a ride up to Stevio and Umbrail is not going to happen. It is absolutely sweltering around 35C and time is getting on.
So we set off up to the summit of Gavia. It is a good road full of sweeping curves and wide hairpins. Once out above the tree line the views are spectacular.
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| The road up the north side of Gavia |
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| Glacier on the Gavia climb |
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| Almost at the top |
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| And made it |
The way down on the south side is narrower. The decision not to attempt Stelvio on a hot Sunday afternoon looks like a good one as the police are out managing an impromptu one-way system to allow buses to climb the steep ascent. We wait in a massive queue for ages until we are allowed to begin a slow procession down.
There are some spectacular sites though.
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| The southern ascent of Passo Gavia |
And so back to Camping Presanella and another visit to the pizza restaurant. It is extraordinary good value with huge pizzas for €9.50 and a half litre of good red wine for €4.
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