Distance: 54.8 miles / 88.2 km
Elevation: 6,250 feet / 1,905 m
Time: 7 hours and 56 minutes (5 hours and 23 minutes cycling)
Another wet start
It was raining the entire night. This kept on waking me up occasionally, and the thought of my bike being exposed to the elements over such a sustained period of time was worrying me. When the morning came, one of my guide ropes had become loose (likely someone had tripped over it) and the inner tent skin was in contact with the outer. That inevitably meant that some of my belongings, in turn, were now wet.
To put the tent away, it needs to be the first item in the bag. With the ground wet, I had nowhere to empty the bag to make room. When it rains, it pours – literally! I was really not enjoying life at that moment.
The rain was forecast to be here for another few hours, but I needed to set off. Thankfully it slowed down a little bit and I took my chances to pack everything away as quickly as possible. I managed to shake off as much water as I could from all my belongings, but I knew I couldn’t have another morning start like this.
Shopping
I cycled to the supermarket in town for some breakfast. I found a very shiny chicken sandwich (seemingly everything has to be a brioche here), along with some crisps. The supermarket had no seats so I sat on some bags of compost. The bottle of water I had purchased turned out to be sparkling, which was most unfortunate. To be honest, I’m surprised I’ve managed to avoid it this long – generally speaking, the variety with bubbles seems to be the leading type of water out here.
Passo Albula
The first climb looked really tiny on my GPS because of other climbs that were much larger. Even though it “was” comparatively small compared to the last few days, I seemed to be struggling more than I had been up to this point. My legs felt tired and numb, and my mind had slipped into a darker place.. possibly because of the early morning stresses. For the first time so far I wasn’t enjoying myself, and I needed to reverse that.
Luckily the “Bernina Gran Turismo” was operating today, and I saw lots of cars (pre 1990 only) being driving to the start line. The majority of the traffic seemed to be old Porsches, though I believe single seater type cars were also eligible. This did brighten up my mood quite a bit, but I did think it would have been good to have seen the actual race.
After what seemed like forever (a couple of hours), I eventually crested the Albula at 2,315m. A group of cyclists wanted their photo taken at the top, and they returned the favour. The descent down was quite different to others I had experienced so far. There were a lot of huge boulders and just general fallout – presumably from where a glacier had once stood but had since fallen away/melted.
Swiss Spaghetti
Since entering this country, I have noticed a different approach when it comes to road construction over mountains. I found the Italians mostly dig and carve various hairpins in to their landscape, whereas the Swiss build structures such as super long bridges and elevated roadways separate to the land. Where there’s not enough room, they build tunnels. For the train line especially it’s very impressive to see, since the line cannot be very steep yet climbs to the summit of 2,000m+ mountains. At some parts of the descent I could see four or five super high train bridges and various tunnels but I couldn’t work out where the train must go in order to go over all of those. The train tracks were like spaghetti.
Sadly it was raining cats and dogs at that point, and iPhone touchscreens don’t work well in the wet. I could have thrown it off the side of the mountain if I carried on trying to take a photo! Above is the best I could realistically take.
San Bernardino Pass
The weather started to brighten up a bit, and a super long descent ahead lifted my spirits. I had another brioche sandwich (I told you) for my lunch, before making hey on the next climb – the San Bernardino pass. My planned stopping point for the evening would be before the summit, but even to there was a climb more than 10 miles long.
Not far from the end, I stopped at another supermarket for another brioche sandwich amongst other things. I ended up having two meals the night before because I was so ravenous, but that had cost me nearly £60.. so I wanted to avoid having to do that again, if I could. The cashier handed me some stamps for something and I don’t know what they are for. They’re in the photo with my sandwich – does anyone have any idea?
Shelter
As soon as I neared my destination I could hear thunder and lightning and I just couldn’t face another night camping – so booked a hotel. Since lounging about here a thunderstorm has been brewing and it’s in full force as I am ready to go to bed. I feel a bit smug that I made a good decision – though I’ve had to hang my tent and sleeping bag in the wardrobe. They’re still drying from the night before!
The weather forecast for the next couple of days looks a lot better thankfully.
