Before leaving Sterzing, Jackie decided that she didn’t like the look of a gouge in her front tyre so we went off to buy one. Her bike now resembles Trigger’s broom.
We were going to head for the town of Merano. There was a rather large mountain in the way. Consequently, there were two ways of getting there,
1. Up and over - 32km
2. Around the mountain (if the mountain was a clockface: we were starting at 12 o’clock and going clockwise, via Bolzano to 8) - 115km
We decided on the second option because, with Stelvio just a few days away, it was better to ‘spin’ rather than build up too much lactic. And besides, yesterday was all about climbing.
There was an added incentive - looking at the profile, the first 80km were all downhill. That’s right, 80 whole kilometres of going downhill. Without a single ‘up’. We knew that we’d gained a lot of height over the last few days in the mountains but we hadn’t realised just how much. It was a very enjoyable several hours of whizzing downhill on a good quality cycle track. The final 30kms of the stage was flat. So, all in all, a fairly easy stage.
By the time we hit the half-way town of Bolzano it was really hot. Around 30 degrees. I suggested that we deviate into the town to get some ice cream. Seeing a nice young lady on a bike (who looked like she enjoyed her ice cream), I asked her whether she knew where the best Gelato in town was was. Apparently so! For the next few minutes we followed the Italian as she dodged this way and that on her bike, through the crowded pedestrianised centre of the town, until we arrived at ‘the best’ ice cream parlour in town. We thanked her kindly. I had ‘Cherry Cheesecake’ (double scoop). Jackie had tiramisu and caramel.
We arrived in Merano at 4pm.
Had a well-earned beer on the river.
Found a decent hotel with a pool so we had a swim before going out to dinner.
Stelvio’s not far away now...