transalp 00
Over the Alps twice in three days. With mountain bikes. You'll see why I choose to use "with" rather than "on" ...
After our first Transalp in 1998 we felt it was worth doing more of the same stuff. It didn't work out in 1999, but things looked good for 2000. Initial ideas for the route where discussed through the winter. I scoured the internet to find first hand accounts. Just reading the maps really isn't enough, as we had found out on the Albrun pass. Our main goal was to find a challenging transalp route with more cyclable sections than last time. On the other hand we wanted to include a bit of adventure, not just thread the well known trails.
François and Enrico brought up the idea of crossing the Greina plain. They even tried out the first stretch from Campo Blenio in March, and it looked fine. We later found out that that was the only rideable part... After Greina pass and the altiplano we would cross the Diesrut pass and ride down to Vrin, cross over to the Vals valley and then reach Thusis via Tomül pass and Glas pass. All in one day.... We had to refine planning for that stage several times before we got to a realistic route.
I did the planning for the second stage. It would lead us to Gravedona via Lago di Lei and Angeloga pass. Some searching brought up a first hand account by Andy Heckmair. He includes the pass in his preferred route through the Alps, with a total of about 1 1/2 hours carrying time. That looked reasonable. Read stage 2 to find out the truth :-)
The last stage would be from Gravedona to Motto della Tappa, then down to Cavargna and up again to the San Lucio pass. It looked challenging because of the many altitude meters (almost 3000) and the heat that could be expected in that region.
The Actors
It was to be pretty much the same
group as in 1998. Catherine and Mami Clément would ride the
luggage car. New to the group where Serge Clément and Marc Delbreil.
Serge is Catherine's brother, and thus Enrico's (via his wife Isabelle)
and François' brother in law. Marc is a friend and former job colleague
of Lorenzo. They both only started biking this winter. Cristoforo unfortunately
had to withdraw due to a concert engagement with the cellists of the Berliner
Philarmoniker.
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