Tough, but fun Sunday on the mountains

I figured yesterday would be one of the last Sundays, with reasonably good weather in the mountains, before I put definitively my Ignite Team FS away, being September the hardest month of the year, with all international shows, so I accepted the invitation of a friend of mine to bring my family over to his place up in the mountains of Val di Scalve, about 1 hr and 15 minutes from where we live.

Actually the weather was not as good as Saturday and as today, but fair enough.

So, we got to Colere around 10:30 and we took the lift to the top of the ski-slopes (impossible to get there in such short time by bike and with our very little training) and Giovanni, Carlo and myself did some short tours on the paths, around the Refuge Albani. To name them "path" does not make really understand what they are like, it is sufficient to say that most of the time we were carrying our bikes on our shoulders, not only because they were very narrow, but also (and this was most disturbing), because they were covered with a thick layer of gravel and rocks and it was so easy for the wheels to slide toward the scarry gorge...

Anyway we got to a almost dried lake, just under a big mountain used as gym, for climbers, where we took some shots, on everlasting snow

and we went back to the refuge, where our families where waiting, for a big lunch. Pizzoccheri, polenta, brasato, porcini mushroom.....good red wine....and some grappa, in the end. Nothing missing there, but you can imagine that the return to the top of the mountain to follow the ski slopes, downhill, back to Colere, was not the easiest part of the day, either, also because, in the meanwhile, the temperature had dropped quite a bit !

At least, we lost some of the kilos, we had just gained, with the lunch.

As a matter of facts, downhill was quite hard, as well. All on gravel and rocks, which made very difficult the control of the bikes (especially when braking).

The set-up of my front fork and rear shock, was definitively too hard, but, after 2 flat tires (Gio' and Carlo)

and a couple of quite scarry falls (Giovanni), we made it to Colere, where we had some more grappa (to recover) and a nice dinner, all together, after which we hit the road back home.