Day 47 - Colfosco to Bolzano - Oh The Places You'll Go - 2025

May 27, 2025

Day 47 - Colfosco to Bolzano

Change Up

After the fantastic Sella Ronda ride, next up on our Dolomiti agenda was the amazing looking ride from Colfosco to Bolzano via the Alpe di Siusi. This was the ride (in reverse) that Jacquie Gaudet did in June 2022 where I exclaimed in the first page of this journal "Oh, That Is a Place We HAVE To Go'.

Alpe di Siusi is the largest alpine meadow in Europe. From the outstanding pictures in Jacquie’s journal , the extensive meadow that ranges from 1,700 to 2,350 m in altitude, would give us amazing views of the Sassolungo group, from a different perspective than we saw it on our Sella Ronda ride, and the Scilar massif, which to quote Wikipedia “with its unmistakable profile is one of the best-known symbols of all the Dolomites.”.

In addition to the amazing mountains views, we were hoping the meadows would be resplendent in wildflowers as they were for Jacquie.

This was going to be great. What could go wrong?

Well, how about the weather.

We always knew that this would be a significant risk and guess what? The forecast for the next two days was rain. Not torrential amounts, but steady rain, and rain in high alpine environments also usually means low single digit temperatures.

We had the option of waiting it out one more day in Colfosco and taking the chance the forecast would improve and doing the ride on Wednesday. However we determined that would be a long shot and doom us to another day here, in the rain, with precious little to do.

So, we loaded up the bikes, took our start of the day picture in front of the now mostly obscured Groupo del Sella, and set off for the 500 m climb Passover Gardena (again - loaded this time).

Yr.no was predicting the rain to start here at around 9 am and continue for the rest of the day. Those clever Norwegians were bang on. About 20% of the way up the pass the rain / drizzle started, and as we climbed the temperature dropped. It was a balmy 7° C when we left Colfosco and by the time we reached the pass it was 4° C. Yikes!

This is serious hypothermia risk conditions if you’re not prepared. As we do live in a similar mountain environment in Canada, we were prepared - we stripped off our sweaty wet cycle tops and put on dry ones (merino wool) and all but one of our insulation layers, then literally encased ourselves head to-toe-to fingertip’s in Gotrex. That done,we set off for Val Gardena for hopefully a hot coffee and some food, and the next decision point.

We were actually pretty comfortable on the ride down, the first half was a repeat from Sunday, and as we descended the temperature rose too. It was a relatively balmy 7° C in Val Gardena when we got there, still drizzling though and no respite in the forecast.

Val Gardena is much larger than Corvara and it had a few more open amenities. We found a nice open cafe, got our cappuccinos (K) and macchiatos (me) and a much needed big bowl of Tyrollean goulash soup, and considered our options.

We reminded ourselves that the purpose of going to the Alpe di Siusi was to ‘see the sights’, not just to go there. The Alpe di Siusi was another 500 m above us, and the cloud ceiling was about the same with no indication that it was going to change any time soon. We then asked ourselves “if we were at home and it was like this, would we go and cycle Highwod Pass (2,206 m) or go for a hike at Chester Lake (2,199 m), just for fun?”

You know that look you get from someone when you ask a really dumb question? That’s the look each of us was giving to the other.

Climb another 500 m, where it will probably be 4° C, and invariably sweating and getting wet as we did on the Passo Gardena climb, then riding 15 km’s or more through drizzle and low lying clouds, with the only sights to see being the raindrops dripping off our noses and bouncing off our top tubes, before descending some 2,000 m to the warm Isarco valley and the beautiful city of Bolzano?

Or how about the alternative, continue to descend the Rio Gardena down to the Isarco, staying relatively warm and dry, and riding the very beautiful Isarco bike trail into Bolzano?

Alpe di Siusi would have to wait for another day, a day when it would make sense to go there (and we may well get that at the end of June when we’re doing a bit of a vehicle based tour for a few weeks once we conclude this tour).

The ride down the Rio Gardena was great. The rain stopped as we dropped elevation and headed west. The road was in great condition and traffic very light, it got consistently warmer and who doesn’t like a 1200+ m downhill run.

By the time we reached the amazing Isarco/Adige cycle way that runs all the way from the southern shores of Lake Garda to Brenner Pass on the Italian / Austrian border, we were back to riding in bike shorts and jerseys, and once in Bolzano, the temps were about 20° C and the sun was coming out.

Sad to miss the Alpe di Siusi this time, but very happy to be in Bolzano, a very beautiful and vibrant place. We’re here for a few days - Ötzi the Iceman museum, the main Messner Mountain Museum and just the city and the surrounding vineyards and apple orchards to take in. We’ll probably go to a few restaurants too ;)

We were in Bolzano for one night waaay back in 1991 when we did a big U shaped tour from Zurich to Innsbruck and we passed through in 2019 on our CPH to Lecce tour. It will be great to spend some more time here rather than the previous short whistle stops.

The beauty of redundant systems. My Garmin Forerunner watch suffered a malfunction and quit recording at about the 44 km mark. Fortunately Kirsten’s was still working (bar a short section at around 30 km’s where her battery died .. but the route was resurrected once she plugged into a battery). This embedded map is from K’s RWGPS account (that’s linked to her garmin Connect account). We feel like we’re Apollo engineer’s with all this technology backup!

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Blah blah full Gortex - head to toe to fingers - literally

It’s the same mountains in the background today, you just can’t see them.

Had to take at least one picture on the climb. Drizzle just starting, no more pics

As usual, K’s been waiting for a while. Hiding under a narrow balcony to stay out of the rain - encased in Gortex

… and now it’s my turn for the transformation

Same place and same shot as Sunday. Honest, that’s Sassolungo back there.

The ‘inspirational napkin’ at our warm up / light lunch spot in Val Gardena. Hypothermia in wet high alpine environments is not a new adventure for us … so we’ll pass on the potential for another one today.

Coffee and hearty soup done, now let’s get back out there

Yes, conditions warranted this. Luckily it got progressively better as we descended

West and down along the lush green Rio Gardena valley

Look who’s hanging out in St Ulrich … our heavily loaded South Korean guy we saw on our Sunday Sella Ronda ride

More nice mellow down leaving St Ulrich, then it got a little steeper and a bit more fun!

Kept looking out for her sister’s place …. Albergo Angry Agnes

Super fun downhill. Surprisingly light traffic making it even better.

Having fun not freezing or getting wet. Gortex has been removed!

… and the beautiful green low altitude Isarco valley is now in sight.

We’ve arrived. Now we’ll be riding along the amazing bike trail along the Isarco river to Bolzano, where the Adige and the Isarco meet on their way to eventually the Po and the Adriatic. Still a very steep and narrow valley here but it will grow into expansive apple orchards and vineyards

Incredible bike infrastructure and signed for all the important stuff you just don’t want to miss.

looking back upstream towards Brenner pass about 80 Km’s north.

Fantastic bike trail. This is the third time we’ve been through here, first time in ‘91 we don’t recall this, but in 2019 this was just heaven … still is

There’s a highway, an Autobahn and railway in here somewhere too, but most of the time you’d never know that

One short glimpse of the Autobahn behind me

We’re still in ‘South Tyrol’, officially bilingual so all the signs are, but German is the main language. It’s easy to see that Italian is one on the ‘Romance” languages. That begs the question, What is German classified as then? :(

Into the void! Pretty obvious this is a repurposed rail line. They’ve done a fantastic job of this.

… and now we see some of the regular highway, but we’ve got our arguably better paved route all to ourselves.

Cycle path on the left … it’s like this ALL the way to Brenner pass and the Austrian border. Look at the signs for the Autobahn to Brenner - 4 km long tail backs! Bikes rule!

Just about reaching the end of the narrow part of the Isarco valley … and just about in Bolzano

We’re staying right in the heart of the Old Town. Incredibly beautiful and mostly pedestrianized with a great selection of restaurants . We’re dining outside, and very comfortably, at Vôgele, a Bolzano institution, about 150 m from our hotel.

Shared artichoke with Parmesan gratin and prosciutto to start

I’ve had a bit of a red meat craving lately… a great entrecôte with home fries (that’s almost an insult to how good they were)

K’s salmon with seasonal veg, also great

Beautiful night scenes in the old town, and a few unusual ones. From the same folks who gave us the ungainly Citroen 2CV in 1948, they now give us this.

You tell me what’s the front and what’s the back.

and just a little Taste of Bolzano. More to come, we’re here for a few days … and it looks to be mid 20’s with no rain. Devine.

SOTD

Who’ll Stop The Rain, a classic from CCR

‘Long as I remember the rain been comin’ down,

Clouds of mystery pourin’ confusion on the ground,

Good men through the ages tryin’ to find the sun,

We cleared up the confusion by clearing out of the rain zone.

A very warm and dry goodnight from Bolzano. I seem to be quite excited by that.

Today's ride: 61 km (38 miles)
Total: 2,145 km (1,332 miles)

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Scott AndersonWe loved Bolzano and hope we make it back there again ourselves someday. And we loved the Alpe de Siusi and the Sassolungo group too -it's a shame you got rained out this time, but they should still be there awhile. We saw them on a cross country ski trip long ago, when we stayed in Ortisei for five nights and caught the lift up to the plateau each day. Incredibly beautiful, probably our best skiing experience anywhere.
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2 weeks ago

Lyle McLeodTo Scott AndersonWe will certainly try to make it back again. As you said, it will be around for a while. Hope your trip back home goes well.
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2 weeks ago

Rachael AndersonWhat a day! You’re both very tough!
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2 weeks ago

Kirsten KaarsooTo Rachael AndersonThe reward for cycling in the cold was the long downhill. Always look for those positives. Haha We also were in a place that had more than one option for dinner which we greatly appreciated.
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2 weeks ago