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Summer Tour 2022 Day 5: Sterzing to Bruneck

That was the best bike ride of my life. The route to Bruneck winds up and down the hills along the Rienza river, sometimes steeply, other times flat and peaceful.

We had several climbs over 10% and many other steep descents to thrill us throughout the day. In contrast to Austria, Italy knows how to build bike lanes. 95% of our route was on dedicated bike way. (Although one time I was nearly killed by a crazy driver while coming around a blind curve — always take care to check your route ahead, cyclists!)

The farms and villages are perfectly what you would expect for Süd Tirol, just beautiful and tranquil. One gets the feeling life has a unique speed here. Kids play in the street. Pensioners meet under a tree to make speeches and point dramatically into the air. It’s all lovely to experience.

There was an army of e-Bike riders sharing the route with us, mostly day trippers with powerful e-MTBs. Speeding up the hills and disappearing quickly from sight was our typical interaction. However, unlike other days, we saw many classic bike tourers, loaded up for seemingly months on the road. Hats off to those folks, the hills must eat them alive on some days.

Race biking is prevalent here in Italy, and on our route there was a steady stream of fit riders chewing up the road without a care. We came across one rider who had dropped his chain HARD to the inside of his wheel. He fell on a steep uphill, didn’t unclip in-time, and wound his chain deeply behind his cassette. I had to remove the wheel and pry the chain out while pulling from the other end. We got him back on the road all fixed, but as we departed, we looked back to see he decided a hike-a-bike was a better option up the hill. Always check your limit screws, cyclists.

Your results on Komoot.

Tomorrow is a long ride of about 80 km with an easier climbing profile, so hopefully we get a bit of rest even while in the saddle.

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