Day 10 - Warth am Alberg to Langerfeld

This blog entry is brought to you by the magic of Wifi, as I crouch in my tent with my iPad.

The effects of John H's departure were immediately apparent when we awoke on Day 10 to low cloud and rain - having brought the good weather with him he appears to have taken it away again!

A morning without the meteoric influence of John H.

We all woke much refreshed, our decision to 'rough it' in a guest house fully justified. Breakfast was excellent, a cyclists dream of all you can eat. If anyone is ever looking for somewhere to stay in Warth we would thoroughly recommend the place we stayed in (Gasthaus Walserstube)!

We headed out into the rain and cold, fortified by the knowledge that we were armed with flasks full of fresh hot chocolate. The descent was initially steep, which with a wet road required some caution. I (JR) noticed that my brakes were not functioning as well as I would have liked, so was a bit slower than the others. The descent became more gradual, allowing us to put some effort in and generate some internal warmth. Rain came and went, occasionally completely slackening off. We were cycling along a moderately wide near east-west valley with huge pyramids of mountains looming through the mist and low clouds which would split and move to reveal peeks of peaks. 

Peeks of peaks...

We needed to cut through these sentinels of stone and start heading south, but we couldn't think how we were going to get through them as there were no obvious valleys. When we finally arrived at our turning (after covering 34 km in about an hour and a quarter) we realised why. The road had been cut in a steep ramp up the valley side to what was obviously a  hanging valley that the road itself headed along. 

We stopped at the bottom and prepared ourselves for the climb - 900 m in 15 km doesn't sound too bad as an average, but we could see that the start was vicious and knew that the map marked another section at 14 %. Food, stretches and drinks, then there was the business of sorting out the clothes. It was now drizzling - so the question was, to take of the coat and get a bit damp from the outside, or leave on the coat and be protected from the outside wetness but boil and get wet from the inside? I chose the former. We headed up, with great views of the valley we were leaving on the way until the road swung round into the valley we were climbing.

The start of the climb

After the first 1.5 km the slope flattened off and I found myself in a bit of a quandary, should I be glad of the easier climbing, or be worried that that meant it would be steeper later. This proved to be a portentous worry!

We climbed up through small villages and towering misty landscapes. I noticed during our time traveling through Austria that there are two styles of church - those with high steeply pointed spires and those with small domes. This valley seemed to mainly have the latter. After the penultimate village the road turned sharply left and sharply up, and continued steep almost all the way to the top. Hard, hard work, again at the extremes of our capability, but only (!) for 5 km this time.

Roy - dwarfed by the scenery

John C and Jeremy pose at the top with the Shaolin Monks.

We all reached the top and quickly found shelter and extra layers of clothing as it was wet and very cold, (though it could have been worse as a few days ago, the forecast for today here was for snow!) I decided to check the brakes and found the back blocks almost worn out, so did a quick change (yes I had spares). This proved a very good move as the descent was as steep as the climb, carved in to the mountainside; wet, cold and with precipitous drops in the upper sections. 

A view of the descent. 

In almost no time, it seemed, we were down and in the town of Imst. We treated ourselves to a hot lunch for once to warm up, then headed off on the road towards Innsbruck, which was main, busy and unpleasant - they appeared to be holding a bad driving festival...

John's Garmin shows the true profile of the climb!

We arrived at the start of the Timmelsjock pass valley and headed up the start of what will eventually have been a 60 km climb. We are now camping in Langerfeld 24 km up the climb at about 1200 m. The camp site has the most posh bathroom block we have seen with stone surfaces, archways, faux Greek statues and piped music (I've heard pop, local traditional and B movie western so far).

We now look forward to completing the climb tomorrow, another 1300 m in 36 km. Then on to Italy ......

There is a sense of satisfaction in the team at what we have achieved so far (over 660 miles and 12000 m climbed, probably over 100 bananas eaten) but also a beginning of sadness that the adventure is drawing to a close. We are all generally fatigued, but morale is good. We were extremely buoyed up by John H's 'visit' - thanks John! Just send us more good weather!!

Many thanks for all the messages of support and comments we have been getting. It all helps keep us going so do keep it coming.

Vital Statistics

99.99 km traveled, 63 miles, 1724 m climbed, 5 hours 13 minutes in the saddle, 19.1 kph average speed, max speed 54.4 kph, 4913 calories used 

Total distance traveled so far - 1090.3 km.