We rode today! Oh did we ride. We woke up to clouds but no rain and quickly headed out. The game now is Beat the Rain. The first difficult climb (Passo di Gardena) took about an hour and a half and wasn’t too too bad. The hardest part was my lungs making their acquaintance with the altitude. The Dolomites towered over us with their serrated peaks looking masculine and menacing. These are not the sensual curved mountain peaks of other places. The farmland and grass around us looked so electric green I thought it must be from the tint of my sunglasses. But when I took them off to check, no–it was really that color. But the mountains with the storm clouds cutting through them were really the dizzying view. They were right above us so close it looked like we were going to ride right into the side of them like a cartoon.

That was the easy part of the day. Into hour 2 1/2 or so, and as we started the next ascent, (Passo di Valparola) guess who showed up. The rain of course. Gabriel’s worst nightmare. I haven’t been so worried about it but then again of the two of us I’m the one who has never actually ridden through icy cold droplets so what do I know. He has, and reports it to be a misery. But what could we do in the middle of nowhere but pull over and don our ponchos (and to think I considered not bringing them this year, we’ve never had to use them before). And then the climb. The rain was really only a drizzle and it didn’t really matter anyway since we were already wet with sweat so that turned out to be no biggie. But my lungs, oh man. The altitude. My lungs were expanding out of my chest and still I was wrecked. Hour 3, I went through my “I think I’m going to have to pull over and puke” phase. 3 1/2 hours I really wanted to quit. After that climb there was another, Passo di Falzarego. Somewhere in there I pulled over and had to rest. By rest I mean lie down on the side of the road and pray for lightening to strike me. I pulled myself up to pee behind a bush and saw all these little yellow wildflowers and thought “Oh I just want to lie down here in these pretty flowers and never get up.” But even though the drizzle had stopped, the clouds were still dark and I knew Gabriel was obsessed with us making our descent before more rain came. And then he said the magic words: “Only 2 more kilometers up.” And I thought: I can make that. I have to make that. Its only our first day of biking for God’s sake. And we made it. At the top there was a little cafe where we ate apple streudel which was freaking delicious and also totally necessary. Also there was this preserved WWI outpost which would have been really cool to stop and check out if we weren’t already losing the game of Beat the Rain.

We bundled up big time to go down. It was COLD up there. Tourists dressed like for skiing weather. I put on my wool leg warmers, down jacket, and my balaclava head thing under my helmet which makes me look like a cycling / home invasion expert. Oh but it helps with the icy, windy descents. We got about 2 minutes down before it started to rain again. We stopped to assess. Gabriel was like “I don’t like it.” I was like “Maybe it will be okay if we just go really slow, blah blah blah.” Another minute going down and Gabriel stopped and said “No. Not safe.” So we pulled over to the ski-lift area, where there was another cafe and Gabriel set about asking people about buses, etc. There was a bus coming in an hour and 15 minutes and yes it was believed they would take our bikes as well. But Gabriel had read somewhere that sometimes the bus won’t allow your bike underneath in the luggage area unless they are bagged or wrapped up, so we did that. We wrapped our bikes in these giant plastic sheaths that we brought with us and tied them up with zip ties. And then we stood around freezing and me wondering as we saw some other cyclists head down: Ok, are we being overly cautious or just smart? And Gabriel watching them too and saying “No, we are not experts at that.” Well that’s true for sure. Experts we are not. I silently wondered if he was just worried about me because I managed to take a fall last year even without rain but then he said “I wouldn’t do it myself even if you weren’t here. I don’t feel safe. And if I don’t feel safe, we don’t do it. You can make the rules with everything else. I make the rules with biking.” Well there you go.

My hands were particularly freezing because I had managed to sweat inside my gloves so much that they were super damp. I started thinking about the “Man with the Van” we talk about every year. Where is this fabled creature? He showed up last year right when we needed him. When I had left my wallet and passport at the bottom of the Col du Telegraph, he drove up and saved us. We stuck our thumb out at a few passing minivans but they were filled with families and had no room for us anyway. Then he came. He was more of a “Man with a Delivery Truck”, but yes he would take us and our bikes down to Cortina, he was going that way. He was Austrian, and so nice, and was driving with his son who looked about 14 and was working with him that day. There was only room for one of us in the cab of the truck, so I rode up front and Gabriel got kind of closed into the back with the bikes and our panniers. They spoke only a little english, but a hell of a lot more than I speak German, and they were so kind and so cute in their matching lime green shirts that I just kind of wanted to cry a little bit. Sometimes people are so wonderful. They told me where in Austria they live but I couldn’t repeat the name if I tried. I asked them what food I should try and they said weinerschneitzel. We talked about the World Cup. The son had been rooting for Brazil, but between Germany and Argentina they were going for Germany. They took us the 15 kilometers down to our little town of Cortina and of course–of course!–when we got there it was blazingly sunny. Gabriel tried to give the man some money for the ride but he wouldn’t accept it, but he finally let us give it to his son because he was working for his dad. Oh they were so sweet.

And so here we are. We’ve washed our clothes in the bathtub as usual and now Gabriel is foraging around the town for a needle and thread cos his leggings are ripped. And I asked him to find me some wool socks if he can. After this, food and bed. More rain forecasted for tomorrow.