Granfondo Sangottardo

A direct train from Basel to Airolo in Ticino takes 3 hours, a very scenic route around lake Lucerne and through the 15km Gottard tunnel to emerge in the canton of Ticino. All the road signs are in Italian here, and the hostel owners and everyone else speak Italian and French, I guess some German as well but it is clear not so much English in these parts. 
There are no hotels left in the small town of Airolo, so we stay at the hostel Girasole which is full of Italian cyclists. Its clear already that the participants of the Granfondo Sangottardo are younger/and or fitter than the participants of the etape du tour. Not to discredit the etape, it is a tough event, but it does attract many people who are not ready for the event (like me 10 years ago!)

The hostel provides our pasta party for the night, then of course I get little sleep due to multiple snorers in the dormitory/late arrivals of drunken walkers, as to be expected. After breakfast just after 5am, I cycle 6km downhill to the start on the airfield in Ambri. Its cold, but its only when we arrive at the start that we find out the weather on the north side of the pass is just too cold, much snow on the Gotthard pass so that the route B is put into action. Its a real shame not to do the full route of Gotthard, Furkka, Nufena but today the weather in the mountains is just too cold to be safe.

Route B involves climbing twice up the old Gotthard pass, the cobbled Tremola, plus a bonus climb up to Altanca so its not going to be an easy day.
In fact the Tremola turns out to be a classic climb - its like Paris - Roubaix except in the Alps! From Airolo at 1159 m it climbs up to the top of the Gotthard pass at 2091, 12.7km with average gradient of  7.4% and maximum gradient of 12%. Did I mention the cobbles? They're bumpier than they should be, not as smooth as the sets you find in the center of Basel, sometimes my rear wheel was leaping off the ground when I put on the pressure and hit a bump.
Still, no trouble for the Cosmic Carbones and I did not see anyone fixing punctures on either climb of the Tremola, whereas there were punctures on normal tarmac roads a few km from the finish!

Its a beautiful climb, no traffic but its getting colder and colder as I climb up the mountain. Its very unusual to have cold feet and hands whilst still ascending, and at the top of the Gotthard for the first ascent its snowing! I decide to grab some bananas to eat here and descend as soon as possible, as I'm only going to get colder. And I did get colder. The descent was down the main Gotthard pass road, virtually a highway with very fast cars speeding past, one tunnel and an amount of water on the road. At least I have my waterproof jacket on to keep my body warm, but I am without winter gloves or overshoes which I later note almost all riders are wearing. This was a really nasty decent, it did pass through my mind not to go through this madness again and just stop at the airfield. But it would be an hour or two before my next descent, so it must be warmer then - or so I thought.

Its only after I finish that I find out we were only given a time for the ascents. This makes sense, as for insurance/safety we do not have to race downhill in between the climbs. I don't think this would have made any difference to my ascents of the Tremola, but my climb of the Altanca would have been faster if I had known this.

The first time this event has taken place, and unfortunately they had bad weather but the alternative turned out to be a decent test to make us earn our very nice jerseys and swiss army knives.

I know where the classic rides are now in Switzerland, but I wont be heading back to the high passes on a bike unless theres a heatwave soon. In general, July has been cool and wet across Europe, compared to May and other summers. You normally see the Tour de France riders sweltering in 40 degree heat, but not this year.

Overall 87th out of 329 finishers (411 partial finishers).
Gotthard 1 : 59m 04s
Altanca : 26m 41s
Gotthard 2:  1hr 1m 08s