Training in Ticino

With Thursday and Friday being holidays it made sense to take the full week off and pretend to have a training week based in Locarno, on the shore of Lake Maggiore in southern Switzerland.
The training each day turned out to be a hard ride up some ridiculous hairpinned ascent before breakfast, then go for a relaxed longer ride up the more gentle valleys with Satoko for the rest of the day. It was clear early on that the roads here are either up up and away from the lake, relentlessly steep which made for good ascents, but terrible descents. On top of that, the roads around the lake are narrow in places and mostly busy, fast roads with mostly Italian commuters speeding along so not relaxing or enjoyable riding to start with.
The dead end valleys leading north from Locarno are worth riding, Valle Verzasca with its distinctive bridge, colourful water and the dam made famous by James Bond bungee jump in Goldeneye. Valle Maggia is a much easier and longer journey with several options. We took it as far as Peccia where there is a fantastic polenta restaurant by an idyllic lagoon, the owner grinds the polenta every day which is served with local sausage and cheeses, not to be missed.
The cycling highlight for me would have to be the loop to Cannobrio, over the passo de Marco Pantani then follow Centovalli back to Locarno. Marco Pantani has ridden the pass in the 2003 Giro which started from Cannobio, but otherwise the pass seems to be named so by a local bike club, who have placed a stone at the top of the pass.

Corippa, a typical village in Valle Verzasca

Polenta will be ready soon

Pass de Marco Pantani

After riding to Luino via Lugano, its nice to take the boat home

Winter -> Summer

Finally, the temperatures have picked up together with clear blue skies - still needing overshoes and very glad I stuck with leggings and several body layers on Saturday, but today its shorts and short sleeved jersey, no need even for a wind breaker.
Saturday was the usual yardstick - 5 hrs 4min, but still to beat 5hrs will be very tough as I expect as usual I will get fitter and leaner, but not any faster this season. 

Above Wiedener Eck

Sunday was a Black Forest classic, I had the naive idea that I could ride out to the very top of Belchen and sample some Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte at the restaurant. As I climbed higher, the doubts that this would not be possible were confirmed at the gondola car park. For one, the gondola was closed, so that meant no visitors to be carried up to the top. But the road beyond the car park, which is closed to traffic, was utterly covered in snow and would still be very much skiable top to bottom. I guess the ski season has a closing date here, but theres still plenty of snow up here, Ive seen far far less snow on an open Glenshee with heather and rocks to contend with.
So, it was time to push on head for the most generous serving of Blackforest gateau at the top of the climb from Präg, above Todtmoos.

 

Paris Velib Marathon

It was Paris Marathon time again, not for me this time but Satoko was running despite recently being diagnosed as having zero ferritin - a protein important for absorbing iron and buffering excess iron, not ideal for endurance athletes.
A fine day for the run, but what should I do? Watch the start, get the metro to the Seine, then metro again to the finish? No, instead this time I thought I would retrack my steps (8 years ago now since I ran this race), or at least cycle around on one of the helpful Paris cycle hire machines.
You need a credit card to use them, which might be one reason so many of the bikes have been vandalised or stolen by those not able to attain a credit card. This is one bike scheme which has had far more vandalism and theft than expected, 3000 stolen in the first year, 80% of the bikes have had to be replaced since the launch in 2007.
I found the bikes to be far slicker than expected from their heavy appearance, and for €1.70 you could ride a bike all day long - as long as you return it and check out again within half an hour that is. The price escalates every half hour, which really means you want to go from A to B on these bikes.

Malheuresement, GPS signal lost at half way point

The main issue you would have with the bikes is due to the fact you can ride A to B, sometimes B is much more popular than C, and so the bike spots are all full up - meaning you cannot drop off the bike. I didn't need to check a map for the nearest station, there seemed to be many wherever I cycled.
In general, following a mrathon in full progress is a very difficult challenge. First, you want to go as close to the race as possible, but this means taking side streets which may or may not be dead ends, may or may not head in the right direction and this results in a forward progress equivalent to the average runner. Once out in the parks, some of the side tracks turned to sand to further slow me down. And on my final leg, the tree routes and general state of my cross bike style riding punctured the front tyre resulting in a final 2km limp to the final station. Its customary to leave a damaged bike in the bike station with the seat reversed so the maintenance guys can spot them quickly.
Next time I'll run the course.
 

Brief Interlude

A week long thaw and a warm weekend meant the tarmac was visible beneath the snow over the hills. Falk and I set off over the Aebi, Passwang, and Schelten pass. Surprisingly Aebi pass still had significant amounts of snow on the road, it has clearly been closed and abondoned all winter with no attempts to clear the snow. We had to cycle carefully down narrow tracks of tarmac where 4x4 or whatever vehicles had cleared cleared a path.
Passwang and Schelten are of course more important roads, so were perfectly clear of snow. There was, however much debris with many small sharp stones freshly broken off the embankments ready to pierce a tyre or two, and more than large rocks which could take out a car wheel. Schelten is kept clear of snow, but this winter they have had to keep the road clear of trees, so many have collapsed under the weight of snow! Exiting the gorge into Morvelier felt like leaving winter and entering spring today, but it is only today, cold weather is back again on Tuesday!

Schelten Pass

Nonnemattweiher Loipen

Fantastic day to attempt the full loipen, again starting from Lipple. Its been snowing all week, and temperatures way below freezing, and today was a blue sky day in the Schwarzwald. The loipen were not as fast as last time, not so much ice, which was great for my descending abilities but of course I did stack twice in some major powder dumps. One on a fast section with a sharp right hand bend, the tracks disappeared and I had no chance of making the corner. The second was at the very finish, its steep down to the carpark, and as I was trying to avoid both a skier in front and flying across the carpark I just face planted into the convenient powder drift to the left. Nice and soft.

Unfortunately the Fischerhütte was not open! (Only now do I look for the website) This disappointed many skiers today, it would have been ideal to eat here. We still took the opportunity to rest, and pushed it up the very steep section to Kreuzweg, from where it was mostly downhill, and back to the LippleHütte for an even more satisfying meal.

The strava record says 25km, but theres probably another 3km as the signal seems to be lost between the most southerly point and Fischerhütte.

Snow on Snow

The cabin allows an all year barbecue, of course used more in warmer times
 but last time I was here I saw a group of sledgers having a  warming meal. 

Restaurant at Gempenturm. (Closed at the moment)

Literally 50m stretch where some forestry workers had dug away the snow, the "fango semi-freddo" (half frozen mud) just sticks to anything  and doesn't drop, getting heavier and heavier and preventing any forward movement.

Gempenturm

Target Events 2013

26th May Cycle Tour Leman

8th June Trois Ballons

23rd June Blackforest Ultra Bike Marathon

7th July Engadin Radmarathon

21st July La Legend Charly Gaul - Trento

28th July Granfondo Sangottardo 

10-13th August Tour de L'Ain

1st - 7th September Haute Route Pyrenees

19-20th September UCI WCT Finals, Trento