A slow day and short ride today. The bike is booked in for new tyres and a service in Innsbruck on 17th June, and when Vince checked the front tyre the other day he found  it’s looking quite worn – the hairpin bends seem to have taken their toll, so rather than push our luck we opted to stay at Cima Piazzi camp site in Valdesotto near Bormio for a few nights. We moved on from their this morning planning to take the Stelvio Pass north from Bormio – Italy’s most famous mountain pass – but we were turned back by a policeman because it was closed til 2:00pm due to a cycle race, so we had lunch at a cafe and stretched that out for two hours before the road was reopened. When we started the pass it was a dog’s dinner with cyclists still on the road plus support vehicles and motorbikes and cars, and the ride was slow with the traffic and Vince had to be a bit cautious due to the state of the front tyre, so near the top of the pass we peeled off left to Switzerland and dropped down into a pretty little valley where we found a campsite nestled between the trees, so we’ve set up camp here for the evening.
Lots of riders stopped at the cafe we had lunch at as they were all turned around as well, so we chatted with some of them ( a group of Italian riders and a lovely Dutch couple) for a while, and did some research on the laptop.
It’s only 150km to Innsbruck and we’ll probably push on tomorrow and complete that, getting there a couple of days before the service is booked, but we have some chores to do and we can go sightseeing a bit perhaps.
The weather here is fantastic, even though it was raining heavily overnight and again this morning as we packed up the tent. By stopping early today we’ve been able to dry out all our gear so we’re set for a good night. We had sausages and mashed potato for lunch – but it was Italian style – flat sausage meat and the mashed potato had cheese and runner beans in it, so that was an interesting combination. Dinner tonight might be a tin of ravioli boosted with our last potato and some carrots ….. Mmmmmm 🙂
At the new campsite we met an interesting Swiss man, Bernard, who is 72 and was very friendly and helpful….even wanting to gift us a Swiss cooking implement! Vince also chatted with a couple of German motorcyclists who have just come through the Balkan states where we will be headed shortly. The people you meet really help make the adventure take shape.