The weather report for Bormio looked questionable at best - off and on showers today and full on rain for Wednesday. We could either pack up and head out of Dodge, or give it a try. We woke up to partly sunny skies, which gave us the impetus to give it a try today. We knew that we had enough clothes to keep us warm if it started to rain or snow, and we could always turn around (I'm not afraid). We told the girl at the front desk that we would be staying another night and that we would be back before dark. We had breakfast here at the Hotel Nevada, and then got ready to go. It was 9:45 when we headed out of town (up). We climbed past the Bagni Vecchi spa that we went to yesterday, and then started to hit the hairpins and tunnels. The tunnels are pretty freaky, and it is Angela's first experience with them. We brought little knog lights, just in case we get in one that is pitch black, but they didn't really help us because there was just enough natural light to render them useless. But they were still pretty sketchy!

It was fairly cloudy, and pretty cold, but since we were climbing it didn't really affect us. We had our arm warmers and knees on, but just our standard jerseys up top, and I wasn't even wearing my gloves.

We got up to the turn off to the Umbrial Pass at about 8000 ft (Bormio was 4000 ft). The original plan was to turn left, drop down to Switzerland, take a right, and come back up the other side of the Stelvio. Well, the weather didn't really look that great. It was starting to look pretty shitty, so instead of turning left we continued up the Stelvio for the last 1000ft i. As we climbed it started to lightly snow on us - just barely. We got to the little town at the summit and went inside for a pizza and some coca-cola. We had climbed 5000 ft in 13 miles - about 2 hours.

After an hour to eat and get dressed for the descent, it was time to make another decision. Should we at least drop down 20 or so hairpins on the other side and see if the weather breaks? If not, we could easily climb back up and just shoot back to Bormio. We decided to give that a try. We dropped down 20 switchbacks in a matter of minutes, which turned out to be about 1800 ft. The weather was starting to break. We had sunshine i the valley below. Decision time again. Do we climb back up the hellacious 20 hairpins, or continue down the road, and just do our original route in the opposite direction. I was all for going back up. I didn't really want to risk Angela (or me) getting cold and really hating the ride. Well, Angela said "Let's keep going!" Wow - how awesome is my girlfriend? We dropped down and the weather held up. The skies cleared and the sun shined. It was still cool, but we were quite comfortable. everything on that side of the Stelvio is VERY Swiss. We weren't technically in Switzerland yet, but you could tell that the pass was really the assumed border.

We dropped down to about 3000ft or so and made a left back towards the road that would lead us back up the Umbrial pass. We knew that the whole ride was supposed to be about 63 miles or so, and we knew that the last 12 were going down from where we made decision #1 (which was at about 8000ft) - so we had a pretty damn good idea of how far we had to climb - both distance and elevation. About 45 miles in, Angela said "either you've got the numbers wrong or this thing is about to kick up real fast". Sure enough, a mile or so later it jumped from 5-7% up to 10-14%.

After a mile or so later we crossed the Swiss border. Everything still looked very Swiss, but no more so than the Italy on that side of the pass. We climbed and climbed and still felt pretty good, but it was starting to hurt. We kept hearing the ring of cowbells - yes, real cowbells, strapped to cows. You would here the ringing and it would get louder and louder until the next thing you knew they were right next to you. We even got caught in a little pseudo cattle drive at one point.

Unbeknownst to us, the road up the Umbrial pass turned to dirt. It only lasted for a couple of miles, but was a good 20-25 minutes. In retrospect, it was a good choice doing the loop counter clock-wise. We hit pavement again and kept on climbing past the cows and the big green pastures. It started to get pretty cloudy, and we were both starting to get pretty tired. I think Angela hit a wall with about 2 miles to climb, and I hit one with only a mile or so left - but we both knew we could finish and it wasn't that much farther. I could count the number of switchbacks left (I don't know if that helps Angela or hurts her - but I like knowing what I've got left. I think it sometimes irritates her, but since we were down to the final 5 or 6, I figured it was good information to pass on to her. We got within about 500 ft of the summit and stopped to put on all of our clothes again. I had my winter weight long sleeve, wind vest, and wind jacket on top of my SS jersey, craft top, and arm warmers. Time for the gloves as well. We crossed the summit and dropped passed the border patrol. Little did he know we were transporting 8 kilos of coke in our jersey pockets! Just kidding. It was only 4!

As soon as you cross the border you are back on the road that leads to the Stelvio/Bormio - about 10 hairpins from the top. We dropped down, but Angela's hands were starting to get cold, and anyone who know's Angela knows that that is a very bad thing. We dropped a few turns and had to stop, as Angela started shaking. But she was a trooper and kept on going, dropping a mile or so at a time before having to stop and try to warm up again. After we dropped a good 2000ft or so we could tell that the temp was a little warmer so we were able to go much longer without stopping. We hit the tunnels again, and they were almost scarier because we were going faster into the dark. Once we came to the Bagni Vecchi, we knew we were almost home. A warm shower awaited us, and then a delicious 4 course meal. Thank you Marco!

The ride took us all day - with stops for lots of pictures, lunch, food, etc. Ride time was about 6:30 and we climbed about 11000ft. Oh, by the way, we only saw about 5 other women (and I guarantee none of them climbed up twice). Angela heard a couple guys shockingly say "that was a woman!". Angela Rocks! Ciao!