Photo by Nils.
The route out of Livigno was up and down the side of the valley on the edge of farmland. Before long, we are out of the trees. We come to a major road at end of the valley and stop for a break at the shop there, Swiss, cheap Toblerone. This road runs down the western side of the valley we have just come up, and I am able to watch a roadie pass us and ride a fair way down, such is the scale of the view. However, for us, there is still much more climbing.
I stopped to getter a better look at the landscape on the left.
On the approach to the summit. Photo by Volker.
We gather for a photo shoot in front of the Vadret glacier. Photo by Kevin.
Between the photos above and below, there is a very steep and rugged downhill.
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Steffen, our guide, the dam and the glacier.
It is m uch warmer down the mountain. We end up riding a kilometre or two of high speed roadway until we reach a turnoff on the other side of the road. From there, we ride across the dam wall and down the valley.
Unfortunately, the older Volker has a flat that takes quite a while to fix. In the meantime, we get cold and watch a Swiss Alpine train run to and fro up a single steep and winding track.
Much further down the valley and in amongst the trees again.
We arrive in St Moritz around 3pm, early enough for the group to split into two; those who want to chill by the lake over an expresso or two and those who want to do some downhill runs. Also two groups, those that are up first (lighter bikes) and those that go down quickest (heaviest bikes, racers). I want to do both but I go with the downhill group and we ride into town with another 100 vertical metres or so up to a bike shop where the older Volker gets his rear wheel replaced. We eventually ride further up to the mountian railway station, St Moritz Dorf where we buy tickets to the top, Corviglia after a change of trains at Chantarella. It is so steep that the trains are pulled up with cables running between the tracks. The view from the top would have been impressive had we not been in cloud with visibility only a few dozen metres. The first few kilometres of sculptured trail, Olympia Flow Trail, feels like child's play compared to what we have experienced in the Alps. Halfway down, it is warm and the sky clears and we ride along the mountain to a second set of carved trails called Foppettas Flow Trail. These is where the drops and berns get really steep and rocky. A leisurely spin along the lakeside gets up our hotel in Silvaplana where a beer awaits.
