Training for Passo dello Stelvio

In what has become a great sporting tradition at Delta-N, early September 2011 together with a number of colleagues, we are going to bike up the Stelvio Pass in the north of Italy. In the past few years, we did Alpe d'Huez (several times), Les Deux Alpes and Col du Galibier in the French Alps and last year Mont Ventoux in Provence, all of which are frequently featured in Tour de France. Two years ago we went to climb the Grossglockner in Austria, which I reported in this post.

The Stelvio Pass seems to be quite a challenge. It is one of the most famous, most notorious, toughest and  highest passes in Europe, 2758 meters high, 48 hairpin bends. We'll have to climb over 20 km to overcome the altitude difference of some 1800 meters (with an average gradient of about 7.4%). The views are incredibly beautiful, the mountain is incredibly long, steep and uneven.

  

This year I started training in early March. I take part in a spinning group twice a week, bike to work as much as possible (including sometimes 21km to and from AkzoNobel in Sassenheim), and also an occasional training ride in the weekends, not to mention the fun rides with my little daughter.

Last Saturday I did my longest ride so far this year together with my friend, colleague and fellow Russian-speaker Konstantin! I biked about 55 km in total, starting at 8:15 from home to Mariahoeve, where I was joined by Konstantin. From there we biked to Scheveningen and then along the coast, via Meijendel, Wassenaarse Slag and Katwijk all the way to Noordwijk. The sun was shining. We had a pretty strong headwind, but we were delighted at the thought of cycling back with the wind! We stopped in Noordwijk to admire the view of the sea, the beach and the coast line. Scheveningen was visible in the distance. We cycled back downwind, it felt like we were almost flying.

We stopped at the Wassenaarse Slag to get some extra water, and guess whom we met there? Our colleague and boss Roderick! He was biking as well, together with a neighbor of his! So we continued with the four of us, with Konstantin eventually splitting off and going in the direction of Mariahoeve along A44, while the rest of us biked to Voorschoten, crossed the Vliet at the Knipbrug and then across the Vlietlanden along A4 back to Leidschenveen!



It was a great ride with about 2:15 hours of biking time! My plan is to increase training distances gradually to something like 100 km. I am also thinking of a couple of training trips to South Limburg and the Ardennen, so that I can get more climbing experience!