Good bye small paradise

Well today will be our last day in the small paradise of Ortisei. Locals that Cyndie and I have met at different restaurants, hotels, and other places are recognizing us around town and saying hi. I'm pretty sure the people up here live the least stressful life possible. I wish America could adopt this lifestyle so I don't have to work 50hr weeks. The bike shop guy told us yesterday to not bother showing up between 12:00 and 2:30 because he has to drink coffee and relax. In fact all the stores do that here including the grocery store and post office,and pretty much nothing is open on Sunday or Monday.

We started out today having breakfast in our little spot with our sweet lady serving us. Here's where we've been enjoying our meals.



After breakfast we headed out on a ride. The air was pretty brisk at first but once we pointed the bike uphill we warmed up fast. Especially because once we started climbing we didn't stop for 2hrs. We went from 4200ft to 7200ft without a single break of downhill. Cyndie was struggling pretty bad but we finally made it to the top and she was proud. The view was panoramic and absolutely stunning.



From there we traversed across the mountain on what would have been a pretty fun trail but there were so many hikers and they weren't super happy to see mountain bikers all the time. While traversing on the trail I pinch flatted on some rocks. I let some air out of the tires to help soften the ride. Opps!


We finally got to an intersection and started heading down. This trail was actually really fun with some good technical sections. Cyndie was a champ and rode everything. This was the start of the downhill.



Some of the sections would have stair steps of rocks. They didn't feel the best on the hardtail but everything was manageable. If you can try to not focus on my bulging bicep notice the terrain of the trail, Cyndie also cleaned this section.


Here are some more shots from the downhill.






After the downhill we didn't go all the way down the mountain. We caught a cable car half way down and went up to a different summit and planned on descending the section we climbed yesterday. We found a small section of singletrack that the MTB shop told us about. It had these long sections of pure grass that were super fun to just rip down.


The trail was just faint enough to make out but here is where Cyndie and I missed a very costly turn. We started heading down and we could tell we missed the turn and at the next intersection we turned and headed back up and got back on track, but on a different route. This route turned out to be a very steep climb for about a half a mile. I was in my easiest gear and kissing my handlebars the whole time. It was really tuff but I cleaned and Cyndie pushed her bike on the ski slope and met me up top.


We raced back to the shop to be there by 2:30. The bike shop guy said he would only charge us a half day if we made it by then. He was really just hooking us up because he closed around 4.
We had a good stretch and went and grabbed some grub. We showered and walked down to the grocery store to buy dinner. Tonight was a simple chicken and veggies.



We're all packed up and catching a bus/train in the morning. There's a huge storm moving in tomorrow which made us change our plans a little. It's 40 degrees an supposed to snow in the Swiss alps so we're going to Austria (good day mate) for a few days. We might get one more day of nice weather if we do that. I love the flexibility and the unknown.