Mt Grappa and Luck

I have read that it is better to be luck than good. And today was a good example of that.

I left the hotel at a little after 7 this morning, with no concrete destination in mind for the day.

As I neared the bottom of the 18 mile Mt Grappa climb I saw a person pedaling slowly up ahead. As I biked past her I noticed she was a woman, somewhat rare to see even here on a bike and I wondered if it was Ada, an Italian friend of George's who is in her mid 50's and likes Americans enough to bike with George's group weekly. Despite her proximity to so many Americans she doesn't know a word of English. I have biked with her once each year for the past three and we have always gotten along well together as I can putter around in Italian and she is as slow as I am on the bike.
I hoped I would see her here this week, as she is lots of fun.

As I passed her and looked at her we recognised each other at the same time. How she recognised me in full kit, helmet and sunglasses I don't know but she did. She asked where I was biking today and I said I didn't know. She invited me to climb Mt Grappa with and her friends halfway and I thought about it and said yes. By now her friend, Francesca and her husband, Flavio, had shown up and I was introduced. I actually had ridden with Francesca last year one day to Conco, with Ada, but she didn't remember me.in her tight outfit she looked a bit like the Michelin woman. Her husband, however, looked like a football linebacker.
slowly we made up Grappa, which is so steep at the beginning that you think yourself crazy for doing this, given that it goes on like this for almost 2 and one-hours!
A word about Grappa, as that's how I came to find this place. About 20 years ago a writer for a bike magazine, Christopher Hoch, wrote a great article about climbng this mountain, and staying at the Italian Bicycling Center, started and run by what he described as a curmungeon named George, who was then 55 and with little marketing save for small space ads in bike mags, attracted enough people so that there were on average 8 people there daily. He led the rides and was very regimented: out at 8:00am, back by 12:30, one cafe stop and all meals together at specific times, because he would only read the set menu of the meal one time.
I read the article and harboured a secret desire to go and climb Mt Grappa, which in the Tour De France would be a Category 1 climb. So I put the *rticle in my sock drawer, where I would see it every day and about 12-15 years later I brought my wife here. I loved the biking here, George less so. Few people warm up to him at first, but most people here are repeaters, as often as 14 times.when I got back I tracked down Christopher Hoch and thanked him for the article. I made his day. (Isn't the internet wonderful for finding folks!?)
I climbed Mt. Grappa that first year as well as my second year. Last year it rained 3 of 5 days we were here, and I didn't.
So I knew what to expect this morning
It was already hot out this morning as we began the climb. Ada reminded me that the first part ws the steepest. Quickly I had sweated though my whole outfit. My pants, shirt and even clothes! The sweat was pouring off me. Flavio and Ada didn't wear their helmets up, although they had them clipped to their bike for the ride down. Flavio joined me while Francesca and Ada fell back. It was evident that for Flavio this was a piece of cake, despite his size. He wasn't drinking any water and barely breaking a sweat! I was dripping and chugging gatorade.
We talked on the way up, until 3 guys passed us that he knew and he took off with them. About 15 minutes later I saw him waiting for me. He told me that one of the guys had been a former world champion cyclist, and lived nearby in Semonzo. The man was now about my age, although clearly more blessed in the speed gene pool than I.
After about an hour and a half of climbing we reached a small village, well, really a small hotel, restaurant and bar. We stopped here and waited for the girls. Francesca wasn't but a few minutes back and when she arrived she told uis that her right calf had cramped. Ada took much longer and also arrived with a leg cramp. They were both going back down rather than continue the climb.I asked Flavio but he too was turning back. He had climbd Grappa 18 times this year and had a 100 mile ride tomorrow and wanted to be fresh!
But they urged me to go on, and Flavio even gave me his secret weapon for decending, a trash bag; he demonstrated tearing a hole in the bottom for one's head and as well as arm holes and said to put in on under my soaking wet shirt when I came down. He said that no air would get through.
I folded it up and stashed it and continued my climb, knowing it would be another hour of brutal climbing before I reached the top.

As you get to the top of Grappa, which is about 6000' up, you begin to hear cow bells ring out as every cow has one and there is a farmer who has several herds, for cheese.it's an eerie and amusing sound in an otherwise silent climb, as generally people don't talk much as they climb.
Reaching the top is rather anticlimactic. There's no one clapping or taking your photo, with the caption I climbed Mt Grappa (now they could sell thousands of thse a year!).you wonder into the bar, where the only water is for sale, and begin to put on every bit of clothing for the decent, as it's about 35 to 40 up there!
Then it's down the way you came, either screaming down the hill at speeds up to 45 or 50 like all the italians, or holding on to the brakes for dear life, like yours truly!

About halfway down I look off to the distance and it looks like rain, which starts just as I pass the restaurant where I said ciao ciao to Ada and Flavio and Francesca. I stop because there is nothing worse than decending in a storm.

I go in for un caffe and watch a huge thunder storm roll up the mountain. Then comes the hail, and finally after an hour, fog. I decide to leave while it's dry.

I made it all the way back to the hotel just minutes before the next thunderstorm came through.

Better to be lucky than good!