Ride Day 8 (I think); Bolzano to Trento

We don't have a GPS map today -- chalk it up to the technical problems we've had.  Suffice to say that we rode only about 85 km and the overall elevation loss was about 850 m.

We had a huge and delicious breakfast at the hotel.  Lots of fruit and coffee was much appreciated.  We headed down the road toward Trento, which is still generally downhill from Bolzano and a fairly short ride of about 75 km.  The weather was cool enough at 0800 that we could make good time.  Slightly downhill and we had a tailwind.  How could it get any better.

The Adige valley is very different from the high alpine valley’s we’d been in for the past several days.  There is a flat river plane about 1 km wide and then very steep limestone cliffs climbing up on either side of the valley.  The geology here is very different.

Adige river with limestone cliffs

This is a very scenic valley.  And it is very hot.

About 15 km outside of Trento we diverted up a cleft in the cliff to visit Cantina Moser, which is the winery owned and operated by the family of Francesco Moser.  Unless you are a super bike nerd like me, you’ll be forgiven if you don’t know who Moser is.  He’s one of the most famous bike racers of all time.  In his palmeres are wins of the Giro d’Italia, three wins in Paris Roubaix, the world championship, wore the yellow jersey in the Tour de France, and was the hour record holder for many years.  His family has been in the wine business for many generations and now he and his siblings run the winery.

The hill up to the winery was brutal and, I will confess, that at 23% we got off the bike and pushed it.  It is a bit inglorious to be pushing a bike into Francesco Moser’s winery, but there you have it.

The Moser Cantina

View from a promontory, looking down toward Trento

Isabella graciously explaining vineyard operations

We were cooked when we arrived, but it is a very pretty spot.  We had emailed ahead and Isabella immediately came out to greet us.  After we collected ourselves a bit, she gave us the royal tour of the grounds (about 80 hectares, 40 of which are vineyards), and then the tasting room that doubles as a bike museum.  We were the only ones there and we thoroughly had a great time.  The Moser wines are really good – their biggest producer is a sparkling wine made according to the methode champenoise.  The wine is wonderful.  The name is sublime: 51,150.  I had to ask, but knew better: this is Francesco’s distance when he set the one hour record on a bike.  51 km, 150 m in 1 hour.  Amazing distance, amazing wine.

51,151

Translates to "rock crusher" -- pave!

Translates to "half-wheeler"

 Some of the less expensive wines are made especially for Moser's fans, who don't particularly care about drinking fine wine but want anything associated with him.  So he pokes some good natured fun at them with names like "rock crusher" in homage to the pave of Belgium, and the ever present "half wheelers" who every cyclist despises.  

The bikes in the museum and the jerseys and the trophies are pretty cool if you’re into bikes.

The bike museum -- the bikes are on a velodrome

Maillot jaune from the Tour de France

Legendary bikes

When a craftsman hangs up his tools, it is traditional to put the tools
on a post, hanging over a nail.  This is Moser's version of that tradition.

Giro d'Italia trophy

The four Moser brothers, all professional racers.  Francesco is second from the left and he rode his first Giro d'Italia
with his oldest brother in his last race -- he's 20 years older

We tried three others, Isabella worrying that we’d tip over going down the hill to the valley.  We kept the tastes small to avoid mishaps and worried hosts, and bought a nice bottle of a white wine of Muller Thurgau grapes.  It was at this point that I discovered a really dumb mistake that I made: I went to grab my purse out of the bag on the bike where I always put it, and it wasn’t there.  It has all my cash, credit cards, and passport.  It kind of takes your breath away.  Where the heck was it?  Then Lorie realized that I had put it in the hotel safe in Bolzano.  I simply, stupidly, left it there.  How dumb was that?

Isabella immediately got on the phone and called the hotel.  The reception had found the purse and said they’d hold it for us at reception.  We weighed our options: ride back the 55 km to Bolzano, ride into Trento and rent a car?  Isabella suggested that we get to Trento where we had booked a B&B, then ride the train back to Bolzano.  Great idea.  But then Carlo, Francesco’s oldest son got into the fray and said that his friend works in Bolzano and lives in Trento.  She could pick it up.  He called her but she was going another direction after work.

I will add that we did not get the chance to meet Francesco Moser as he was at a funeral.  It would have been fun to meet him but the visit was super in any event.

So we hoped on a train to Bolzano to pick up what I left there.  I am happy to report that all’s well that ends well.  Purse successfully retrieved and we even found a  huge memory card so that I can dump a bunch of stuff from my hard drive onto the memory card to fix our inability to load photos onto the computer.

And best of all, we chilled our Moser wine and are enjoying it right now.

Salut, e ciao!

Onward!!!