Tgahreden in the mountain

In the Dolomites of northern Italy, our route via the Passo delle Erbe and Passo Gardena serves up rugged beauty unlike anywhere else in the world

In the UK you’d count yourself lucky to find a Shell garage with a Ginster’s-branded microwave and a working Costa machine. The average service station in Italy, on the other hand, is a culinary delight. Espresso is deliciously rich, arancini are made on-site and there are little tables to stand around and read the paper. People stop there for the food itself, not as an add-on to the petrol.

I can recommend stopping at any of the dozens of such service stations en route from Marco Polo Airport in Venice to the Dolomites in the north of Italy. I can also recommend taking the route that passes through the town of Agordo – so picturesque it might be walled with giant postcards, and a superb spot to grab another coffee. That should give you enough of a boost to continue motoring on to the mountain town of Arabba.

A bit like Italy’s version of Saint-jean-de-maurienne

– a brilliant base in the French Alps from which to tackle the Croix de Fer, Madeleine and Galibier among others – Arabba sits in a nook of the Dolomites that’s spoilt for choice when it comes to riding options. There are three main roads in and out of town, with one the Passo Campolongo and another the Passo Pordoi. Further neighbours include the Passos Giau, Fedaia and Sella.

There is also a gondola that serves the Dolomites’ most lauded ski system, presided over by its tallest peak and namesake, the 3,343m Marmolada.

I ponder this over breakfast, which I am sad to see is now orchestrated from a kind of pandemic Perspex pulpit. Inside sits the fare, conducted by a dickie-bowed waiter and his tongs. This lends both ceremony and judgement, as my cereal bowl is delivered with aplomb, but an arched eyebrow is cast when I attempt a second round of cake. Gone is the classic breakfast buffet. Gone is gluttonous anonymity. I can no longer eat several breakfast courses and squirrel away a few treats for later. Sadly, this surely is the end of appropriating breakfast goods for picnic lunches.

I meet Matthias in the hotel bar, sipping from a tiny cup and dressed, I’m pleased to see, in the same clothes as me – that is, regular kit plus warmers. I’m not sure if it’s me getting older or global warming, but I find it increasingly difficult to decide what best to wear on anything but the hottest days. Especially when a ride starts at 1,600m, will spiral to 2,200m and my weather app says will be bathed in full sun despite the spire of the local church currently prodding through mist.

Road less ridden

Tree branches hang like damp clothes as we roll round Arabba’s only roundabout, heading left and up behind a cluster of bars and shops. Within moments a familiar sting traces across my quads. We are leaving the town on the Passo Campolongo road, and it goes up.

I tried to ride as much as possible over the summer, but my local routes barely muster 350m ascent over 70km, whereas today is nearly twice that distance and ten times the elevation. I’m badly prepared, but it need not matter: Italy has brought her A-game to distract me.

On another day I might smell the wild herbs that give this pass its name, but today my olfactory stations have no useful place in my respiratory chain