On Bicycles, and.... what else is there?

Onward from Ghisallo.... After climbing to the church, spending plenty of time at the church and at the adjacent museum, then enjoying a delicious panini & frizzante lunch at the cafe, I was ready for more. Most riders consider the church to the the finish of the climbing, but really it's just the first course. A narrower, steeper, yet still excellently paved road continues upward, to San Primo. Just follow the sign... You can see the data from my ride on Strava . As of now, I'm the only one to have loaded data for the segment (which I defined) which extends from the junction at the Madonna to the Y-junction at San Primo. I initially continued from here left onto a dirt road, which led me to this sign: Beyond here the road became too rough for comfort with my 23 mm tires. The profile to this point: The dirt is just the final few hundred meters. Using the Low-Key hill ranking index, the full profile comes out at 103 on the Old La Honda = 100 point scale. ...

I was in Italy for a bit over a week and brought my trusty Ritchey Breakaway. I really love that bike, steel frame and all. It's relatively bomb-proof, packs nicely into its near-regulation-sized travel case, and rides really well. It's no weenie @ 17.5 lb or so with clinchers and first-generation SRAM Rival, but then again 17.5 lb ain't so bad either. I wouldn't use it for a hillclimb time trial, but it's certainly a race-worthy bike. So my first target was the legendary Ghisallo climb from Bellagio on Lake Como. The Ghisallo ends at the Madonna del Ghisallo, the internationally famous church dedicated to cyclists. The climbing actually begins deep in the center of Bellagio. However, here's where I consider the true climb to start, at the 9 km to go sign at the traffic circle (below this traffic is too heavy): the start of the climb proper From this point, here's the route profile, riding along the main road as opposed to the alternate back-ro...