> A Henley sleep in gave me some time to do a work round thus avoiding the nightmare of cycling through another major city this time Treviso.
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> This though involved cycling back 7 kms in the direction we'd come late yesterday to pick up the first of two regional roads that would take us a further 50 kms to the foothills of the Dolomite range.
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> With the impenetrable barrier growing larger by the minute we took our time honoured supermarket lunch (this time Liddls) before tackling the first of our tour climbs.
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> While the food "fuel" helped what we really needed was some nitro as we launched straight into what appeared to be a 15% gradient sweating bucket loads before deciding that walking the bikes was an easier option !
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> The 8km climb was "Achilles snapping stuff" pushing our bikes and put to shame by the occasional light weight roadie that flew by.
Rounding one corner I delightedly saw a 10% gradient stupidly thinking the road level would ease - wrong !
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> I finally made the summit and took time to take the outstanding views that I suspect on a clear day would reach back to Venice
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> H to his credit also summited some time later although sounding a bit like he was towing his irong lung behind him - regardless we'd both conquered this really steep opener.
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> We took time to have a soft drink at the Col strangely in a small bar that a) had no refrigeration and b) had a fire going even though the outside temperature was in the mid 20's !
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> Slightly refreshed we took the following downhill almost as slowly as the we'd come up as the descent at 15% with loaded bikes required full braking ! Weirdly my bike developed some form of brake fade with my rear brake (hydraulic) function disappearing only to return 5 minutes later when on the flat (????)
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> A wrong turn at the bottom of our descent had H doing his best Godfather impersonation to extract info before we backtracked (yep up another 15%er) to reach our partly off road track to Tiago . For H it was his first off ride ride since his accident as he rode nervously still suffering the after affects 4 days later !
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> After a hell of a tiring day we reached Tiago at nearly 7p.m. and took up our B&B owners gracious offer to come down and pick us & our bikes up as the km or so to the b&b was one steep mother !
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> Our delightful host Francesco gave us the run down on his work in progress, a restored farm house with amazing views across the valley to the Do!omites National Park !
The view of Henleys "arse" though was not so enticing so we were able to talk Francesco out of the double bed on offer settling instead for 2 twins !
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> Francesco dropped us off at a restaurant a few kms away for dinner but the hair raising drive down narrow roads was such that we didn't feel overly hungry - F had actually accelerated when coming to a stop sign on a blind intersection !
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> H almost done in by days end skulled his beer and looked forward (not) to doing it all over again tomorrow !
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