This post was originally published on this site
ON THE JULY evening when I arrived in the Dolomites, Italy’s most handsome mountain range was shaking off the clouds that had brought summer showers to the Alta Badia valley. Above the tree line, a jagged wall of ice-scoured rock glowed creamy pink in the setting sun. But I had no appetite for such sublime views. Disaster had just struck.
I was here to take part, for the first time, in one of the great European one-day amateur cycling challenges: the Maratona dles Dolomites, a punishing 83-mile course over seven Alpine passes….