Passo San Marco with Ana
My smiling Ana is one of my best adventure buddies. She is absolutely addicted to the high mountain passes and always tries to do the Stelvio at least once or twice each year. She’s been begging for a Stelvio trip all season, but we’ve been challenged. Neither of us has a car and the public transit options to get to the Stelvio are severely limited without the Valtellina train running. They are doing important work on the train line in preparation for the 2026 Olympics and as a result for the last few summers the train ends in Colico (at the north end of the lake) and they offer a bus alternative between Colico and the end of line at Tirano. Usually we would take the train all the way to Tirano and then either bike or bus to Bormio from there.
So that made Stelvio a bust for us anti-car folks this year unless we had an extra two days to bike the Valtellina bike trail each way (which I did do back in 2022 to get to my first Gavia ascent). Instead we had to find something more accessible but equally ambitious and that left a couple of options;
Splugen Pass was an obvious one with its 50-something switchbacks between Chiavenna and the peak. It would be a train from Lecco>Colico and then Colico>Chiavenna to get us up there. We do that regularly in order to ski Valmalenco in the winters.
San Marco Pass is the closest big mountain pass to us. We just have to do the train up to Colico and from there we could start our ride with a 20km warm up on the Valtellina cycle path before starting the ascent to 1992meters.
We opted for ease of travel and hit San Marco. It would be my third ascent and Ana’s first. We were also joined by Michael JW, and a new friend in Daniel from Delft of the Warm Showers network. He reached out to ask if he could stay the night while on a big Alps bike ride from Lichtenstein to Milano. Given this, he seemed to have the legs for big climbing and we welcomed him to join us.
We hit the train early, and after a deviation to pump up some tires, we started our ride around 9:45am. We were climbing by 10:30am. It’s a 26km ascent with about 1800meters of elevation gain. We went out of the gates together, but in the first 5km the ladies separated ourselves. Ana was equipped with her brand new specialized gravel bike in a very shimmery watermelon color and outfitted with full Cycology gear. She definitely won the day for the most flair. She also won the day for the biggest bonk. Around halfway up she was craving brioche 🥐… maybe even before that. But smarty-pants didn’t bring any food with her. When we ride in Italy we are spoiled by the vast number of coffee bars and restaurants. However, on this ascent there are only two towns so you have to be diligent to stop, otherwise you get to a point of no return. I shared a bar and a banana with her, but emergency measures became necessary. Just 8km from the top there was a mountain cheese agriturismo where we were able to buy nearly a pound of high quality alpine cheese for just 6 euros. We could hear the cowbells ringing and the cows mooing nearby. It was deliciously salty and saved Ana from herself.
While we were stopped our Dutch friend managed to sneak by and he hit the peak first, proving that the tortoise strategy does have legs. He was wearing a KOM polka dot jersey and it was suiting for him. MJW and I accelerated to the peak, enjoying the views of the switchbacks behind us, and being able to see all the way down into the Valtellina valley and also out to the Swiss mountains, which are ALREADY SNOW COVERED!!! Ana ferociously fought to make it to the top and we all celebrated together at the top before descending to escape the harsh wind. I should also note that I ported up many layers for myself because I HATE being cold. Our Dutch friend had just a wind jacket. My down vest ended up being overkill for me, but a major benefit to Daniel for nearly the entire descent. Between the extra snacks and extra layers, i was feeling like a good guide on the day.
We descended to the first Rifugio for a warm and delicious lunch before continuing down to Val Brembana and hopping on the beautiful bike trail that would take us through San Pellegrino (where they make the water) and all the way to the Ponte San Pietro train station where I would return with the boys to Lecco and Ana would begin her journey back home to Lugano. What a beautiful day to ride bikes on an epic course. Other fun aspects of the descent:
Daniel taking great footage of our descent
Making animal sounds through tunnels
Playing tag your it with two cycle tourists who we would overtake and then they would overtake us. We like the game, but never got the sense that they were up for playing.
Gelato in San Pellegrino
A wicked strong push from Ana at nearly 40km/hr when we thought we might be late for the train
MJW navigating by phone (sans phone holder) for the final turns to get to the train station… harder than it sounds
