I’ve come to accept that my fitness is a tenuous platform that can be ripped out from underneath me at any time. What winter giveth, summer taketh away. The dust-clogged lung inflammation that followed my Bryce 100 race on May 18 was immediately exacerbated by the explosion of spring pollen in Colorado. I’m extremely allergic to grass; it became enough of a health hazard to land insurance approval for extensive immunotherapy in 2016. Now, after eight years of treatment — which has been a rollercoaster of moderate improvements followed by steep declines — I am back to where I was in 2016 without any hope that there’s a cure for me. To keep my airways clear, I need to avoid breathing grass pollen. This is damn near impossible nearly anywhere in the world (except maybe Greenland, and maybe I’ll find a way to retire there someday.)
Until I can move to a rocky icecap in the Far North, June remains the cruelest month. I knew I’d been on my annual June Struggle Bus when I agreed to join my friends on a 400-plus-mile ride through the southern Alps. I knew I wasn’t fit for this trip even without the added annoyance of allergic asthma. All of the fitness I earned during my winter training focused on the two ultramarathons I completed in March and May. I had decent running fitness before May 18, but whatever the Bryce 100 didn’t diminish, I knew Europe’s mountain green-up would destroy. Danni assured me that our plan to average 40ish miles a day would leave plenty of time for lounging by lakes and eating gelato. Still, I’ve hiked extensively in the Alps over the past 13 summers, and I understand that horizontal distance has little meaning here. There’s a reason Italian trail signs list the estimated time it will take to reach a destination rather than the distance — because sometimes 2 kilometers means 2 hours, and it’s good to be prepared for that latter bit of truth. Still, Danni’s dream of a comfort tour was a nice one, so I embraced it.
And so we set out for our comfort tour: The Torino-Nice Rally, “a self-supported bike tour on historical trade routes and old military roads. The 600-700 kilometer route starts in the Italian Alps and ends on the southern French coast, and includes 15,000-20,000 meters of elevation gain. The rally is not a race, but rather an experience to share with friends. The route is considered technically undemanding, but it does include a mix of terrain.”
The route begins in Torino, Italy. I had to get myself there from Paris, and found that this wasn’t a trivial journey with a bicycle. But the trip there was (amazingly, given how many headaches every other leg of my trip gave me) uneventful. Danni, Amber, Lora, and I met in Nice and snuck our bikes onto the local train along the stunning Mediterranean coast to Ventimiglia, Italy, and then a regional train to Torino. During the train ride, we met three women in their 30s who were celebrating the completion of a United Nations graduate program and had spent the day at the beach. They were fun companions for the four-hour ride: A Canadian from Toronto, a woman from Uganda who invited us to visit her at home sometime (we forgot to exchange info! 😭), and a Palestinian who was a little bit drunk and bleeding all over her towel (the mouth of her beer bottle was broken and jagged, and inexplicably she kept drinking out of it.)
Our new friends recommended that we sample a Torino delicacy called Vitello tonnato — usually a boneless cut of boiled veal served with a tuna, egg, anchovy, and caper-based sauce. Danni insisted we find a restaurant where we could try this, even as I insisted, “Really? You want to eat that the night before starting an arduous bike ride?” We did not find Vitello tonnato, but we did find juice boxes of wine at the grocery store for less than a euro, intriguing “Roman Doors”, and a beautiful church that houses the Shroud of Turin (purported to be a burial garment of Jesus Christ, but carbon dating places its origins in the 13th century, so it’s more likely a medieval hoax.) I insisted on shelling out the 10 euros per person to visit the church’s museum and climb the 200 steps to the bell tower, which was my favorite part of the day.
We set out the morning of June 11 — not nearly as early as we should have, in hindsight — and battled Tuesday traffic through the confounding roundabouts and cobbled streets of Torino. An hour later, we passed the royal gardens and broke free of the urban landscapes that I’d been enveloped in since arriving in Paris on June 1.
My friends pedaled briskly along the 20-mile approach into the mountains, and I strained to keep up. Lack of bike training meant my quads and glutes felt underpowered, but an oxygen deficit was a more limiting factor. Each breath was accompanied by a deceptively cheerful-sounding chirp, which meant my asthma was already acting up. The countryside was bursting with green, so rich and full that one could almost see the bits of pollen wafting through the air. By the time we stopped for lunch along the Lanzo River, I was wrecked — and staring down a 20-mile climb that was reported to be the most challenging of the entire route.
Two voices chimed in. One told me to quit now. Pedal back to Torino and catch a train to somewhere where you can rent an AirBnB and go on easy hikes for a week. Trying to keep up with your impressively athletic friends in the Alps is going to kill you.
The other voice told me that feeling like hot garbage before the first climb even began was no big deal. Go as slow as you want, the voice assured me. Hike if you must. You’re good at hiking. If your friends don’t want to wait for you, fine. You have a tent. You have Nutella. You have everything you need.
For the longest time, the road rolled through the Viù Valley while gaining almost no elevation — although I felt like I was climbing a wall. By the time the climb to Colle delle Colombardo began in earnest, we had 4,000 feet to ascend and only six miles to do that in. The road, which is a mess of loose gravel and larger rocks, averages a 10.7% gradient with plenty of pitches in the 16% to 18% range. I was relieved by these ridiculous stats — they meant I’d almost definitely need to hike this entire thing.
So I hiked and breathed, and grew more relaxed as the road pitched upward. Dark clouds rolled in, a few raindrops fell, and I felt like I could breathe again. A combination of rain, which cleared the air, and higher altitudes, where pollen counts were lower, helped me immensely during this trip.
Thunder boomed in the distance and I did not feel as relieved about this turn of events. The grassy ridge offered few options for shelter. I decided that if the electrical storm came any closer, that would be my signal to coast down the mountain and quit. I figured my friends must be over the col and in the next town by now, but I soon caught up to Danni. She was also frightened by the thunder booms and said she felt better now that we were together, which I found amusing. I like you too, Danni, but we are not going to save each other from lightning.
Two miles from the top was an old “sanctuary” that was locked tight. Lora was waiting for us here, planning to set up her tent next to the church’s walls if the storm didn’t relent. Amber was long gone. Amber is a competitive mountain biker who frequently wins races in Montana. She’s not aggressive about her athletic prowess and is happy to keep a friendly pace during a tour, but I get it. There’s a personal range in which we all operate, and one can only pedal so slowly. (I later found out that Amber stayed in the saddle the entire way to Collombardo, and although I was unsurprised, I was astonished.)
The thunderstorm abated as the clouds closed in, obscuring any view we could earn for busting out 42 miles of nearly continuous climbing since leaving Torino. But we’d done it. We’d conquered our first col. According to legend, these slopes hide 1,300-year-old treasures belonging to the Lombards. In the time of King Charlemagne, fleeing soldiers found shelter in the mountains. They called their settlement Colle Longobardo, subsequently abbreviated to Collombardo. Shepherds stumbled upon evidence of their riches at the end of the 19th century, and the dream of finding more persists.
From Collombardo, we had a long, long descent toward the village of Bussoleno. The weather cleared and the evening was gorgeous. My strength and vigor had returned and I felt like I could pedal another 65 miles, but it was already quite late — nearly 9 p.m., although the sun was still up — and another impossible col awaited. We hoped to find camping in Bussoleno but gave up after about five minutes of confusion and instead booked a wonderful AirBnB. I’m going to link it here because it’s such a fun place. I called it the “Banksy B&B” because of the unique decorations. The owner designed and built the entire complex. He was friendly and accommodating after we showed up so late (apparently while he was eating dinner.) The apartment had more amenities than we scored anywhere else for a reasonable price. My friends went to get dinner (all-you-can-eat pizza!) but I decided to stay home and luxuriate in the ambiance of Banksy B&B.
As I drifted to sleep on the sofa bed, a raw feeling in my throat and heaviness in my chest reminded me that the next col was going to another desperate battle. An earlier glance at my phone map while enjoying my dinner of Nutella and crackers told me that returning to Torino from here would be an easy coast down the Dora Riparia river — no cols necessary. I was grateful that this wasn’t what I wanted anymore. I’d figure out a way to gasp through this route, come what may.