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After another restful day we decided to take a ride to Lake Lagano, a shared Italian Swiss stretch of water. Set off was 10:30. It was already 19c and getting hotter. A lesson we learned last year was that the turnoff to Lagano is in a short gap between tunnels and SatNav’s only work with line of sight to the satellite. When the SatNav says 17 km turn right, set the odometer because once in a tunnel the SatNav has no idea where you are and makes an uneducated guess, based on your speed when you entered. Seriously the gap with the exit was 150 metres, the SatNav was out by a kilometre and if I hadn’t set the trip we’d have missed it.
Out of the tunnel and climbing a miniature spaghetti junction of switchbacks and roundabouts then we were off on a gentle ride through the valley to Lagano.
The Lagano route took us clockwise around the lake. First hugging the lakeside, then up into the hills. The hills had some very technical switchbacks and the climb was about 8 / 10 difficulty. The thing with great views and a sense of achievement is it comes with
a minimum 8 / 10 difficulty. The ride skirted us around Campione d’ Italia, a sort of Italian province just inside the Swiss boarder. I like that, the fact that there is an Italian town inside Switzerland.
Coming down the other side we hit a section of 9 / 10 difficulty and after a few minutes pulled into a petrol station / café for what was the best coffee since leaving the UK. Man it was good.
Rested and caffeined we were off again. Throughout the trip I have been feeding back to Ken and Briony the extent of the turn ahead. 45 right, 90 left, hairpin right and so on. Today I had to add a new descriptor, corkscrew left. Basically a hairpin turn, but with such a drop it resembled a corkscrew. This is an alternating helter-skelter of a road. Where switchbacks meander along the edge of a hill / mountain, this was the nearest to vertical without falling off. I am calling it 10 / 10. There are worse road surfaces (yet to come) but for tight turns on extreme declines this road has it nailed. I have sores on my hands from the seams
in my gloves, because the decent was so steep I was resting on them.
How to describe Legano town? If you travel BA first class, and read the magazine, there are adverts for up market brands that, if you fly FlyBee, you never see. That is Lagano town. I recognised a few shops, Rolex…. no that was it, the rest were way outside my magazine subscriptions. The cars, the bikes, the sunglasses were all beyond my humble means. We stopped for some lunch, Pizza for four and four cokes. The bill was the same as out grocery bill for the week. OK that is only true because we found a white wine tetra pack for 1 euro 40 a litre but you get the idea. I’m not complaining, the surroundings were stunning.
Fed and cola’d we walked back through the town and were back on the bikes for the ride back. This took us through the rest of the Lagano town lakeside and back into the valley that joins Lagano with Como.
Once back at the apartment we all headed of to the roof pool for a swim. The mid day temperature had reached 30c and after
a 90 minute ride in black, we needed to cool off. The general consensus, today was a great day. Not too long, not too far, and just scary enough to be fun.
Now, where is the white wine we bought?
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