Peri-Fosse, and more

As previously mentioned, Floridian Brent was spending a week in Verona to get some riding in. Five days of some long rides, mixed with some relatively short ones plus a visit to Dario Pegoretti, culminated with a plan to tackle the Peri to Fosse climb on Thursday.

The Peri-Fosse climb is one of the "must do" climbs for all Verona area riders. 10% average for 10KM, with a couple of 15% sections.

From Verona the best way to arrive at Peri is to wind along the Val Adige until you reach Peri. The weather along the way was lovely but Fosse had ominous cloud cover moving in.

We arrived at Peri and Brent described the mountain as having been slashed by Zorro. There are only 10 switchbacks so the stretches are fairly long between the switchbacks making is look like Zs. As we climbed we were fortunate that it was still sunny on the climbing side of the mountain. In this photo you can see one of the switchbacks at the bottom, and across the valley the mighty Monte Baldo (which also has some great roads for climbing). On the valley floor you can see the town of Peri, and the Adige River. The 14th stage of this year's Giro di'Italia will descend from Fosse to Peri which I'm sure will be hair-raising.

Brent beat me to the top but I made him turn around and go down a bit so I could take some photographs. I'm sure he was happy to do the 15% section again!

We had a good panino at a coffee bar in Fosse and then continued on. After a small climb we came upon this spectacular view with Lake Garda in the distance. At this point of the ride it it was cold and windy. It's always a good idea to have available a jacket, and/or a good windbreaker, when riding in the higher elevations.

From this point it was very long and very fast descent into Fumane. Before dropping down into Fumane we were treated to this view looking towards the Po Valley.

Fumane welcomed us with sunshine.

From here we motored back to Verona. We were tired from all the KMs of the week and just wanted to get back as quickly as possible. It's the crazy things that do you that you best remember, right?