Easter Weekend!

The weekend started on Friday morning when I arrived in Airolo with my bike. The sun was out, the air was warm, and I put on my shorts. From here I cycled along the #3 North-South route towards Biasca, but made a small detour according to a mountain bike trail that I found on GPS-Tracks.com. The route was great, but I had to turn back due to the wet snow at the higher altitudes. From then on I rode on a parallel road about 1000m above the valley. Absolutely spectacular! The downhill was fantastic and the rest of the ride to Biasca was uneventful.

That night I camped with friends near Biasca. We had a delicious BBQ salmon dinner and drank a few deserving beer. The next morning three of us rode to Losone (near Locarno) where we camped the second and third nights. En route we stopped near Gudo where I tried to locate the old home of a great-aunt. We had limited information and unfortunately no success.

The next day I did a solo ride, "Mountain bike tour Casone" up the Luera. The accent was strenuous but manageable; it was the ride down that killed me. The path was steep, full of rocks hidden under leaves, and had a steep decline down one side. I had a few close calls that resulted in small rock slides. The path went through Rasa, which is a little village in the mountains only accessible by cable-car. Where do people get the incentive to move to these places? I had to carry the bike for another 700m until I finally hit a ridable path. Frustrated, I almost snapped at a hiker for calling me a "Velo-wanderer". I calmed once I got to the road that took me back to camp. I should have paid closer attention to the difficulty rating and the comments left about this route before attempting it. It was still fun, nonetheless.

The last day was uneventful except for the ride to Bellinzona where I caught the train home. In all it was a fantastic weekend and I could easily see this becoming an annual tradition. Some photos are online and I put together a Google Map that plots where I rode over the four days. Enjoy!