I fucking hate mountain passes. I know the view is all magnificant and whatever but it’s hard to concentrate on that when you’re teetering on the edge of oblivion, in a van you’re driving on the wrong side of the road, doing 3 point turns on hair pin bends.

Actually that road was fine. It’s unrepresentative of the horror endured on the way up.

However today we got caught up in a weird Polish charity rally on the way to the Dolomites and the atmosphere was very supportive, everyone was having a good time and no-one was pissed off that I was going too slow round the bends. We stopped near the top of the pass and had a chat to some of the guys and met a cyclist who had rode from Norway to Italy via Serbia! Legs of steel.

Our van, hidden by rally cars.