It was till an early start despite being the last day which was due to end around 1pm. The days efforts would be around 80kms covering two cols ending in Davos, a town which is famous for having hosted the G8 summit or something of that ilk. It’s near Klosters where the British Royal family have their winter holidays.

We headed off immediately onto the 14km climb of Albualpass up to 6500ft. Chantal and myself headed off in the cars and waited near the top to get some photos. A call of nature and as soon as Chantal had responded to that Brian appeared so she had to head up to the top. Brian seemed in good form and headed on without stopping for food or drink.

Today was going to be easier than the previous days. Last night we had decided that we would leave out the first climb, Splugenpass which would take us out of Splugen and into Italy. We loaded up the cars and set off starting the climb immediately. The rain the started and at the top the landscape resembled Donegal rather than Switzerland. It was bleak.

6:30am.
Today we have two cols before lunch
Oberalsppass 4000ft
This is 11km long and start approximately 100 metres from the hotel so so easing into the day. This is ranked number 13 of the 18 cols we will be doing.
At 6000ft Lukmanierpass is 20km long and is ranked number 11 of the 18.

It's 7am and today has three big cols.
GrimelsPass 6500ft
Nufenenpass 7500ft
Passo del Gottardo over 8000ft
Most of these are between 10 and 14 km long with descents of up to 20km. Descending can be a dangerous and exciting prospect with many hairpins and no barriers to to stop riders drifting over the edge to a 200ft drop.

It’s 6:25 and I have already been up for ½ an hour to get ahead and get the blog uploaded. It could be a long day.
The house is quiet and I am going to have a quiet cup of tea while the photos upload.
Oh Oh…I hear movement upstairs.

The day started slowly. I woke at 6am and I had left the alarm at the usual setting for a work day. We weren’t getting up until 8am but I couldn’t sleep anyway.
We had 3 Australian girls staying for the weekend along with Jacks sister so the house was full.
I hadn’t done any packing so it was full on for a while and I managed to forget my bathing togs which Renald had reminded us of.