Cycling toward Bellinzona

First time going north instead of south today. I didn't make it all the way to Bellinzona — turned around at Sant'Antonino (just after descending into the valley where Bellinzona is, 5 or 10km from Bellinzona), because I noticed that my
headset was loose and I had neglected to pack the wrench in my seat bag. I tightened it up as much as possible with my fingers, and re-tightened once or twice on the way home. Easy enough to fix once I got home and pulled out the proper wrench, which is now tucked into my seat bag.

I have heard from others that the headset loosening up is a common problem with Bike Fridays. The Friday necessarily uses a threaded headset. It's very high quality (Chris King, the best), but perhaps the unusually long stem on a folding bike puts it under extraordinary stress. I'll have to be extra careful to check it before each ride, because a loose headset on a fast descent would be a very bad thing.

Bellinzona is about the same altitude as Lugano, and the weather report predicted similar temperatures, so I was surprised by the amount of snow still on the ground in Sant'Antonino (on the valley floor). Just before Sant'Antonino is Monte Ceneri; the descent is long and in a couple places it is marked as a 10% grade. Going down I was thinking “what goes down, must come up” and worrying it would be a long, hard slog. In fact it was pretty long but wasn't actually that hard, maybe because the gearing on the Friday is low (owing to 20 inch wheels). I was doing 6-8mph, in the middle ring all the way up. Lots of snow left nearer the top, of course.

All and all a good ride, and I look forward to making the full trip to Bellinzona next time. Stats from GPS: 36.3 miles, 3218 total feet of climbing (min 531 feet, max 1831 feet). Take the stats with a grain of salt ... they depend on GPS accuracy, and total climb depends on filtering (e.g., if you go up 1 foot and then down 1 foot, is that a 1 foot climb?)