The Stage

Today’s stage was an epic fight to Bormio, and despite hope for the breakwaway it ended up being a GC day. While the stage was much shorter than yesterday’s at 155 km long, it had 3,800 meters of climbing and was the stage with the second highest number of meters of climbing per kilometer (e.g. the second highest average slope.) The stage with the most meters of climbing per kilometer comes on Friday.

Across the three climbs, one of which was a category 1, the breakaway fought to establish itself and then slowly lost time to the GC as the day went on. However, the end of the day featured epic attacks, with Isaac del Toro asserting himself as a clear leader, and ultimately winning his first stage after attacking on the final climb of the day. The finish to the line was fast and elegant bike racing, and I strongly recommend you watch this short highlight reel (it’s less than 5 minutes long) to catch the ending.

The Dish

Bormio has a dish that it is famous for — pizzoccheri. It’s also something that if you asked me I would never eat, let alone cook. Pizzoccheri is a buckwheat pasta with cabbage dish. To me, a priori, it didn’t sound terribly appetizing, but because it is so closely associated with Bormio, I had to give it a shot.

While we made the pasta, we snacked on some bresaola (a cured meat) that is also common in the region. This was really tasty and I would recommend it next time you’re doing a charcuterie board if you haven’t tried it before.

My pasta-making skills aside the pizzoccheri was surprisingly tasty. I didn’t execute the pasta perfectly, but the copious amounts of butter with cheese that made the sauce for the recipe made the pasta warm and filling. I would eat buckwheat pasta again for sure! And maybe even pasta with cabbage, although if I’m making pasta at home this recipe probably isn’t at the top of the list.

Ciao!