This ride takes us over the famous cobble stone Tremola road, reaching the Gotthard pass from Airolo, in Ticino, the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, and descending the North side of the Alps and into the German speaking part all the way to Altdorf. The Tremola San Gottardo was built around 1830, building out an important alpine crossing and making it accessible for horse drawn postal carriages. As a result, it winds up over 24 hair pins at medium grade and on relatively wide cobble stones. These days the road is used only for leisure as the transit traffic uses the Gotthard Tunnel and a sweeping highway to cross the Alps. The ride starts at the train station of Airolo, follows a small local road (including an encounter with a snake if you watch carefully) and then connects into the Tremola which soon switches to cobble stone, displaying breathtaking switch backs and a beautiful road layout. Once arriving at the top of the Gotthard pass, the ride goes down, down and further down, shedding 1600m of elevation on the descend.
