I'd spotted the Alpe Loccia while searching for new routes around lake Orta in Italy. According to the mountain bikers it is an uber steep climb with sections over 20%.

Usual mix of steep Italian ramps and bad roads. The surfaced road ends just after Cassano so this is just a little tour of the foothills. The Orta backcountry is not overly interesting.

I decided to enter the Toppidrettsveka - Virtual rollerski challenge.

Seriously, I'd vowed not to come back after last year but here I was, struggling up the first killer wall out of Monte Buglio cheered on by the usual assortment of deranged Italian cani.

I'd never cycled up to Scareno before and to be honest, there isn't much reason to. It is a long way up a big of a rough road.

Classic style, double polling down, kick double pole up finishing with a bit of diagonal stride.25m56 down. 4m47 pace. Looking quite slow compared to skating now where I'm in the 3m05 range.

A variation on the route today. Decided to try and skate the Chronovélo from Meylan to Grenoble city hall. The Chronovélo are high speed cycle routes where bikes generally have priority over cars.

There is a heatwave at the moment and many people on Strava were complaining about the temperatures. At the same time the weather service predicted afternoon storms.

Early start due to the heat wave and a lot of people had the same idea. I was working on technique: high on the skis and using body weight to push, bending the knees as well as the hips.

More technique work. Trying for balance and feeling the outside edge of the skis.Overall 3m29/km, which is pretty good plus a PR of 19m28 on the south leg - previous PR was 20m43.