Up until Bolzano everything went fine and I was actually ahead of schedule with 6 hours in hand arriving at 21:00.
Then the rain started and it got cold. From riding the Imperator in 2017 I knew a prime bivvy spot one hour riding from Bolzano (a sheltered picnic spot with a big roof). But because of the timing and weather I decided to push to Trento and take a hotel there. Arrived at 00:30 and spent some 20 minutes in a hot shower to defrost; my hands and feet were numb and it took time to get back some feeling in them (pins and needles, ouch).
Still cold and raining when I left the hotel at 05:30 heading to the checkpoint in Avio. About half way the Garmin was warning its battery had 2% left, wtf? it had been charging for hours... Put it in battery save mode then used my phone for navigation (which is a pain when you don't want to run it continuously, and have to take your gloves off every time you want to check the route). At the Bici Grill I was close to giving up. But the coffee, hot stove and prospect of tail wind until Mantova cheered me up and I continued some 1 1/2 hours later. The Garmin was still fucked: in 45 minutes it went to 17%, then, when I checked again half an hour later it was back to 4%!
My saving angel was called Rene, the other Dutch rider (yes, only two of us) that arrived shortly after me at the Bici Grill. We rode together for the remaining 200+km solving my navigation problem. Only two p*nctures to spoil the rest of the ride (besides more rain, but at least it wasn't stone cold any more) and I finished at 20:10
Back home I disassembled the Garmin, turns out the USB connector had broken off the circuit board (given the size of the solder points, I'm not surprised after 2 1/2 years of use). I still haven't been able to recover the recorded part of the ride