A 15 cm wide white line, my front wheel rolls slowly along it, in serpentine lines. Depending on the gradient, I sometimes hit the line better, usually worse. My gaze is fixed on the app with the altimeter: Will I reach the 1000 vertical metres today?
Before you read, please note: this post was translated with the help of Deepl.
If you find any errors – please have fun first and then give me a hint.
They lie ahead of me: THE 48 hairpin bends. After the short warm-up kilometre behind Gomagoi, the ascending SS 38 forces me to downshift, again and again. Today I’m riding my lightest bicycle, the Cube Race One: a hardtail MTB with 29-inch wheels and plenty of gears. However, a handful of them have become useless because the shift cables have elongated. Adjustments would be necessary, the chain is scratching the derailleur.
Start
in Gomagoi?
Then it’s easy – why not even start at Franzenshöhe? Well, I had to learn: from 8.30 pm it starts to get dark and cold. If I start at home at 6.00 pm, I can easily make it to Trafoi, but then I have to turn round. What’s more, the road towards Gomagoi is relatively busy with idiots. I’m overtaken several times with minimal distance, splashed with windscreen wiper water and pushed aside.
It is simply less stressful and much healthier to drive into the Trafoier Valley by car and start where there is less traffic.
My legs are already burning, the chest strap measures my pulse at 160 less than two minutes after the start. Today’s training seems to end before it has begun, because it’s not going to work out like this. I struggle through the rockfall gallery, then switch to the lightest gear ratio and slowly stagger along the white line.
Collecting
hairpin bends
In hairpin bend 48 lies a bundle of indicator pieces, garnished with plastic on dark oil stains. The unmistakable sign that the motorcycle season has begun. I try to ride slowly, concentrating on pedalling steadily and calmly on the climb up to just before the Hotel Tannenheim, my heart rate levelling out at 140 beats. Deep below me, the Trafoi stream bubbles, bringing the winter snow and mountain debris down to the valley with ferocious force. The warmth radiating from the walls subsides and a foul-smelling, cold and damp draught from the depths takes over.
Provides refreshment – the Trafoi stream
The bubbling becomes more artificial and louder as two supermotards zoom past me on curious lines. I could do this – without false modesty – better. The chrome of the motorcycles parked at the Hotel Tannenheim flashes in the corner of my eye, and the headlight of a KTM Superduke jumps out at me from a garage in Trafoi. I ride the middle chainring and the large sprocket again. My cadence is manageable, my heart rate remains at 150, and I quickly pass hairpin bends 46 and 45. I feel good.
Surviving
slopes
I head into the forest, I can still hear the raging of the two supermotards in the distance, the exhaust plumes of the richly tuned single cylinders evaporating slowly in the light mist. At bend 44 there are more colourful motorcycle fragments – it seems to have been an eventful day. The climb out of bend 44 is mighty and hits me in the thighs. Normally I unlock my motorcycles here – today, on the MTB, I have enough time to look at the fresh cracks in the road surface.
Pulse 160. There are several plastic bottles hidden among the greenery in the 43. A nature lover has made a real effort here. I roll through the two left-hand bends that cross a track torn into the forest by avalanches. On a motorcycle, you can ride them – if you can – as a single bend. I use the flat section for a short rest before rounding the next bend. At the end of it, there is a sharp left turn, and in my mind’s eye I can always see the bus coming towards me – today on the bicycle I am amazed at how wide it all is here.
Collect
metres of altitude
The altimeter jerks – the forest is probably obscuring the GPS signal. The road feels completely different in the saddle of a bicycle. You don’t feel the bumps that the motorcycle likes to leverage or the ruts that tug at the line. Instead, every little stone knocks against your buttocks. I’m amazed that the hairpin bends on the very outside are flat and even feel downhill – I’ve never noticed that on a motorcycle before. These few metres that don’t require any effort are a relaxing blessing and gladly taken.
Upwards, always along the white line
Pulse 170 The section at the ‘Weißer Knott’ is steeper than expected, I take the chain to the far left again. Shortly before, I pass the memorial stone for a deceased cyclist whose journey ended here at 44. This makes me think – I recently turned 45.
After the Weißer Knott, the road and landscape open up. To the right, the forest becomes thinner, to the left masses of snow glisten from the Ortler, it seems as if the glacier is illuminating the valley. Just 25 years ago, the road here was single-lane and dizzying.
I look
at the glaciers
The following kilometres go by like a rush. My legs are working steadily, heart rate 155, 800 metres in altitude so far. I send the numbers of the passing hairpin bends to my partner, I’m somewhere in the mid-30s. After a few thoughtless, relatively easy climbs, I read ‘2000 metres above sea level’ on a milestone.
Bend 29 – one of my favourite places. I stop to enjoy the view of the other side of the valley. Sweat pours into my eyes, cold wind blows through the openings in my helmet and dries my hair. I slip into my warm jacket and think about the descent. It’s 8.15 pm and the day is passing. The app reports 950 metres in altitude – an unsightly figure. I eat the rest of an energy bar and get on my Cube.
Stelvio Pass on a bicycle – a tough job
I fight my way through the next two bends at a pedalling pace and with a gear ratio I haven’t ridden before today. Heart rate 170, my thighs on fire, my lungs bursting – shortly after bend 27, I’ve run out of energy.
1000
vertical metres
After barely surviving the first 100 vertical metres on the ascent to Tschengls, after the tough battle against the 500 metres up to the mountain station of the Laaser Schrägbahn, the 1000 vertical metres have now fallen. Cool: On the Stelvio Pass east ramp.
Now in my sights: Hairpin bend number 24 – the half of the whole thing. It’s only three hairpin bends further up, but for today I turn the Cube down the valley and let my weight take effect.
To mark the 200th anniversary of the Stelvio Pass road, I have revised and republished my cycling texts from 2018. Have fun reading them again!
- Stelvio Pass on a bicycle
- Ultracycling – Go further than the rest
- Stelvio Pass on a bicycle: 100 vertical metres
- Stelvio Pass on a bicycle: The last 4 bends
Perfectly matching:
Ultracycling – Go further than the rest
Stelvio Pass on a bicycle: 100 vertical metres
Stelvio Pass on a bicycle: The last 4 bends
Let’s climb the Stelvio together!
Stelvio – Count from 1 to 10!
Have fun looking at them!
