Tour Transalp 2024: Mario and Rich take on the Dolomites
“There’s no-one around” said Mario, my race partner for the week. “1hr from kick off of the first game of the 2024 Euros and we’re driving past the stadium on a completely deserted motorway, how is that possible?!”.
As it turned out, we hadn’t factored into our German autobahn, warp speed, space-time continuum calculations, the opening ceremony of the international football tournament. This meant that the crowd was already in the stadium, enjoying a light and sound extravaganza and every other resident of Bavaria was already tucked up at home, at a pub or in a god-forsaken “Fanzone” being charged 12 Euros a pint and watching the festivities unfold. In an act of fully living our stereotypes, Mario and I as cyclists were far less bothered about the impending international football tournament as we were about the week of incredible, if daunting, road cycling we had in-front of us.
Cue the geeky, cycling obsessed van full of 2 riders, 2 bikes and 2 huge kit bags and the most blissful journey round the Munich orbital motorway, literally right past the Allianz Stadium (It will always be the “Olympische Stad” to me since the year I spent studying and working in Munich). It was like being transported back to the first few weeks of the pandemic when you had to make up a reason to be even out of the house and certainly weren’t meant to stray far from home.
This time round though, we had already covered 900miles since pulling out of my central Manchester carpark, and were on day 2 of a 3 day journey to the start line of a 7-Day stage race known as The Tour Transalp. 7 Stages between 75 and 160km across the Dolomites from Lienz, in the Austrian Tirol to Lake Garda, Italy. 16 Mountain passes and 18,000m of vertical gain on a push-bike.
The surreal fly-by of the packed 70,000 capacity stadium was just the first of a series of “out of this world” moments during an unforgettable week on the pedals.
The following day after an evening with Mario’s Dad (who most fortuitously is also a “Münchener”), some Weisswurst, a succesful match for the German “Mannschaft” and a good night’s sleep, we only had the last 3Hrs of our total 20+hr drive to get to the start venue in Lienz.
If you haven’t been there, Lienz and the surrounding parts of Austria are incredibly beautiful, think The Sound of Music meets Skiing and Cycling Mountain paradise and you won’t be far off. The night we arrived was spent heading to race registration at the local sports complex, making sure our kit and bike was in perfect order, timing chips attached and doing a short, but already spectacular shakedown ride up the river valley for 20km in baggy shorts and t-shirt.
“Overcast, with a 30% risk of a shower near the finish town”. That was the forecast from the Carol Kirkwood’s Austrian exchange partner for stage 1, from Lienz to Sillian, just across the border into Italy. So when we woke up that morning, it was overcast and we assumed they’d got it right. After a short pedal to the start-line via bag drop-off back at the sports centre, and we were ready. What we weren’t ready for was a blistering 40kph+ neutralised zone from the start (that lasted 25km+) and the sun to come out no more than 30 Seconds after we left the town square. Crucially missing, was any sort of sunscreen and any sort of warm-up; opting instead for a great espresso in the café right by the start on a nice comfy dining chair.
We knew the first stage was shorter than the rest, and most of us naively thought with 2000m of “up” over less than 80km meant a nice “amuse-bouche” and something we could at least mentally recreate in our minds from numerous training rides in the Peak District.
We had blissfully ignored that the neutralised start accounted for 35km, and oblivious of the fact that the descents then accounted for another 25km, thus meaning that the 2133m of elevation gain was actually going to found within around 30km of tarmac!
Mario and I knew that we were never going to be able to stay with the lead groups and had always planned to ride as hard as we could but to ultimately enjoy the challenge and hope to finish strong, so as the pace car pulled away and the road turned right on the Pustertaler Hohenstrasse (which literally translates as Puster Valley High Road, the tarmac went up at a nice gradient through an area of forest, then approached a tiny village and it suddenly felt like we’d been directed straight up an off-season black ski run. The tarmac turned to concrete and my wahoo turned a deep red as gradients went past 20% before my vision blurred and couldn’t even read the screen anymore.
I was able to tap into both my own mantra “Pain: It’s just French for bread”, as well as remembering the concept that everyone from the leaders to ourselves to the riders that would eventually finish an hour or more after we did, we were all feeling the same. Everyone’s cadence was down somewhere around half of what they would have been comfortable pedalling at. All of us wishing we had a couple of those phantom gears that you search for, pushing my shifter knowing the Di2 would happily make a click, but there would be no corresponding movement in the mech and therefore no sweet relief of easier pedalling.
That first day was frankly brutal, the climbs were all steep, we collapsed at both feed stations, and again at the end where the timing was taken at the top of the final climb. This was actually a really nice touch from the race organisers, with most days involving a “finish line” at the top of the final climb of the day, meaning that the leaders would often wait at the top and cheer on the next few groups in, and so it would pass on down the line, we were welcomed to the end of the timed stage by those infront of us and we could pass that encouragement on as those behind us came up the last punishing few metres, it was then a social relaxed descent to the finish-line proper in the village of Sillian, a beautiful Austro-Italian village along the river in the bottom of the most verdant of valleys.
Since that first day’s stage had taken place on my own 46th birthday, I made sure to eat my own bodyweight in post-race buffet supplied by the local butchers, and then went back to our very Tyrolean hotel where my birthday treat was the best tasting Kaiserschmarrn (Austrian traditional dessert of chunks of thick sweet pancake, icing sugar and fruit jam) and a Radler (a shandy made with weissbier). I was missing my family, but what a way to spend a birthday.
Day 2 and we woke up to a glorious blue sky. There was no way I was going to make the sunscreen faux pas again, so after a liberal application of Pelotan to every area up to the razor sharp tan lines, and an even more generous serving of chamois cream to some of the areas above, we were ready to roll.
Stage 2 from Sillian to Moena/Val di Fassa was 130km and thanks be to Dura-Ace, the Japanese God of gear shifting, the climbs were a lot longer, but much less severe, the kind of climbs I could get into a rhythm on, find a song that matches that rhythm and my heartbeat, which in turn was using temples temples as a kick-drum, and then lose myself between the incredible alpine vistas that were opening up before me and the Stone Temple Pilots track that was in my head on that particular stage. It seemed like every corner we rounded there was another breathtaking landscape, the road clinging to the side of the mountain like a piece of well cooked pasta flung there to test it’s readiness. Suffice to say, the second stage was an appreciably more relaxed affair than the first, despite the longer distance and increase in elevation gained. I even had some left in the reserve fuel tank to sit on the front of our group on the flat run into Moena, to the point that Mario and one of the other guys behind told me to “calm it down a bit” – always a huge internal boost to the self-confidence. Another side benefit to the timer finishing at the top of the last climb was that Mario and I could really enjoy the ice coold coke we could sit at the roadside café and swig straight from the gloriously Euro-style glass bottle. Somehow, with very little forward planning or research, we had also booked our hotel for the night right on the finish line for the stage and the following mornings start-line, it’s things like that which make an endurance ride even better….what a time to be alive!
Stage 3
Waking in the mountains to a blue sky is one of the greatest pleasures in life. The air seems to be powered by tiny jet fighters to penetrate deeper into the lungs. The colours are that little more vivid, even compared to the night before, presumably as my retina have had a night to recover along with the quads trying to flush out some lactate before the dance-card for the day got it’s first stamp of the day. I look up the valley in the direction I know today’s stage will be taking us and try my best to offset the nerves about the climbs to come with the knowledge and certainty of what the world will look like from the top and the inevitable descents sweeter than my daughters favourite caramel shortbread.
As is the way of most of my cycling, as long as the gradient will allow my legs to hold the workload and I can keep my heart and lungs under control, then I can hold a strong tempo on the flats and shallower climbs. Once the gradient kicks up however is when I get dropped, and I just need to find my own pace and get to the top in my own time and in my own world. I am definitely not fast going uphill, but I get there in the end and there’s something about a long, mountainous climb that allows your mind space and time to really clear, process stresses and just be “at-rest”, it’s a very calming state, something akin to what I imagine people more talented than I talk of “flow-state” albeit there’s no masterpiece or song lyrics being generated in this case, just a middle-aged man having a spiritual experience whilst breathing out of his backside, and sweating buckets, on his push-bike.
Also on this Stage, a tradition was started. One which we would keep to on each stage for the rest of the week. An impromptu stop was created when Mario and I came across one of the small sink/fountain/waterfall installations on the roadside of each mountain pass, and since it was early summer and the height of the dolomites, the crystal clear snow run-off was the most blessed relief when splashed over our boiled beetroot faces and heads.
Stage 3 was a really big day on the bike. The middle climb, Passo Valles was a real brute, which with an average of only 5% shoouldn’t have been that hard, but to borrow the patented climb descriptors of the Lantern Rouge cycling podcase lads, it’s a “Fake-News Climb”, with some flat bits in the middle to recover, but with a length of 20km+ there are consitent sections of over 10% and it goes on for what seems like an eternity. As we stood at the top collecting ourselves, other riders would arrive, their appearance foretold by the sounds of expletives in varying accents as they swore at the gradients and felt the release when you can finally use some energy to breath again rather than every ounce being poured into your freshly serviced chainset.
I have a distinct memory of being unable to control my chuckles as I heard those foreign swear words. I wasn’t laughing at them, it was an instinctive reaction to knowing exactly how they felt only moments earlier and the absurdity of us all having just put ourselves through it in the name of fun! I’m pretty sure, Mario captured this very moment in the photo above.
Fortunately, Stage 3 also signified the date of my first opportunity to visit the massage venue in the finish town, so after locating our hotel (300m from the finish line today, albeit down a hill) and a quick shower, I followed the green “Village/Camp” arrows to locate the massage room. There was a definite lack of calming music and essential oils, rather 8 or 10 other mildly broken cyclist bodies laid out like an only slightly less miserable autopsie suite, being tenderised by double the amount of austrian fists and elbows. God, it was good!
Stage 4: The day started with a long descent down from the village of San Martino di Castrozza. An 11km descent, behind the neutralised race-organisers car. It definitely took the pressure off as no-one was racing anything, although it did feel a bit like we were being held back a bit too much, and having to ride the brakes a bit too much. That said, it did make for a bit of a carnival atmosphere, imagine 600riders all rolling down a hill gently for 20mins, full of breakfast, ready for the biggest stage of the week.
The day had come with more than it’s fair share of trepidation. I knew that we had 2 monstrous climbs, and then the savage Monte-Grappa to finish, before the descent into San Zanone. The initial climb of Passo Goberra did a similar job to the previous nights massage in breaking in my quads, calves and glutes.
Then like the perenial Tour de France partnership of Galibier and Telegraph, we barely had a chance to get going on the descent, before the Passo Bronco reared up infront of us. 13km of climbing gained 1000m of elevation from the village at the bottom, to what seemed like the top of the world. At risk of veering into serious spiritual territory here, riding up into those sort of places really does make me feel like I am elevating both my physical being and mind to a level above the rest of the world. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I suddenly feel superior to everyone else, rather that as I look down from the place that I have just pushed myself and my body to reach on the bike, it gives me the feeling of having let go of a lot of the stresses and strains of life that seem much more present when closer to sea-level. I am able to rationalise things, find a perspective on a problem that may have seemed insurmountable a few days before but now if not completely insignificant, then certainly managable and not taking up more than its fair share of real-estate in my head.
We were climbing strong, Mario and I had picked up another friend in Patrick after I stopped briefly to help him extract his chain which had commited functional suicide by wedging itself between frame and chainset. The gradient of the Passo Brocon was about right for me, testing enough and felt like we were consistently gaining elevation whilst shallow enough that I could hold a good rhythm and not be pushed unwillingly into the red.
After a descent of epic proportions, we had literally 10km of flat road to get some fuel onboard and gather my mental and physical resouorces before the brown sign heralded the start of the climb to Monte Grappe. This is what I had feared, I already had 90km of mountainous terrain in my legs and now I was asking them to take on arguably one of the longest, most sustained punishments I have ever encountered. Almost 30km of relentless climbing. Some of it was quite pleasant as we weaved our way through the permanently bathroom-fresh smelling pine forest at the bottom, but there were a few times when we would round the corner and be staring at the road going straight up. Flashbacks of training rides up “The Killer-Mile” near congleton took hold and despite telling myself that I always make it up that particular 20% gradient, I then talk myself down again by telling myself “Yeah, but you’ve only done 40km of flat to get there Rich”. It really was a time where I just had to concentrate on the next 10 turns of the pedals, get past those, then think about the next 10 and so on.
We all focused as well on the feed-station that was around half way up the Monte Grappe climb, so after 15km of climbing, we saw the mirage that was the van with the gazebo’s out front and the dream of some salty soup and boiled potatoes with even more salt (sounds vile but wierdly was always exactly what our bodies were craving at the time). We knew that the second half of the climb didn’t get any easier, and I found myself having to dig really deep into my mental toughness locker a lot on that second half. Not because I thought I was ever going to quit at any point, but there are plenty of dark places to go before you start to contemplate stopping. So I found myself desperately trying to break the climb up into smaller chunks. “Make it to that next hairpin”, “just get to the end of this tree-line” or as far down as “just get to that rock that the person infront has just passed”.
Fortunately, the top section of this particular climb, as much as it is very exposed to the elements (today it was hot!), it is also of such huge historical importance that your mind is almost overwhelmed by visions of world war 1 soldiers defending their homeland from the marauding Austro-Hungarian forces. The shadows and scars of fortifications and trenches that were dug into the already incredibly challenging landscape were still visible, even before we could see the first signs of the incredible memorials built ontop of this monstrous peak. I tried to imagine myself as an italian soldier holding back the enemy forces, stopping them from reaching Venice which they could have seen from the summit had they ever reached there. T
hey never did, the Austro-Hungarian forces retreated, but we wouldn’t stop pedalling, our personal battles for far less significant but internally still important. Make it to the top now and you can enjoy the descent all the way down to the flatlands out infront of us. The view from the top was genuinely one of the most epic things I have seen in my life, with the mountains behind me and the flat out to the sea infront, it felt like we had broken the back of the 7 stages of this race. That evening was a tale of 2 halves in terms of accommodation and food. After stuffing some calories back in consuming some delicious bratwurst whilst plunging our feet into a well-earned ice-bath. Then following an extra 15min ride out of town to our digs tucked into an area of genuinely Hansel and Gretal level forest, we were re-united with our bags. The room this evening took my back to my dodgy 70’s dorm room as a fresher at University, matched only by “The Shining” corridors of the converted mansion/monastery. On the up-side, the family that ran the mostary also appeared behind the counter at the restaurant just across the road when Mario and I hobbled in on increasingly tired legs. There wasn’t much of a menu, but when I asked whether a Carbonara (my favourite italian dish), the waiter/chef/father of the house seemed almost gleeful at the prospect of showing off his recipe. And wow, what a recipe it was. I had been anticipating, no dreaming about this since we found out we had won the entry into the race months before, and it didn’t dissapoint
Stage 5 – To be honest, I had entered this event under the strict proviso that all the sweating would happen during the long, alpine climbs. So the crushing dissapointment of waking up and needing a shower after spending the night in my monastary dorm with no aircon, was hard to accept. So much so that it meant I headed into the day slightly catastrophising in my mind that I had left so many electorlytes on the single bedsheet, that I was going to be my destiny to suffer horrendous cramps today. We started out on the flatlands, looking back over Monte-grappa, the memories still fresh from the suffering of yesterday, but my legs felt surprisingly ok as we rolled through the neutralised start including some rare “downtown” sections. Thankfully the 600 riders caused enough of a stir that the traffic largely came to a standstill too let us pass. Yes, it made us feel just briefly like the pros as they set off on a Giro d’Italia stage and in our minds we looked exaclty as formidable in our swarm of multi-coloured lycra.
Soon, we were on the start of another monstrous ascent. Looking back, I think I can put my finger on a point somewhere part way up this climb, where the enormity of this challenge ride really kicked in, and I had to really start tapping into all my own psycological tools to keep me going and to avoid heading down a dark road with thoughts of defeat or makign impromptu rest/cry stops. I thought to the money that Mario and I were raising for Cyclists Fighting Cancer a charity that I have been a Trustee for for many years and Mario has fundraised for consistently over the years. My mind went to children that we had given bikes to, and especially those that I had seen being able to ride a bike when their treatment and condition meant they didn’t think they could. The inevitable would then happen and I would find myself tapping into the historic medical traumas of my own and trying to put some of them into context, using the experiences as best I could to convince my treacherous brain to recognise that “it’s still easier than that time”, or “it doesn’t hurt as much as that did, and that lasted a lot longer, just get to the next hairpin and go again”.
After what seemed like an eternity, we topped out at another 2000m summit, albeit this one with a difference, as there was actually a large village at the top. I didn’t do geography past GCSE but I think this was because it was the beginning of a large plateau, across which Mario and I got to engage our super-powers, the steady state power that comes from living in a part of a country where a 20min climb is considered epic. We managed to redeem our lack of alpine-climbing palmares on this undulating plateau as well as on other, flat sections of each stage, and often found ourelves pulling along a mini-peleton of our fellow competitors, as if tapping out the tempo over some of Cheshires finest “chip and stick” tarmac. I’m not going to lie, it felt pretty good.
At the other end of the plateau, more joy was waiting, with a descent that what was, by all accoounts out of this world, but which for this week at least was starting to feel like the norm, oh how we were being spoilt.
Stage 5 wasn’t finished with us yet, and was to be one of the couple of stages that finished with a very, very long climb. 20km with over 1000m of elevation, we climbed steadily all the way into the clouds where we experienced the only drizzle of the week as we summited, and with a short roll down into the town of Laverone, we crossed the line on a seriously hard day on the bike, but we’d made it through. The predicted cramps hadn’t arrived and even though I’d sat somewhat shell-shocked in the finish village trying to consume as many calories as possible, as well as a salted-caramel ice-cream based top-up courtesy of our german friend Norbert, thanks Norbert, I was able to ride over the final 150m climb to get to our accommodation. Yes, ironically, the hardest day so far had left us with accommodation another 20min ride away over another climb! 
It was blissfully worth it though as we arrived to find a well appointed Air-BnB on the most gorgeous lakeside setting which even had a TV that we could log-into Netflix and try and stay awake long enough to watch a film.
Stage 6 – This was always going to be an amazing day. 140km with a profile that at least on the surface looked like it had more descending than climbing. As is always the case, this was fake news and there was still plenty of ascent to test our legs, and then a final steep ramp up to the finish at Kaltern we’d been told was a real sting in the tail of the day. The added dimension was that my best friend was coming to meet us at the finish. I was soo looking forward to this. A heady combination of it being the final stage to Lake Garda the day after, the cumulative efforts of the preceding 5 stages and then being able to share the finish tonight and the stage tomorrow with someone I grew up with and who we’ve been by each others sides through weddings, childbirth and life threatening moments since we were 12. All told, I found so much energy in all these things for today’s stage, that I felt like I glided through the stage in a state of cycling serenity. I’m pretty sure it looked nothing like that for the casual onlooker; the Italian delivery guy dropping wheels of Parmasan at a delicatessen near Lausern as we climb away from our start town, probably didn’t think “He looks like an incredible cyclist”.
I don’t know, maybe he did, but I doubt it. Regardless of how I looked on the bike at the top of that climb, in my fantasy or otherwise, what followed was one of the most incredible descents I have ever ridden in my life. The Strada Del Menador or Kaiserjägerstrasse to give it it’s Austrian name (which incidentally has now taken a top 3 spot on my list of favourite street names, alongside such belters as “Clamhunger Lane” in Knutsford, Cheshire).
You could catch tantalising glimpses down to the huge lake on the valley floor, and as you threaded your way through tunnels and rocky outcrops, new levels of jaw-droppingness exposed themselves like Mr.Chips revealing more of the Super-Catchphrase each time you got the line right through a hairpin and excited out the other side with an even bigger grin on your face. The descent of our lives was however somewhat diminished by witnessing something truly horrific, which really put the privilege and enjoyment of what we were doing this week into context.
Amongst our merry band of riders, we would see the same faces each day as we all settled into the “Races within the Race” of all the abilities. Since both Mario and I are no mountain goats, we would be further back on the climbs and make up time on the descents and flat sections. There was also a bunch of familiar faces and bikes that we would trade places with during the course of each stage as each rider either surged ahead on their preferred terrain or got dragged back and overhauled like a sputtering 2CV on the Col de Tourmalet during their weaker moments. One such rider was an extremely strong triathlete who was great up the climbs, but understandably nervous of some of the more precipitous descents, when the rock and cliff edges seemed like the proverbial murderer waiting in the wardrobe.
On the flip-side, an Austrian duo of riders struggled more up the climbs and then had a somewhat gung-ho approach to the descents. On this particular descent, our timid triathlete had been overtaken by “The Kamakasi Kids” near the top of the climb. 
We found out later that one of them had even felt it necessary to admonish her about her hesitant downhill speeds, completely unnecessarily and apparently had done so in quite a derogatory way. Horrifically, in an act of Karma that meant Budha himself was in a seriously bad mood that day, we rounded one corner near the bottom of this most beautiful descent to see the aforementioned rider picking himself out of the rocky uphill cliff face. Luckily, he was able to walk, but, and I hesitate as I write this, look away now and skip to the next paragraph if you are squeamish…. He didn’t have a face! Or to be more accurate, most of his face was hanging off his skull as one large piece of skin, muscle and nose cartilage. I have genuinely never seen a cycling wound so horrific, and I’ve seen some good ones. It was a real relief to know that one of the motorbike marshals was already with him, and he had radioed for the medics/ambulance that followed us everyday and we were told were 2minutes away.
We cruised the rest of the descent and then soft-pedaled along the valley floor as a group of us counted all our lucky chamois crème laden favourite riding shorts that it hadn’t been us leaving the race in an ambulance. I have had my share of DNF’s through sickness or injury, and I was determined this wouldn’t be one of those.
The rest of that day passed relatively uneventfully, the most exciting part of it being the successful search for a can of coke with around 20km to go, a seriously fast flat section along the shores of lake Kaltern before the final steep, sharp ascent up to the town of Kaltern itself. That last climb really took its toll, and I finished the day really feeling like we had pushed ourselves hard, but a day that will live long in my memories on many different levels.
Chris’s arrival was slightly delayed as he fought his way over some alpine passes in his rental Fiat 500. He confirmed that the car was simultaneously the best little car to enjoy an Italian road trip in, and the absolute worst car for getting over mountains with it’s woefully under-powered eco-friendly 900cc power supply (I felt a certain kinship with it given my performances in the mountains this week!).
Tonight was also the night where my booking.com luck ran out on me. The hotel that I had booked looked great, and according to the website, it was only 1.1km from the finish line.
What the profile failed to mention though is that there was a 10km hairpin climb effectively back up the side of a mountain, on top of which this hotel was perched, bond-villain style by the ski-lift station, oops. An angel in a minibus came to our rescue as she was delivering a few other racers to their accommodation, and whilst we had so far avoided the need for any post stage transportation, this one was greatly appreciated as we weaved our way up the switchbacks with our bikes in the back so we could roll back down to the start the following morning.
It was so good to see Chris as he rolled into the carpark in haze of clutch-smoke and overheating engine. We shared the best meal of the week as 3 of the only 5 patrons in the hotel restaurant and sunk a few Radler while the chat of our separate but parallel adventures that day went on late into the evening.
Stage 7 – The final day. We woke to a slightly drizzly feel in our high-altitude hideaway. For the first time in the week we had actually needed our rain-jackets to make the descent back down to the start line in Kaltern. The descent was amazing, albeit I had forgotten that the start time was 9:30am and was rushing thinking we were going to be late. The first, neautralised part of the race was short and dropped back to the valley floor, after which it retraced the flat road of the day before for the first 20km. Mario and I were in our element and stayed with the fast group, even moving up when there were small rises.
Then we made the inevitable right turn onto the first full-sized climb of the day, the bunch disintegrated and we all settled into our own paces up the climb. This was when our one-man cheer squad really came into his own. Pulling up alongside me, I got a blast of one of my favourite songs through the car-stereo and some proper Director Sportive encouragement out of the drivers window, it was brilliant. Chris then proceeded to progress through the groups of riders on the road, taking requests for motivational hits before meeting us at the first feed station of the day at another ski-resort. From there, there were still come good climbs to go, but we generally stayed on a high level ridge, dropping s
lightly before climbing again, before one final push to the last timing mat of the week. There was a big layby and many riders congratulating each other for completion of the event, and it was just then left to lavish in the luxury of the final, neutralised, but still fast descent into Riva del Garda for the finish line proper.
Crossing the line was a truly bitter sweet experience, as we were both delighted that we had completed such an epic event, we hadn’t suffered a single puncture during the whole 7 stages and had had no other significant mechanicals or crashes. But we also knew that tomorrow was just one long series of drives and ferries back to the UK and we wouldn’t get to climb, or descend anotherepic Dolomite peak until such time as we manage to get back, and oh yes, we want to come back!
