The Route

A 1500 km route with 30 km of altitude gain is hard to grasp so I will start by listing the main famous -- or rather, notorious -- geographical landmarks that featured in the race:

Reschenpass,
passo dello Stelvio, highest road pass in all of Italy,
passo del Mortirolo,
passo del Gavia,
passo del Tonale
Lake Garda,
passo Manghen,
passo Sella,
passo Pordoi,
passo Valparola,
passo Fedaia,
passo Giau,
passo Tre Croci,
Tre Cime di Lavaredo / Rifugio Auronzo,
Sella di Razzo / Sella di Rioda,
Zoncolan,
Nassfeldpass,
Grossglockner incl. Edelweissspitze,
Kitzbuehler Horn.

It reads like a list of “climbs done in a year”, or many years alright, but this was, in essence, the itinerary of the race. With a time cutoff of eight days. When I first saw the route my thought was “this is absolutely bonkers, I should totally sign up!” Which I did immediately after my bid for a spot on the Taunus Bikepacking race fell through – which for me was a perfect stroke of bad luck as it turns out.

The number of “official” climbs reads daunting but don't make the mistake to dismiss the connecting roads in between those climbs either. More often than not the fixed route course mandated the use of some shoddy small bike path winding over an endless series small hills all the while a perfectly fine, quiet country road was running near it, taunting us riders in our insanity.

A kind of unique feature of the MdBC as of this year is the concept of optional checkpoints. In a sort of gamification approach, the requirement to become a finisher was to visit at least two of the ten checkpoints; on top of completing the predefined route inside the time limit, of course. In the final ranking the number of checkpoints takes precedence over finishing time which is why some riders at the back of the general classification finished days ahead of the bottom of the top 21, the number of riders that collected all the checkpoints. The individual checkpoints are discussed in a dedicated post.

The Race

Prelude

Armed with a tracker from the registration on Friday I had one full night of sleep before venturing to the start line to be there at 5:11 am for the minute of silence for one contestant, Marco from Sweden, who could not ride among us because he was killed by a car driver. Two minutes later, exactly at dawn of the longest day of the year, the peloton made its way over essentially empty roads together towards Perlacher Forst for the depart reel to kick off the race.

Which is where it got rough immediately as the sadistic Mongols that inhabit the southern end of the road through the Forst decided to take it out on cyclists by covering the road in tacks. In a conversation with the race’s godfather Iñaki at the time, I suddenly noticed my front tire had punctured and just so managed to safely stop in a bunch of maybe a dozen riders without crashing. And just so about thirty riders – almost a third of the participants – stood at the side of the road fixing their tires. With just one tack I even got lucky as many picked up more, flatting both tires. In some cases even tubeless setups didn’t survive: one faster rider with a British accent when he caught me an hour later reported his bike picked up seven tacks, four in the front and three in the rear, and he put a tube in the rear tire after the sealant wouldn’t close those three holes. A big fuck-you goes to those carbrains of Oberhaching, backwards clowns that they are.

The first checkpoint and at the same time one of the most memorable stretches of the whole ride awaited us at the Eng Alm, a geographical glitch that is technically in Austria but only reachable on roads from Germany. It was also the only opportunity to see the whole front of the race which at this point had already stretched out over many kilometers, as the faster riders were rolling down the valley while I was climbing towards the checkpoint, and vice versa after I reached the alm. The pace was still quite fast this early in the first day so I didn’t feel like visiting the Kaiserhütte for their famed Kaiserschmarrn, about the only regret I have about that checkpoint.

After this “sneak preview” it wasn’t far to our crossing into Austria for real. Down in the Inn valley the summer sun of the longest day of the year was scorching our backs and I met fellow riders at every water fountain along the route.

The weather however wasn’t my main problem: during the day I had developed a creeping pain in my feet. My cycling shoes weren’t exactly new, I had put a couple hundred kilometers on them, but it would appear that one-day rides and overnighters aren’t the most solid base to extrapolate from to an ultra race. The source of the issue was that the cleats were fixed uncomfortably far to the tip of the foot which increases strain on the achilles sinew. Usually I would move the cleats very much to the rear as this lowers fatigue significantly. In the case of the shoes I started with this wasn’t possible however as they were road type shoes that I accidentally bought with SPD-SL; I had to use an adapter to make them compatible with the regular SPD system I have on all the bikes, and this misdesigned adapter unfortunately does not allow adjusting the cleats. Not the kind of thing you want to find out during the first day of an ultra! For the time being I managed but I was visiting multiple bike shops along the route – the ones that were still open on a Saturday but none of them stocked any shoes in my size. After 5 pm, closing time for most shops in Austria, I accepted I would have to endure the pain until Monday and focused instead on alleviating the pain as much as possible.

Having just entered Austria I spend the remainder of the day getting out of it again as fast as possible. It was still mostly flat in the Inn valley until we reached Switzerland – I was still lucid enough to put the phone on airplane mode to avoid excessive roaming costs – before entering Austria again at the base of the Reschenpass. The climb up to Nauders was steeper and longer than anything so far, an early test of the legs, but pales compared to most of the named climbs that lay in front of us. The weather had gotten much worse in the afternoon so I hid from the rain in a pizzeria in Nauders before venturing forth into Vinschgau.

Italy

The rain had stopped when I finally rolled over the pass summit, greeted by a bright reflecting EU road sign indicating the Italian border. The descent to Prato was annoying: a narrow bike path winding along around the lake and forests with sudden sharp turns, numerous road crossings and frequently a sketchy surface. Not a downhill to enjoy, especially in the night when large rodents (nutrias?) were having orgies on the asfalt.

After almost 20 straight hours on the bike I was tired when I entered Prato around midnight and decided it was time to rest. I found a nice place to sleep in a beer tent in the middle of town and even built myself a luxury bed from two of the benches that were stacked there. When I woke four hours later I accidentally triggered some alarm system; it stopped after a few seconds so I thought nothing of it and continued packing. Then a few minutes later when I was almost ready to get on the bike a car stopped next to me. Out stepped a woman in her thirties and inquired if it was me who triggered the alarm. Apparently there have been a lot of thefts in the area lately so they secured their beer tent with the alarm system. I apologized a hundred times for waking her at four in the morning on a Sunday but she seemed cool with my having a nap there. Soon after she left I went on my way to start the race proper.

Stelvio time! After a 330 km warmup the action finally started. To get us into the spirit of the race we climbed up to the highest point which I reached more than three hours later around 8:30 am, already passed by a few other riders who are better at that vertical direction. At the top I met Joshua, an ultra rookie, who was still fresh and exuded a good mood; we went into the descent at the same time and met in Bormio for some very basic breakfast – only toast was available at 9 in the morning. Joshua scratched two days later in Trento for unknown reason; I wonder what happened.

The Mortirolo was next on the route and boy was it a rubbish climb: steep as hell, hot, shoddy road surface, and it appears to lie on some motorbike racetrack. No stunning views as a reward, no downhill to enjoy. Just pure brutal climbing. And the worst part is that it doesn’t end after the pass marker. You think you’re done and prepare to let gravity take over. Instead a long, windy road whose surface has more potholes than tarmac follows the ridge of that mountain west on an endless series of short climbs and descents. I was running out of water too. During the climb there was a fountain at every other hairpin turn so I assumed the same would be the case on the downhill. I assumed wrong. There’s not a single opportunity to refill the bottles after that fake pass marker. Half dried out I rolled almost all the way to Edolo before I found water.

After an unnecessarily arduous road to Ponte di Legno – no sane person would choose that bike path over the easy road down in the valley – it was already late afternoon when I hit the Gavia. Expecting it to be more like the Stelvio I was taken by surprise by the steep parts. The second checkpoint was located at the summit so it was technically optional, having climbed up to the steep bits I was already way too invested into the climb to stop. Tough luck. When I reached the summit at 22:00 h it was already dark and rather cold and windy, and the place was completely deserted. The descent was demanding. I had spotted a bunch of deer on my way up so I rode extra careful to avoid crashing into one of them. Due to the low physical intensity combined with critically elevated attention I felt completely exhausted back in Ponte di Legno and looked around for a place to rest and recover.

After a restful night on my sleeping pad took on the passo Tonale in the morning. Compared to the brutal slopes of the Gavia this climb was almost soft pedaling which is the maximum I could take after forcing my legs which were already hurting to climb 6000+ m of elevation the day before. Enjoying the first sunrays on the summit I dove into the long downhill to the Adige. Now I caught up on the spectacular views that I missed out on the Gavia. The Lago di Garda loop contains checkpoints three and four on the route but was technically optional. However as a Munich resident I felt a visit to the lake was compulsory.

The loop looks rather flat on paper but the brutally steep climb up to Passo Camponzin followed by strong headwinds make it surprisingly hard to even get to the lake. Like many other riders I stood no chance climbing the steeper parts of the Camponzin with gradients exceeding 17 % on the bike. That’s where I made a grave, almost race-ending mistake: As I was still in road shoes I decided to walk it up barefoot. When I finished the outrageously hard bit I realized the rough road surface had left my feet in even worse state than they were already in; during the remaining kilometers to the lake I could almost feel the blisters forming on my forefoot. Not great

Thankfully it was a Monday afternoon and the dozens of bike shops on the northern shores of Lago di Garda were open. I went to checkpoint 2 which was located directly at the lake and then had a “New Shoes Day” in Torbole, ditching my baleful footwar for a shiny new pair of MTB shoes in anticipating of at least one more extended hike up the Zoncolan. I immediately noticed the difference on my way out the Garda valley via Passo San Giovanni. It was night and day, with the cleats as far back as possible both the forefeet and the hamstrings were relieved of the straining pressure. Two and a half days into the race and I could finally ride normally! Passo San Giovanni was also the southernmost point of the route. From here on we would now head mostly east for a while.

The flat section around Trento flew by and after some shopping in town I continued on towards the Valsugana. Around Lake Caldonazzo it was getting late so I went to check out the campsites on its eastern slopes hoping to recharge my stuff and maybe get a shower. I already got a strange feeling when most campsites were hidden behind tall walls with massive doors, except for one which had only a fence but a normal looking entrance with a boom. Naturally reception was closed already but as usual I intented to pay for the night in the morning. Not with that campsite though: I got only a few meters in when I was intercepted by an agitated guy of about fifty years of age. He was Italian in flawless English with a British accent he informed me that he was in charge of security of that campsite and I had to leave. My offer to pay in the morning was refused with some wild BS about insurance; he escorted me to the entrance and told me to wild camp at the lake. What the hell‽ In many years of camping all over Europe I’ve never come across a place where paying in the morning wasn’t an option. Besides, what campsite has a security guard? Most likely I dodged a huge bullet there … Completely baffled and slightly amused I left and had a wonderful night with a view of the stars on a bench at a resting place instead.

The last challenge before the Dolomites was Passo Manghen which I took on together with a bunch of riders who all arrived in Borgo Valsugana in the morning hours. Neither the longest, tallest or steepest climb, the Manghen wasn’t on my radar before the Monaco di Baviera Classic, but to my surprise I was enjoying it a lot, easily among my top ten favorite climbs ever. Incidentally it was quite busy as well that day as a Dutch cancer charity held a cycling event on the route; the good people even had beer tents on the summit serving beverages to participants but I got a refill from them despite being an outsider. While I was slowly crawling up the small, winding road that lead up to the summit I had a long, engaging conversation with a Swedish guy on a very light setup who kept dropping me only for me to catch him minutes later while he was taking a break at the roadside. Climbing seems to be a highly individual effort, everyone finds their own style: where I prefer going slow over stopping, others love riding at a higher intensity with plenty of short breaks.

Dolomites

With the Manghen behind us we were finally off to the Dolomiti! For me this meant two days of non-stop natural beauty paired with leg-crushing mountains. Exactly what I signed up for! The route had us enjoy very different faces of the Dolomites: barren peaks, lush pine forests, hairpin turns and tunnels, but also scorching summer sun and 37 degrees heat in the afternoon hours.

Checkpoint no. 5, located on the Passo Sella, we almost got for free as due to a short term closure of the Passo Gardena the race was re-routed over the Pordoi so we had already done most of the elevation anyways. I’ve wanted to do the famous “Sella Ronda” ever since I spotted the road on a map so with this checkpoint I came as close to that goal as possible under the circumstances. The Sella stuck in my memories mainly for the heavy traffic involving an endless stream of Porsches and other trashy luxury cars, but also due to a close call with a lorry going in the opposite direction. In one of the curves that reckless driver almost wiped out me and two cyclists from the US that were about to pass me. The panorama on the Sella however almost made me forget about the incident. The heat got rather nasty in the afternoon and I noticed I had slowed down significantly.

It got slightly better on the Passo Pordoi but the less spectacular climb felt more of a chore; already at the bottom I booked an outrageously expensive hotel room on the route to balance out the low. The hotel had a restaurant so the plan was to grab two pizzas, eat one on the spot and leave one in the room, then get on the bike again to conquer the Valparola before returning to sleep. A good plan, with a major flaw: The first thing I was told at check-in was that I happened to arrive on the one day of the week when the restaurant was closed! Just my luck. With no food left my only remaining option was to backtrack a few kilometers to the closest pizzeria and go to bed early. At 4 a. m. I jumped out to climb the Passo Valparola to reach checkpoint six before sunrise which in retrospect made up for my trouble with that hotel as it was by far the most memorable and scenic climb of the entire race. At 7:30 I was back at the hotel, just in time for breakfast. Four boiled eggs later I went downhill to tackle the next checkpoint.

Passo Fedaia on the Marmolada massif is a tough one to reach, and compared to most other famous climbs in the Dolomites it doesn’t offer much in terms of sightseeing. Just endless gradients that get brutally steep near the end, and another unspectactular water reservoir at the summit. Which I reached around noon, baked by the scorching fusion fire of the sun which kept burning relentlessly for the fifth day in a row. Next on the itinerary was Passo Giau, part of the basic route. Difficulty wise it felt like one step up from the Fedaia even, as despite not quite as insane gradients the climb felt steeper on average overall. Near the rifugio at the top I met Benno, a rider from Bavaria, who was visibly suffering to the point that he had to get off the bike so he wouldn’t faint. I seemed to tolerate these temperatures much better than many others, I thought, cause while I wasn’t exactly feeling great climbing for hours on end in 36 degrees heat, it never got so bad that I had to stop riding. From the Giau it was a long, smooth downhill into Cortina, a main resupply point in the region. At a supermarket I re-encountered Joost, a rider from Belgium whom I would meet off and on during the remaining days. The smart man told me he had just bought a pair of sandals for the Zoncolan.

Over the Passo Tre Croci I left the valley and continued to Lago di Misurina for the final challenge of that day: the third checkpoint of the day, checkpoint number eight total, the dreaded climb up to the Rifugio Auronzo on the Tre Cime di Lavaredo. Unfortunately it hadn’t gotten any less steep since the last time I rode it, in fact with Valparola, Fedaia and Giau in the legs it was the first time on that mountain that I had to get off the bike and hike. Fun times. Eventually I reached the viewpoint at the rifugio and to my surprise the quiet view was disturbed by a large sculpture of a dinosaur. Disappointed to learn that swimming in the Lago di Misurina is strictly prohibited I booked a room for the night in stunning Auronzo, one of the places I had looked forward to revisiting most. The pizzeria opposite the hotel had me waiting for ages before I got to even order food, all the while I had some difficulty sitting upright without falling asleep on my seat.

Carnia

On day 6 I headed into Carnia where the main obstacle of the day (and possibly the race) awaited me: Monte Zoncolan. There was some confusion over how we had to get there as part of the route was closed two days into the race on account of a construction site. An alternative route from the Sella di Razzo pass through the stunning Sauris valley was communicated to us via email but not everyone got the memo, and even so it wasn’t obvious where the detour would start and that it added more than 60 km to the route. Multiple riders received a penalty for following the original track after the closure was announced. In any case I’m glad I took the detour as that valley was among the best experiences of the entire race. Except for the tunnels. Tunnels with cobbles and massive potholes; lots of them (both tunnels and potholes). On the approach to Sauris I crossed paths with another rider, Jens, who took on the descent like a skydiver only to puncture in one of the potholes. Later that day Jens would scratch after the Zoncolan which he walked up barefoot.

Finally I reached Ovaro, gate to the mystical realm of cycling legend. Zoncolan was looming over me, an atavistic repulsive force flowing down from its ramps, interfering with my every attempt at making vertical progress. It took me less than a kilometer to give up on the thought of riding the bike up. Which I was ready for thanks to my new shoes. In one of the lower corners Jens who had fixed his puncture sped past me barefoot with surprising motivation. Having made that mistake at Lake Garda I warned him about what walking without shoes did to my feet, but he wouldn’t listen. I guess the prospect of a 10 km hike in road bike shoes wasn’t that great either so he went with what probably didn’t feel too bad in the first couple kilometers. Poor guy; I felt bad when I read he had to scratch.

With its ten kilometers on a 15 % average gradient, Zoncolan is no joke. However, the view from up there could be considered one as it is ridiculously unrewarding. The climb itself already didn’t offer much in terms of noteworthy sights, but the view from up there is outright disappointing. The Zoncolan keeps getting compared to El Angliru, but having done both the latter is my clear favorite which I wouldn’t hesitate to ride up again for the superb view which I enjoyed despite thick clouds shrouding the top. Zoncolan has nothing of the sort, it’s little more than a shattering climb surrounded by a lot of empty hype. Need I mention the descent sucks as well as my brakes started to fade in the hairpin turns? 3/10 won’t climb again.

From Zoncolan it was a long flat section to Pontebba which integrated parts of the Alpe Adria route. Some fun tunnels down there, I had a great time pushing forward in TT mode. In Pontebba I stumbled on a bunch of riders that had stopped for some coffee and cake before leaving the country. I was joined by Joost for the lower kilometers of the climb to Nassfeldpass before he took off – him being way better at this climbing thing than me! – and I was alone again, slowly grinding up the last meters of Italian soil.

Austria

Nassfeldpass lived up to the name. While I was descending the Austrian side, the skies opened and I found myself in a sudden hailstorm followed by torrential rain. Luckily I found shelter just in time, a small shed by the road with a short roof that extended outside just enough to cover me standing against the wall. Better than nothing, I suppose. Half an hour later the rain and wind got less intense and I hurried on my way again I got too hypothermic.

In line with the forecast the weather stayed atrocious in Austria. Still not too tired I rode into the night for a while but called it a day near Mauthen after an awful gravel section that was interleaved with a narrow cycle path along the Gail river. In the dark I was going much slower than I normally would due because of the risk of rodents, foxes and other critters crossing the road in a bad moment. The forced lower intensity riding meant that I never really warmed up after the initial bout of rain; a couple hours in the sleeping bag under a dry roof of some industrial storage building were exactly what I needed.

The Großglockner dominated the next day, but to even get there we had to make it over the excruciatingly steep ramps of the Iselsbergpass first. Another on and off hike-a-bike for me. The Glockner itself is entirely ridable but the experience suffers from the surreal number of luxury cars on the road. No wonder, the whole point of the road’s construction was to accelate car sales, and that history still shows almost a century later. On the plateau I picked up checkpoint nine at the Edelweißspitze, a short detour over cobbles to a useless peak that is more of a glorified parking lot.

With the carrot of the final checkpoint dangling in front of me I took on the underwhelming cycle route through the Pinzgau valley which ended in a steep gravel climb up to Pass Thurn. I reached Kitzbühel in the early evening hours and started the climb up to the Kitzbüheler Horn at around sunset. To save weight I hid some of the kit that I wouldn’t need up there behind a small wooden barn at the bottom of the climb. That made a small difference but ultimately gravity put up a fierce fight anyways: While the 15 % slopes on the lower part up until the Alpenhaus are somewhat manageable, beyond that the road is utterly brutal with gradients north of 17 % for two kilometers. Another hike-a-bike for me, in both directions. While I was busy ascending, thick fog that had formed up there so I literally climbed into the clouds! Unfortunately visibility dropped to less than five meters even with the head torch on max setting. Not only did the fog ruin my chances at getting a worthy summit photo, it also exacerbated the crash risk on the downhill as the fenced-off peak area was inhabited by dozens of wandering cows that seem to love chilling on the tarmacked road when it rains. Back down near the toll station I met another Monaco di Baviera Classic rider, Simeon, who had just started the climb. My tales from the Horn didn’t faze him and he went up there anyways in the middle of the night. As it should be!

That was it, the Grand Finale. All that was left was getting home, but I was too exhausted to continue right away so I layed down on the town square of Oberndorf for a couple hours until I woke to the sound of the freewheel of another another rider, Svenja. I took it slow that morning and had an extensive breakfast at the Inn bridge in Kufstein before I finally rolled home.

Stats

For a one-week event, the Monaco di Baviera Classic is full of superlatives. With 10/10 checkpoints collected, it amounted to 1607 km of distance including the mandatory detour through Sauris. Over that distance I climbed 29600 meters, almost twice as much as the Bright Midnight last year, which is an average overall gradient of 1.8 percent (BM: 1.5 %). When I started I didn’t expect to make all the checkpoints so I arrived about two days too late after 7 days, 7 hours and 14 min (175 total hours) with 27 % stopped time overall (1 d 23 h, i. e. about 6 hours per day). In time, distance and elevation gain it was the biggest single ride I’ve ever done, and thanks to the full checkpoint score also the best placing in a race race that I completed: I finished 20th place of 77 participants in the solo classification.

Outlook

Iñaki has big plans. Instead of just one race, he expanded the concept beyond Munich to four events in 2026, all of which look tempting. Also next year’s design weighs the checkpoints by assigning different amounts of “explorer points”. That is quite an improvement compared to the fixed rate of one point per checkpoint visited which made the Gavia about equivalent to the puny Edelweißspitze.