Crossing the Alps by bike is an adventure that every healthy and fit cyclist can manage. But no children’s carnival either. The best thing to do is to join an organizer who knows how to skillfully silence your inner couch potato. A cycling self-experiment between Augsburg and Bolzano.
The dogs come in the middle of the night. From all directions. And with the crescendo of furious barking, the panic swells. Escape? Pointless! Playing dead? I don’t dare. So wait and pray. Then they are there. And I was wide awake in one fell swoop. The bedpost is harder than the forehead.
Just dreaming. Just like Nena. I am safe. In a warm hotel bed. In Bolzano. The disorientation after the nightmare instantly gives way to deep relaxation. Only a bump grows out of his forehead. No dogs far and wide. Three nineteen. All good. Even though the last few days have been some of the most intense of my life. My first crossing of the Alps is behind me. Countless kilometers, beautiful climbs, even more beautiful descents. Indescribable emotional cinema between euphoria and exertion. And I was finally able to silence my inner bastard.
But first things first! If you’re halfway through your life, like me, you do the math. What’s in the account counts. How many children have your surname. What went well and what went badly in life 1.0. And then all of a sudden it’s there: the desire to break out. Even if only for a limited time. Leaving everyday life behind for a week, setting off with only the bare essentials, discovering new horizons every day and enjoying “La Dolce Vita” in South Tyrol at the end, exhausted but happy — a wonderful idea. Cycling to Italy. That should be it! My personal declaration of independence on narrow tires.
If you want to cross the Alps by bike for the first time, it is better to entrust yourself to an organizer
But if you want to be free, you have to organize. Which is the best route? Where to stay overnight? What to take with you? Leave what at home? How do I manage not to end up in the forest at some point? How do I get from the finish back to the start? I’m just too phlegmatic (and overworked) to turn all those question marks into exclamation marks. And wants to. So I need help. An organizer who is familiar with such things. Like Feuer und Eis Touristik from Tegernsee. A few clicks on the internet and I’ve already got my top 3 in my sights: either from Munich to Venice or on a route called “Alpe Adria” from Salzburg to Grado or from Augsburg to Bolzano. I surfed around a bit on the homepage and it was as clear as day to me: I wanted to go from Augsburg to Bolzano, one of my favorite cities in South Tyrol. I want to cycle across the Alps on the “Via Claudia Augusta”, the original mother of all Transalps, so to speak. Over the Fernpass and Reschenpass, whose names have resonated since my childhood, when we drove from the Allgäu to the lake in a VW Beetle.
The key data sounds tempting: seven stages, a maximum of 500 meters in altitude every day — one day is all downhill! — as well as beautiful hotels in the stage towns of Landsberg, Schongau, Füssen, Imst, Reschenpass, Meran and Bozen. But the best thing of all: Feuer und Eis always has my back. In other words: I don’t need a rucksack or panniers, my evening wear is always chauffeured from hotel to hotel. And I follow the GPS track on my cell phone. Without annoying fellow cyclists. That’s exactly the freedom I’ve always been looking for!
Between excitement and relaxation: if you find the right balance, you will arrive safely by bike
The battery is empty. So not the one from the bike, because I ride a muscle bike. If it’s all right, then it’s all right. I’m flat, I can’t take any more. Could cry from exhaustion. In my euphoria of freedom and carefreeness, I made the typical beginner’s mistake: I drove far too fast. I stubbornly cranked the really big gears uphill, even though I could count the staccato of my heart racing in my carotid artery. Now I have a “hunger rest”: the body switches to idle gear out of self-protection and only lets you do the bare minimum. Dismounting, lying down, drinking, eating. My thigh vibrates like a bass speaker, almost making me laugh. How embarrassing. It’s just as well that, apart from my inner bastard, nobody is watching as I carefully get back on my bike after an hour’s pit stop in a meadow somewhere in the Paffenwinkel. Doesn’t my new watch have a heart rate function? I really must try these out tomorrow. Still sitting on the flower meadow, I vow never to ride above a pulse of 130 again.
But even middle-aged people recover at some point. And after lunch right by the Lech in Epfach, the spirits return with a hallelujah. The stage destination of Schongau is already within reach.
Wages for crossing the Alps? Memories that are etched in the mind for a lifetime
On a multi-day tour by bike, you are constantly learning: Early breakfast, early start, early arrival at the day’s destination, early in the wellness area. Also a learning experience: if you can whistle, you can cycle almost indefinitely. Because as long as the muscle motors are supplied with enough oxygen, they (almost) run themselves. Speaking of running: I’m glad I can cross the Alps by bike. And doesn’t have to hike. Once you reach the top of the pass, you hurtle down the valley with no effort at all (and no strain on your knees). By the third day — between Schongau and Füssen — a state called “flow” sets in. The balance between exertion and relaxation. When your body has calibrated itself exactly between over- and underload, it forgets time and space. And works almost as effectively as a perpetual motion machine. You just have to fill the top with fuel every few hours. And dispose of waste downstairs. Crossing the Alps is a kind of catharsis: if you crank over all the mountains under your own steam, you cleanse your body and mind of the garbage that has accumulated over the years.
New day, new touring luck! And with every kilometer to the south, with every pass I conquer, my self-confidence grows. And the joy of cranking towards the finish under your own steam. The stage from Füssen to Landeck? Easy! Except for the eyes, which don’t know where to look for all the culture and nature. The next day we cross the Reschen Pass. But I can be comfortably shuttled up there by Feuer und Eis Touristik. You don’t treat yourself to anything else. And then I’m already in my own promised land: South Tyrol. Through the Vinschgau Valley, the tires race almost constantly downhill to the palm trees in Meran.
And now it’s three nineteen. The dogs were just a bad dream. I managed to cycle from Augsburg to here in Bolzano under my own steam. What remains? Relief, pride, anticipation for the family, a first idea for next summer. And a bump on his forehead.