CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 54 km one-way ride from near Sölden, about 50 min of riding. It goes by way of Timmelsjoch and Pass Museum. The highest point is about 2,450 m. Timmelsjoch is subject to seasonal closure - check it is open before you set off. It crosses from Austria into Italy - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
The ride follows Timmelsjoch High Alpine Road for 21 km.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
For 35 km this is Timmelsjoch High Alpine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Sölden lies at about thirteen hundred metres in the Ötztal, a long Tyrolean valley that runs south from the Inn into the high, glaciated mountains on the Italian border. In winter it is one of Austria's big ski resorts, and in summer it is a base for hikers, cyclists and riders heading for the Timmelsjoch. The village is a bit loud and a bit brash, with large hotels and plenty of apres-ski, but the setting is genuinely impressive, with peaks above three thousand metres on all sides and a river running clear and fast below.
Read the complete Near Sölden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Solden is where the day begins. Next is Timmelsjoch.
Timmelsjoch, at 2,474 metres, is a border pass between Austria and Italy, linking the Ötztal valley with the Passeier valley, and it is one of the great high Alpine roads. The Italians call it Passo del Rombo. It opened in 1968 as a toll road, built partly to connect the two sides of the old Tyrol, which had been divided after the First World War, and it remains a toll road today, with a charge for motorbikes collected on the Austrian side.
Read the complete Timmelsjoch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Timmelsjoch comes up 19 km in. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Pass Museum, mostly downhill.
The Timmelsjoch is one of the great high roads of the Alps, linking Sölden in Austria with the Passeier valley in South Tyrol, Italy, and the museum at the top tells the story of how it came to be. At 2,474 metres, the pass crosses the border in a high, bare landscape of rock and scree, with a few small lakes and the occasional patch of snow in summer. The road was built in stages in the middle of the twentieth century, to link two valleys that had been separated by the mountains for centuries, and its construction was a major effort, with workers battling the weather and steep terrain.
Read the complete Pass Museum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
38 km in you reach Pass Museum. Next is St Leonhard in Passeier.
St Leonhard in Passeier lies in the Passeier valley of South Tyrol, where the river Passer tumbles down from the high Alps toward Merano through a corridor of apple orchards, steep meadows and farms that cling to terraces. The village is small and wooden-balconied, with a church tower and a handful of inns, and the people speak German with a Tyrolean twang, though the signs are Italian as well, as it is San Leonardo in Passiria on the map. The valley belongs to Italy, but its heart is Tyrolean, a fact that locals do not forget.
Read the complete St Leonhard in Passeier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
St Leonhard in Passeier closes the day.
Solden → Timmelsjoch is 21 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
Pass Museum → St Leonhard in Passeier is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.