Grossglockner Overnight Gateway

A 349 km loop

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Why this ride

A rider’s loop: clean exit, memorable middle, calm return. Out of Alland and back again: 349 km, roughly 7 h 15 in the saddle. The stops in between: Purkersdorf, Scenic stretch near Ernstbrunn and in Asparn an der Zaya. The climb of the day is near Kaumberg.

Roadbook

1. Fuel stop in Alland fuel

   Fuel at 0 km.

2. High point near Kaumberg pass

   You top out here; the road stops climbing.

3. Purkersdorf finish

   Purkersdorf sits at the eastern edge of the Wienerwald, where the Vienna Woods roll down into the city, and it is the last stop before the motorway delivers you back to Vienna. The town follows the narrow valley of the Wien river, and the hills around are covered with beech forest, meadows and small villages, a landscape of gentle curves and green shade.

   The town has one great building. The Sanatorium Purkersdorf, designed by Josef Hoffmann in 1904, was one of the first buildings of modern architecture, a white, cubic structure with geometric details that broke with the ornament of the past. It was a key work of the Wiener Werkstätte, and it still stands, restored, on the edge of town.

   For riders, the Wienerwald offers some of the best roads near Vienna. The Riederberg, on the B1 between Gablitz and Sieghartskirchen, is a long, winding climb through forest, popular with bikers on weekends. Small roads lead to Mauerbach, with its old Carthusian monastery, and over the hills to the Danube. Surfaces are generally good, but watch for cyclists, wildlife and police checks.

   The forests are home to deer, boar and a rich variety of birds, and in autumn the beech woods turn gold and copper. The Wienerwald is a UNESCO biosphere reserve, protecting a landscape that has inspired Viennese composers and painters for centuries.

   Before the city takes you back, look for a green bush or a wreath hung over a doorway: in this part of Austria it means a Heuriger is open, serving the producer's own young wine with bread, cold meats and cheese. One small glass, a long plate, and the last kilometres into Vienna feel shorter.

4. Scenic stretch near Ernstbrunn scenic

   Scenic stretch near Ernstbrunn, about halfway.

5. Photo stop in Asparn an der Zaya photo

   Asparn an der Zaya is the kind of Weinviertel village you could ride through in forty seconds and never suspect it holds one of Austria's best windows onto the deep past. The old castle in the middle of the village houses MAMUZ, the museum of prehistory for Lower Austria, and behind it an open-air area of reconstructed houses from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. If you have ever wondered who lived on these loess hills before the vineyards, this is where to find out.

   The landscape is quietly beautiful rather than dramatic. The Zaya is a small river winding east through a wide, gentle valley, and around it the Weinviertel rolls away in long waves of vines, sunflowers and wheat. Cellar lanes, the Kellergassen, cut into the hillsides on the edge of many villages: rows of little pressing houses with doors set into the loess, where wine was made and stored for centuries. On a warm evening the light goes golden over the fields and the whole region seems to slow down.

   For riding, think open, flowing back roads rather than hairpins. The lanes between Mistelbach, Asparn and the villages north towards the Czech border are lightly trafficked, mostly decent tarmac, with crests and long bends that let you settle into a rhythm. Watch for farm machinery in harvest season and for gravel carried onto corners from field tracks. Wind can be a factor here; this is open country with little shelter.

   As a start and finish, it works well. Mistelbach is only a few minutes away and is the local market town, with fuel, shops and places to eat. Vienna is roughly an hour south, which makes Asparn a calm place to begin or end a longer day towards the Alps, away from the city's traffic. If the museum is open when you pass, give it an hour; otherwise a slow lap of the village and a look at the castle walls is a fine way to bookend the ride.

6. Near Pama, on the way back swim

   Wind is the first thing you notice here, and the last. This stop lies on the Parndorf plateau in the far north-east of Burgenland, close to the point where Austria, Slovakia and Hungary meet, and the land is flat, open and swept by a near-constant wind that turns hundreds of turbines on the horizon. On a bike it pushes you around, especially on the open roads between villages, so expect to ride with a lean even on the straights.

   Pama and Deutsch Jahrndorf are quiet villages of long, low farmhouses with gates opening onto courtyards, a style typical of the Pannonian plain. Deutsch Jahrndorf sits near the tripoint of the three countries, where a small monument marks the spot, and for decades this was the edge of the Iron Curtain, with watchtowers and barbed wire. Today you can walk from Austria to Slovakia to Hungary in a few minutes.

   Bratislava is only fourteen kilometres away, its castle visible on a clear day. The Danube floodplain to the north is a national park, a wild world of side channels, gravel banks and riverine forest.

   For a swim, the nearest big water is the Neusiedler See, to the south-west, a shallow steppe lake surrounded by reeds, with bathing areas and beaches at several villages. The water is warm in summer, shallow enough to stand far from shore, and brownish from the fine sediment. It is famous for sailing and kitesurfing, thanks to the same wind that pushes you around on the plateau.

   The roads are flat and straight, and the surface is generally good. Watch for farm vehicles and cyclists, and for gusts at junctions and gaps in hedges. The villages have little in the way of shops; fuel and supplies are best found in Parndorf, Kittsee or across the border in Bratislava.

7. Food stop near Podersdorf am See food

   A break here at 299 km.

8. Back to Grossglockner finish

   The dot lies in the Vienna Woods, the low forested hills just southwest of the capital, near Alland and Heiligenkreuz. It marks the return from the Grossglockner High Alpine Road and the Wachau, a very long way east of the big mountain, and it is the kind of place where the day's adrenaline quietly drains out and the road turns to oak and beech.

   Heiligenkreuz is the reason to slow down. The Cistercian abbey here was founded in 1133, and its monks have lived there ever since, which makes it the oldest continuously inhabited Cistercian monastery in the world. The Romanesque and Gothic buildings are impressive, and the monks, who have sung Gregorian chant in recent times to a surprising global audience, run guided tours. Nearby is Mayerling, where Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria died in 1889 in the hunting lodge that was later turned into a Carmelite convent, a mystery that still fascinates Vienna.

   The riding is gentle and pleasant. The Helenental road, with its tight curves along a stream and shaded by beech, is a classic local favourite and can be busy at the weekend with motorcycles, cars and cyclists. The Wienerwald is a UNESCO biosphere reserve, so the forest is thick with old trees, and the roads wind from valley to ridge past inns and wine villages. Surfaces are mostly good, although leaf litter and damp are a hazard in autumn, and fog can sit in the valleys.

   If you have come from the Grossglockner, remember how different the two roads are. The high alpine road rises to about 2,500 metres at the Hochtor, charges a toll, and is closed in winter. This is a lower, softer landscape, where the mountains give way to the Danube plain just beyond.

   Fuel is found in Alland, Baden and the towns around, and the area is full of Heuriger, the wine taverns where the year's wine is served with cold cuts and bread. A glass of white and a plate of Brettljause in a garden under the trees is a very civilised end to a long ride.

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