This title! "Through the Alps on a racing bike". And this subtitle! "Over the highest passes from Vienna to Nice". Rudolf Geser's book keeps me awake for weeks. I spend long evenings poring over Geser's standard work, thinking: What if? How many weeks do I need? Can I do it? Do I want to? To put an end to this state of affairs, I stand by the Ferris wheel in the Vienna Prater at the beginning of June. This fits in with the Ferris wheel tour I have planned: Later, on the way, friends will accompany me. Hot Vienna is so low that the thought of the snow-strewn Alps seems exotic. But after the first hour I'm already heading into the hills, and after the third I'm struggling with the ten per cent ramps of the foothills of the Alps. They are not yet a thousand metres high, but they challenge me incessantly. I'm so tired that I should sleep for ten hours, but at five o'clock in the morning I'm woken by pious chants in the pilgrimage town of Mariazell and I have to keep going.
In the evening, in a Styrian inn, I soon strike up a conversation with the locals after dinner. They ask me to sit at the bar. Wolfram and Franz in fire brigade uniforms join me. They have seen my racing bike outside and ask about my travel plans. The word "Marseille" triggers hilarity and then things get lively. Fire chief Wolfram gives one out. "To Marseille!" he shouts.
You can download the entire article as a PDF and these tours as GPS data below:
- Section 1: Kick-off in Austria
Vienna-Bruck am Großglockner
434 kilometres, 4,700 metres in altitude, 10 passes
- Section 2: Hohe Tauern and Dolomites
Bruck am Großglockner-Bormio
457 kilometres, 11,100 metres in altitude, 9 passes
- Section 3: Swiss climbs
Bormio-Gstaad
451 kilometres, 10,900 metres in altitude, 10 passes
- Section 4: The classics of the Tour de France
Gstaad-Briançon
426 kilometres, 9,100 metres in altitude, 9 passes
- Section 5: Provençal finale
Briançon-Marseille
414 kilometres, 7,100 metres in altitude, 5 passes
GPS DATA: TOUR offers the tour data for free download. You can download the tracks in GPX format directly onto a GPS device or view them on your computer in Google Earth or Google Maps.
