Extreme winter training: 60,000 metres of altitude to start the racing bike season

"Willie" is a minor celebrity on Strava. This is thanks to his entertaining posts and impressive rides. In the first three months of his winter training, the locksmith covered 100,000 metres in altitude on his road bike.

It's amazing that an amateur athlete has over 2100 subscribers on Strava - but the Strava account "Willie Donovan" is more than just a training diary with extreme tours, beautiful photos and entertaining texts. An entry from 16 February already lists all the elements that make his profile special: Willie Donovan Bothe (30) posted the road bike ride "Tyrolean Dead Ends #6 Ötztal Sledgehammer" on that day. With 5202 metres of elevation gain spread over 215 kilometres, the translated title "Sledgehammer" is no exaggeration.

The journey is also special because he has deliberately built three dead ends into the route. And finally, in addition to the pure information, he also offers a very entertaining text: When you read about how he "gsoffn ausn Bach gsoffn" due to the lack of a fountain and then "balled down like a bleder", you can vividly imagine the ride. The impressive vertical metres and kilometres give an idea of what he achieved and impress the community: there are over 530 kudos and around 40 comments on the amazing ride. The locksmith from Axams loves riding uphill and routes with a lot of altitude metres motivate him more than flat ones: "When I ride up the mountain, it's a credit, so to speak, and I can ride everything back down again." With a body weight of 62 kilograms and a height of 1.72 metres, he is also ideally equipped for climbing tours.

Local mountains instead of Mallorca

The fact that Willie already has the legs for a tour with 5,000 metres of elevation gain in February is due to both the mild winter and his huge enthusiasm for training. In the first six weeks of the year, he has already covered 60,000 metres of altitude on his road bike without flying south for a training camp: "I was still on holiday and thought I'd really get stuck in now in Tyrol. For me, the question is not whether I'm going to ride or not, but what I'm going to wear and where I'm going."

In the winter sports city of Innsbruck, Willie is an exotic extreme winter cyclist. While half of Tyrol loads their skis into the car, Willie rolls his racing bike out the door. This probably has something to do with his German roots: he only came to Tyrol 20 years ago and the ski touring virus never caught him. Instead, Willie enjoys the winter from a cycling perspective: "When I ride up the Kühtai and I see the astonished looks on the faces of car drivers or when I see the astonished looks at the bus stop at six in the morning on my commute, it's just awesome."

Because he doesn't have a car and the shortest route to work is over 300 metres in altitude, his bike commute also adds up: "Sport and cycling are simply a great love for me. And when I can do my commute to work with love, so to speak, then I just love it. It's just a great feeling when you have 15 kilometres on the clock in the morning and arrive at work fresh." And he is also safety-conscious: the neon yellow jacket in combination with neon yellow overshoes and gloves are Willie's trademark.

Winter training without skis

With his many kilometres of road cycling in winter, he is an exotic figure among his friends from Innsbruck - but he is keen to promote year-round cycling: "The roads in winter are super rideable. I try to show people that it's not so bad. I just put on a jacket and good gloves and then it's fun."

Given his intensive training, it's surprising that Willie doesn't race. "I'm often asked if I'm going to ride the Ötztaler Cycle Marathon. But I'm not aiming for any kind of time at the Ötztaler, I'd rather go in the direction of ultracycling." However, he doesn't have any concrete plans yet - his racing bike life is characterised by spontaneity. He often doesn't even know the evening before which route he wants to take tomorrow. New ideas also emerge in dialogue with his Strava followers. They suggest new, worthwhile dead ends in Tyrol's mountains, for example, which he then follows. He in turn advertises a challenge on Strava that was invented by a friend: the Innsbruck Höllinge Challenge. This is a Strava mountain time trial that connects nine of Innsbruck's steepest climbs. Including the Höttinger Höll, which cycling fans will remember from the 2018 World Cycling Championships.

200,000 metres of altitude in the last year

Even though Willie collected almost 200,000 metres of altitude in 2023, he has no chance of winning the challenge: "My rides are mostly characterised by basic endurance." However, after his winter training, no one can fool him when it comes to cycling in adverse conditions: "I would ride the Ötzi if I knew it was in Kühtai snows. Because only then would it become clear who has the necessary head."

But because this is just a mental game, he is looking forward to beautiful tours in Tyrol that have one thing in common: a lot of altitude metres. In the first three months of the year, he has already covered 100,000 metres in altitude. Blood has also been shed - not from a fall, but from a dog attack on a ride. As soon as the wound has healed, the next "dead ends" in Tyrol will be conquered - he won't be running out of ideas any time soon.