Livigno – Bormio
Beauty and the beast, heaven and hell, call it what you want. The abysmal cursing about "crappy ramps!" and the sky-high cheering about "amazing trails!" have probably never been so close. This is an awesome piece of Transalp that makes the mathematicians fall silent. 2200 metres in altitude and 65 kilometres, anyone who thinks they can calculate their average in advance will be proven wrong. Today, it's not theorists who are needed, but practitioners, not thinkers, but workers. But the best thing about it: with every metre you climb, you've earned yourself two metres of riding fun. Right after the start, the big sprocket has to be used when the trail uncompromisingly pursues its goal of using little earth in order to tickle out maximum height gain. This way, however, the first panoramic level of the Carosello 3000 can be reached without diversions, over which the "Hairy Cattle" enables the cool connection to the "Rollercoaster", a fun track that lives up to its name in many curves from the Costaccia restaurant down to Livigno. Past Lago di Livigno, the path into Val Torto awaits again, like the day before, but today the other way round. The ascent to Passo Foscagno starts in Trepalle. It doesn't look that steep in the altitude profile, but it is interspersed with "micro-ramps" that repeatedly rise steeply for just a few metres, especially on the trail up to the pass, which incidentally is celebrating its Transalp premiere. And again the reward follows immediately. The trail descent from Passo Foscagno to the forest road "Decauville" is at its best and even crowned with an unobstructed mountain view at the top. Now the legs finally get a little rest on the seven or so flat kilometres over Arnoga into Val Viola. This was a short intermezzo on the route of the BIKE Transalp 2021, which then continued to the Passo di Verva. This time we turn left and again enter new territory on the route of the Alta Valtellina Bike Marathon to Bormio. At the end, there are still around 1000 metres of altitude difference in "cross country style", which contain everything that biking is about. This is an up and down interspersed with trails in the great landscape at the foot of the Cima Piazzi, which shows everyone up here, its almost 3500 metre high, cold back. It is worth suffering for this epic adventure. Also because after the work is done, when the ramps are destroyed, a racy trail descent from Forte di Oga to the gates of Bormio pulls the corners of your mouth back up. And, as we all know, we settle the score at the end.
