7 Day Bikepacking Tirol/Alps

A beautiful, hard, and rewarding 7-day mountain bike route through the Alps. The route starts at the train station of Bad-Grönenbach in Germany, 50km from the Austrian border. It mainly leads through Austria, a small part of Italy and returns to Innsbruck, Austria. The nice part of starting in southern Germany is that you gradually enter the Alps, first the Northern Limestone Alps, next the impressive border between Austria and Italy with its +3000m peaks.The gravel roads and hiking paths were surprisingly well suited for our gravel bikes. There were some hike-a-bike sections though, especially climbing the Krimmler-Tauern Pass (which is a combined hiking and mountain bike trail). The views are so rewarding it is worth every effort!To avoid busy roads (and to add some fun) we took a cable car and a train at the following sections:
- Rosenalmbahn in Zell am Ziller. The cable car takes you up the mountain from which a panoramic gravel road leads to Gerlostalalm. Here you can descend to Gerlos.
- Train over the Brenner Pass from Franzenfeste/Fortezza to Brenner/Brennero. The asphalt road up the Brenner Pass is no fun! We've seen lots of road cyclists fighting trucks and other kinds of heavy traffic (we were very sorry for them that they had no offroad bikes ;)). From the top of the Brenner Pass leads a quieter road to Innsbruck. Avoid the main road! We slept in our bivy bags, hotels and mountain lodges (Lamsenjochhütte, Weidener Hütte and Krimmler Tauernhaus). Bikes: Kona Rove Steel and Sonder Camino Titanium (no suspension, 47mm tires). Total weight per bike, including camping gear, was 15-18kg.Link to story and photo's (in Dutch): dichterbijdegrond.nl/2020/08/02/alpen-offroad-bikepacken-in-tirol