Switchbacks to heaven

… or from hell, if you don’t like steep!

This section is utterly beautiful, on a high plateau terming with marmots.

Much, much better switchbacks than the Stelvio Pass road !

The Stelvio pass is a historic cycling climb, it has in fact been traveled by the Giro d'Italia many times and has often been the scene of the exploits of great champions. It can be classified as a long alpine climb with a great difference in height, with a very high maximum altitude, with the consequent thinning of the air [6] which further complicates the climb. It has medium difficulty slopes, and is extremely fascinating and demanding from all three sides (Italian and Swiss).

The most difficult of the three is the South Tyrolean one which, starting from Prato allo Stelvio (915 m a.s.l.), climbs for almost 26 km with gradually increasing slopes up to 12% in the last kilometer. The first part of the climb (first 8 km) is the easiest to pedal with gradients of around 5%, after passing the crossroads for Solda after a slight slope, the 48 hairpin bends begin with an average gradient of around 8-9%. We therefore continue regularly passing through Trafoi and climbing up to the pass with the last kilometers a little harder than the previous ones. The average gradient is 7.7%, the maximum of 12% for an overall difference in height that exceeds 1800 m [7].

Old military road with nice bends.