Passo del Rombo / 2.510 m

Passo del Rombo - The highest alpine road in the eastern Alps. After Kuehtai and Passo di Monte Giovo, it's the third and final challenge of the Oetztal cycling marathon. Starting in Soelden its 22 km ascend leads up to 2509 m above sea level.

Due to its average gradient of only 5%, it was the perfect alpine pass for the first day of our alpine adventure.

The plan was to ride Passo del Rombo from both sides. So we got up before sunset, packed our stuff, and went off. The one thing we weren't really sure about was the temperature. Temperatures of 25 degrees celsius were forecasted for noon but six degrees celsius for the morning hours, so we put on an extra layer of clothing to prevent us from freezing.

The sun started covering the first few mountain tops right after we passed the toll gate in Hochgurgl so we decided to take a break, enjoy the first shafts of sunlight, and have some energy bars for breakfast.

From now on things were getting serious. After two and a half hours we arrived at the first summit of our trip. I can't describe how good it felt standing on the top of Passo del Rombo, the highest rideable alpine pass of the eastern Alps.

I've never seen anything that could come close to the view from the summit of Passo del Rombo into the Italian valley. I also thought nothing could top this until we went through the tunnel on the Italian side.

We've never been so overwhelmed by standing on top of a cliff and just looking down into an endless valley, seeing the road you'll descend in an almost untouchable distance. After just standing up there and sooking up the warm sunlight we began the first descend of our whole alpine adventure.

The further we went down into the valley the more increased the traffic. It wasn't too bad seeing all those beautiful oldtimers passing you but the whole riding experience decreased because of the volume of traffic.

After descending halfway down the Italian side of Passo del Rombo we decided to turn around and fight back up to the summit. This breathtaking, narrow road twisting up the precipitous, rough cliff, covered in late summer vegetation.

Riding our bikes in these kinds of surroundings was beyond amazing.

The panorama formed by glaciers and beautiful, snow-covered mountain tops lets you forget all the torture and pain, you are going through when fighting up a road above 2000 meters of altitude.

Because we were riding in deep baselayers, winter jackets but short bibs, we felt absolutely cooked when we arrived at the summit again. Maybe it wasn't the best idea of wearing that much when riding your bikes up a 20km ascend in the midday sun.