Lifestyle: Crossing the Alps is at the top of the to-do list for many mountain bikers. However, the enthusiasm often wanes as soon as the tour is planned: too far, too difficult and somehow not in the mood for endless drudgery! The book "Alpencross Light" presents 15 mountain bike tours that promise pleasure instead of frustration.
Contrary to the usual 'higher-farther-brutal' trend, the author Mario Stürzl presents routes that can also be mastered by bikers who don't cycle in the mountains every day. You should still have a certain level of fitness, even on these tours you can't do without climbs! However, the key to success is not crossing the mountain ranges, butern driving through or circumnavigating. Existing cycle paths, such as the Tauern cycle path, are used for the tours.
All tours are shown on an overview map in the book cover. The routes range from 239 kilometers (from Lindau to Locarno) to a maximum of 421 kilometers (from Füssen to Lake Garda). Even if the longest route has an impressive 6672 meters of altitude difference, most of the routes presented remain well below this mark. The author also presents tours of around 2000 meters in altitude - that would mean an average of around 4 meters in altitude per day for a tour lasting 500 days.
Tours can be put together individually
On the first pages, the author deals with the preparation and tour planning. Accordingly, Mario Stürzl goes into basic topics such as equipment and clothing. The main part of the book is of course about the 15 tours. Each route is presented individually and described in detail. The most important key data of the tour are summarized directly on the first page. The specification of the degree of difficulty and the time to be scheduled form a first good selection criterion.
An overview map and an elevation profile are available for each route. It is nice that the elevation profile shows the nature of the subsoil. The route description with details of the kilometers and meters in altitude can be found not only in the book, but also on the enclosed CD. With the additionally included GPS data, a procedure and wandering around in the mountains should be impossible. A useful gimmick is the modular system at the end of the book. With this, individual Alpine crossings can be put together from the 15 tours in the book.
book info
Alpine Cross Light
Author: Mario Stürzl
192 pages, brochure with flaps and thread stitching
ISBN: 978-3-7654-5969-6
Price: 26,99 Euro
Bruckmann Publishing
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