Blood, sweat, tears and an unrivalled feeling of triumph at the finish line: marathons are the heroes of the bike scene. And on 30 April, we open the season at the Riva BIKE Festival on Lake Garda. There are 3 routes to choose from for the marathon: Ronda Piccola (30.67 km, 1065 m elevation gain), Ronda Grande (59.56 km, 2406 m elevation gain) and the Ronda Extrema (82.77 km, 3484 m elevation gain). Numerous workshops are also on offer: From tubeless to brakes to tech talk for women. There will be an enduro race on Sunday.
This wayto go directly to the registration for the Scott Bike Marathon. There are also still places available for some of the Bike Academy workshops. Register now!
This report by BIKE editor-in-chief Henri Lesewitz definitely makes you want to try it out for yourself.
What makes MTB marathons so magical? For most people, marathon bikers are just crazy people who toil over mountains that are too high. Those clueless people! Our author went through hell at last year's marathon on Lake Garda and found it pretty heavenly. The magic of slogging - a self-experiment on the Ronda Extrema.
05:30: Cornea is the best glove. That was once sung by a punk band whose name is too crude to mention here. The mobile phone alarm clock has barely beeped me awake when this sentence flits through my mind. I've spent the whole night tossing and turning in my hotel bed with a cold film of sweat on my forehead. But now it's as if the beeping has put a kind of cornea over my nervous system.
A kind of protective cloak. A phenomenon dating back to the times of the sabre-toothed tiger, which frees the body from fear in a flash in the event of danger and thus maximises performance. Apparently my body thinks the Riva Marathon is a dangerous, stalking predator. That's a good thing. The body now works like a machine.
Two hours until the start. Down to the breakfast room. Chew muesli. Silent. Precise. Goal-orientated (calories!). Back to the room. Toilet. Fill bottles. Get dressed. Thread into the straps of the Lycra shorts with skilful body twists. Jersey. Helmet. Goggles.
Then the shoes. Laser-drilled microtech uppers. Carbon fibreglass soles. Dual Boa S2 twist fastener. The high-end trainers mould to the foot with gentle pressure. With staggering steps down into the bike cellar. The click of the pedals completes the transformation into a man-machine. 30 minutes to the start of the race.
07:20: The best euphoria is the one that is preceded by something terrible. If the myth-enshrouded reputation of the infamous Ronda Extrema is anything to go by, then those who reach the finish line today will be flooded with a veritable surge of happiness hormones.
The 83 kilometres and 3484 metres of elevation gain will reveal the ability to suffer layer by layer. Nasty ramps. Steep descents. And a surface that is so shamelessly brittle that even the most modern suspension systems are unable to tame it. This is precisely what makes marathons so appealing.
Even with the best fitness values, there is no guarantee that you will reach your goal. Anything can happen. Only when body, mind and equipment merge into a symbiotic high-performance unit will you see the finish line.
Until then, the probability of arriving is: definitely maybe. It must at least feel tippy. Otherwise you might as well stay at home. The cheerful clap-along music from the speakers, which is supposed to blow party vibes into the alleyways of Riva, is in stark contrast to the concentrated motionlessness in the starting blocks. You can literally hear the tension crackling.
"One minute until the start! I want to see the hands!", the presenter whips up the atmosphere. The nervous roar of the lead motorbikes pierces the staccato of words. Starting signal.
Kilometre 5: Legs don't lie, and heart rate monitors tell on every chocolate. The beginning of the tarmac climb is the moment of truth. Like a sonar, I try to detect every deep reaction of my body to the ascent. Is the level of muscle pain still in the green zone? Why is my breathing reacting so hysterically? And why do the others look so relaxed compared to me? Those animals!
The pandemic has thrown me off my stride a bit. It's my first marathon in two years. Which is like rediscovering my body. Although I regularly cycle tours with similar key data, a marathon feels different. Rougher, more demanding. Which is down to the others. Even if you have no ambitions of finishing, you still orientate yourself towards them.
Ignore the competition? You can't. Because it's depressing to be overtaken. And because there's nothing better than overtaking someone else. It feels disgusting to want to keep up with the group with a taste of blood in your mouth and have to realise: no chance. Anyway, my opponents are not the others. My opponent is the course. And this battle is still winnable.
Kilometre 28: Too slow for the left lane, too fast for the right lane. It's as if pop poet Tom Liwa had dedicated his famous song line to my marathon performance today. After the first 1600 metres in altitude, my body's feeling oscillates between doubt and confidence. Pleasingly, the riders around me all make a competent, sinewy impression and are wearing team jerseys with sponsor logos. Which suggests that I'm not as slow as I think I am.
Worryingly, the steep ramps have already taken their toll on my legs. My inner thigh muscles are already reacting visibly to the short stabs of the Malga di Vigo plateau covered in hoar frost. If I carry on like this, disaster won't be long in coming.
The fine art of marathon riding is to balance your speed exactly between the red and green zones. To the nearest tenth of a kilometre per hour. For which your psyche and legs first have to feel each other out. Every marathon is a rendezvous with yourself.
Kilometre 45: A bike is a fascia roller for the brain. And if you want to stick with this metaphor, then the trail battery of the marathon centre section is the version with knobs. The blocked, sharp-edged sections catapulted me completely into the here and now. Maximum focus. No more distracting thoughts. Everyday life? Problems? Everything switched off.
It's marvellous and pure how the downhill force tears at you. The slightest mistake could have devastating consequences. The knowledge of this fact charges the moment with a scary but also fascinating intensity. In this respect, marathon descents have a lot in common with free climbing. If you stay in control, it is perhaps the best thing you can experience. But woe betide you if something goes wrong. Then hallelujah!
Kilometre 65: Power makes no noise, it is there and it works. Albert Schweizer, what a clever philosopher! Silently, accompanied only by the crunching of the gravel under the tyres, the group of battered cyclists works its way up the last beastly climb. I feel completely groggy and at the same time a deep, cosy feeling of peace washes over me.
The realisation that I will most likely make it to the finish lets the tension fall away from me. For the first time, I allow myself to take in the surroundings. Lake Garda glistens in the distance. A moving sight. But there are still 300 metres in altitude between me and the final descent.
Normally a matter of twenty or thirty minutes. But not if you already have the exertions of a five-hour marathon in your bones. Your legs are a little overwhelmed by the daily dose of tightly kneaded altitude metres. But it's good for them.
With angular kicks and in the lowest gear, I choke the crank from one revolution to the next. It is the energy from the deepest inner hell that drives me forward. A mental detonation that mobilises all my remaining reserves.
Kilometre 82: The word Duden is not in the dictionary. And there is certainly no term there that is capable of describing the emotional state at the sight of the finish arch. Legs, shoulders, lungs, knees, eyes burning with sweat - it's as if a jolt of relief runs through every cell in your body.
You hear your own name booming out of the speakers, shouted into the microphone by the presenter as solemnly as if you had just broken the track record. Click off, dismount. And then it comes, the shot of happiness hormones. A crazy euphoric experience. As if you've just fended off an attack by a predator. And for our prehistoric sensory system, it's a bit like that.
Ronda Extrema on Lake Garda - the legendary route of the BIKE marathon in Riva as a tour
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43 pages of the fascination of marathons: You can download the themed special from BIKE 03/2022 as a PDF below. The special costs 4.99 euros.
