Whistling breath, pulse pounding in your head - after a short roll-in phase, the trail immediately switches to the direttissima. The last few metres up to the wooden cross are only possible by pushing. But then suddenly the extensive alpine pasture area around the Pian de Frea opens up. The Muffreit towers! Behind the lush alpine greenery, their jagged walls rise out of the mighty, fossilised sea reef. The myth of the Sella Ronda has us firmly in its grip. There are few Alpine tours where suffering and total euphoria are as close together as on this Dolomite classic. Breathtaking views regularly follow brutally steep climbs - and vice versa. Or so it seems.
For mountain bikers, the mighty Sella massif is an impregnable fortress, the few cuttings and cirques usually lead to via ferratas where the heirs of Luis Trenker would do better. So the solution is to go round the outside, over the saddles - the Sella Ronda! But we want to avoid the tarmac tracks, which are very busy in both summer and winter, as much as possible. So we take the old Ladin mule tracks Troi Pajan, Viel del Pan and Troi Salei, which lead across picturesque mountain pastures around the Ladin Castle of the Holy Grail. Of course, the paths were not designed for mountain bikes back then, so the climbs are quite steep throughout and characterise the challenging nature of the Sella Ronda.
The complete road book and variants can be found in the PDF download:
The complete tour around the Sella massif measures 58 kilometres and almost 3000 metres in altitude. For very well-trained bikers, it can be completed in one day. However, we recommend splitting the tour into two daily stages. The climbs are steep and the panoramic views should be savoured to the full. As in winter, you can cycle the loop in both directions, with the spectacular clockwise route promising more trails, but also the steepest climbs with sections of pushing. In the opposite direction, the high-percentage uphills are somewhat mitigated by longer asphalt passages, thus significantly reducing the difficulties to be mastered.
