Once a year, one of the most famous mountain roads in the world belongs to cyclists. On Stelvio Bike Day, the Stilfserjoch pass road is closed to motor traffic from 8 am to 4 pm, and thousands of riders set off from Prad am Stilfserjoch towards the summit at 2,758 metres.
The numbers alone are enough to make your legs ache: 25 kilometres, around 1,850 metres of climbing, and 48 hairpin bends stacked up the mountainside like a staircase. The pass is one of the highest paved roads in the Alps, and on a normal summer day it’s busy with cars, motorbikes and buses. On Bike Day, all you hear is the hum of tyres, heavy breathing, and the odd cheer from the roadside.
And here’s the good news: not having trained for a long time doesn’t mean you can’t make it up this mountain. The secret is a low heart rate. Keep your ego in check, don’t look at who’s passing you, and focus on just one thing: your own heart rate.
Stelvio Bike Day is not a race. There’s no registration, no start number and no mass start. Everyone starts when they like and rides their own climb. The motto is “being there is everything”, and it shows.
The people and the bikes
That’s exactly what makes this day so special: the mix. You’ll see carbon racing bikes with riders in pro team kit and heavy mountain bikes with backpacks. You’ll see e-bikes humming steadily upward and older riders turning a slow and steady cadence. Young guys in national team jerseys sprint between bends, and some people simply push their bikes and enjoy the view.
Everyone has their own reason to be there, and at the top everyone shares the same grin. The summit was a festival: crowds of cyclists, flags snapping in the wind, the smell of pizza from the mountain restaurants, and a view across to the glaciers of the Ortler range.
The weather: perfect
We couldn’t have asked for better. Cool, misty light in the valley at the start, then deep blue sky and crisp alpine air all the way up. Up top, a few white clouds drifted past the peaks as if they’d been placed there for the photos.
The secret: a low heart rate
I’ll be honest: I hadn’t been on a bike in a while. No training block, no build-up. On paper, I had no business riding up the Stelvio.
But years of coaching endurance athletes have taught me that fitness isn’t the only thing that gets you up a mountain. Pacing does.
So I gave myself one rule: keep the heart rate low. Not “comfortably hard.” Low. Conversational. The kind of effort where you feel you could ride all day, because on the Stelvio you nearly have to.
Ride slower than your ego wants. The mountain doesn’t care how fast the first five kilometres were, only whether you still have something left for the last fifteen.
The goal: no stops
My personal challenge was to ride from the bottom to the top without putting a foot down.
I almost made it. At hairpin 10, I stopped for a short break. The hairpins on this side are numbered counting down to the summit, so bend 10 means just ten turns left. Close, but the mountain won that round. I took a few minutes, had a drink and looked up at the switchbacks still waiting above me. Then I rode on.
And that’s fine. A short stop at a low heart rate beats grinding yourself into the red and walking the last three kilometres.
The descent: through Switzerland and back to Italy
If the climb is the work, the descent is the payday. Instead of going back down the same hairpins, I turned off just below the summit onto the Umbrail Pass. It was also closed to cars that day, and I rolled down into Switzerland.
In the video, you can ride along with me: brake, lean, release, straighten, and again. With no traffic, you can use the whole road, pick clean lines through the bends and simply enjoy the flow. The bare rock gives way to alpine meadows, then forest, and the air gets warmer with every hundred metres you drop.
Down in the Val Müstair, the descent flattens out through quiet Swiss villages. Then the road crosses the border back into Italy and runs down through the Vinschgau valley to where the day began. It’s a complete loop: two countries, one pass and a descent you’ll remember for a long time.
It’s raw footage, no music, no edits: just the wind, the tyres and the road.
👉 Watch the full descent on YouTube
What I took away from Stelvio Bike Day
- You don’t need to be in peak shape to do something big. You need the right pace.
- Keep your heart rate low and you’ll get further than you think.
- A short stop isn’t failure. It’s strategy.
- If you ever get the chance to ride a mountain pass without traffic, take it.
Stelvio Bike Day happens every year in late August or early September. Mark it in your calendar. You don’t have to be fit. You just have to start slow.