“Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve, they are the cathedrals where I practise my religion,” said the Kazakh mountaineer Anatoli Boukreev. Shivering in a stationary peloton below Corvara at 5:45am on July 7 2024, waiting to commence the divine communion with the mountains that is the Maratona dles Dolomites, it was hard not to wonder whether we cyclists had somehow displeased God. It was as if we’d been thrown out of the cathedral. The immense limestone towers all around us, which a day earlier had reared up into a sparklingly clear blue sky, were now shrouded in dark, forbidding clouds. There had been so much rain in the night that I’d been woken at 2am by the sound of rushing water. After that I’d lain awake, imagining and dreading the hostile conditions at the top of the Passo Giau, the high point of the Maratona long route at over 2,000 metres high. What was I doing here? I’d accepted an invite from the helmet brand Kask to ride the Maratona with the mercurial YouTube star and influencer Safa Brian, notorious for his heart-in-mouth descending videos and also a Kask ambassador, so there was no going back. Only up.
The Maratona dles Dolomites is a uniquely beautiful and extremely challenging gran fondo in South Tyrol that is based on the Sellaronda, a classic circuit of high cols that has featured regularly in the Giro. The Passo Sella was the Cima Coppi – the highest point – of the 1998 race and was where Marco Pantani took over the pink jersey. But the Maratona is much more than just riding in the wheeltracks of Giro heroes. It’s a vibrant festival that alongside cycling celebrates the culture, society, traditions and even cuisine of the five Ladin valleys, and increasingly promotes responsible and sustainable tourism. Val Gardena, for example, has obtained Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) certification and established 2026 as its target to reach specific environmental goals. It creates an atmosphere of harmony, as if by participating we’re all working towards a common goal. Even the artisanal medals are made out of sun-patinated planks salvaged from old barns.
Needless to say, the Maratona is incredibly popular and it’s very difficult to get a ride. There are places for 8,000 riders out of around 30,000 applications. The organisers run a ballot system for half the places and the other half are allocated to official tour operators and charities.
The breathtaking backdrops start way before the start line. Safa Brian himself put it best when I interviewed him at Rouleur Live later that year. He had travelled from his home in Los Angeles. “From LA you have to catch a few flights, then you’re in a van and a car… it’s like a long tunnel of travel but suddenly you pop up in Corvara and it’s like you woke up in a fairytale.”
From Surrey it wasn’t quite as long a tunnel of travel for me, but the journey by car from Verona airport to Corvara must be one of the most spectacular transfers in existence. The autostrada runs beside the Adige river past hydroelectric power stations with coiled, serpentine pipes, between the tower blocks of Bolzano while the high mountains on either side keep getting higher and closer. Soon tower blocks give way to Tyrolean chalets with white walls, brown balconies and shallow roofs. There are vineyards and pine trees, churches with square-sided steeples up the hillsides and you can glimpse the Monastero di Sabiona if you crane your neck enough. The place names are soon in German as well as Italian. Bressanone becomes Brixen. It’s getting dark as we approach Corvara and the peaks now surround us completely. Nicolò Crotti from Kask is already WhatsApping with tomorrow’s arrangements: “Meet in the lobby for the recon ride. The short course of the Maratona. Is it OK? Social ride pace. No hurry.”
The 55km short course of the Maratona is the classic Sellaronda route which goes anticlockwise over the Campolongo, Pordoi, Sella and Gardena with a total 1,650 metres of climbing. It’s a lot of ascent for relatively few kilometres, but the pace is as promised. In our group is Luke James, who’s going to be doing the photography. He’s riding a white Colnago V4RS that is perfect in every way, except it has a chunk of paint missing off the top tube where Safa Brian’s Scott fell against it in the van. “It’s an honour to have my bike damaged by Safa Brian’s,” he jokes. “I might leave it as it is.”
Safa himself is quiet, amiable, approachable and funny. We stop at the top of the Campolongo, the first snaking, hairpinned climb, for a ‘Team Kask’ photo. Joe Baker from Cycling Weekly wants to be photographed doing a no-handed track stand on the edge of a precipice and Safa sticks bunny ears up behind Joe’s head. When we next stop in Arabba, a chocolate-box village right in the middle of the jagged peaks, Safa poses in front of the church, hands together in mock prayer, literally practising his religion after Boukreev’s quote. We all chat and laugh easily, euphorically, because we’re surrounded by surreal, incredible scenery that makes us feel tiny and insignificant but we’re revelling in it.
Luke hands me his camera because he wants a picture of himself next to the Passo Sella sign, which is covered in stickers. We can’t get enough of our surroundings. We stop for coffee at the Rifugio di Pallidi just outside Canazei in the Val di Fassa. At 1,460m Canazei is usually a small ski resort, but today we can laze outside in the sun looking up at the white vapour trails in the sky, like wispy, high-altitude bridges between the summits. The Italians in our party are drinking espresso but I’ve ordered a cappuccino, forgetting that rule about not drinking coffee with milk beyond breakfast time. “It’s OK,” laughs Nicolò. “In Italy there are a lot of rules but nobody respects the proper ones”. Then we tick off the last two passes, Luke shoots Safa pulling a one-handed wheelie and we roll happily back down into Corvara for beer.
That was the warm-up. Today is the real thing. And it couldn’t be more different. Joe has lent me a rain jacket because I didn’t even bring one. It’s at least one size too big and the sleeves are already flapping as we head towards the foot of the Campolongo, which we’ll tackle again as our first climb, but for real this time. The long route goes around the Sellaronda, does the Campolongo yet again and then heads east towards the mighty Giau, nearly 10 kilometres long with an average gradient of 9.5%.
The Sellaronda, where we’d been so carefree the day before, is now considerably more treacherous. Today we’re not riding as a group. Safa is doing his own ride – he goes up climbs as well as down them fast. He’d been a little apprehensive at breakfast, talking about not doing the full long route if conditions were bad, perhaps feeling the pressure of being so recognisable and then not riding like the daredevil in his YouTube videos. The clouds were down but I was feeling strong, riding with Joe, and we make good progress around the Sellaronda again.
At the top of the Pordoi are three men in traditional Tyrolean dress playing alphorns, looking as if they stood there every day of the week playing four-metre-long wooden trumpets at 2,200 metres. I get a quick, touristy photo and we don’t hang around, conscious that although it’s not actually raining it is definitely threatening to. And then it actually does, just as we completed the Sellaronda and are heading off in the direction of the Giau. This comes at around 70 kilometres and the sudden soaking coincides with a sudden feeling that as I might have pushed a bit too hard staying with Joe. There’s a deep chill setting in and I don’t have enough power left in my legs to generate the necessary heat. I hadn’t brought gloves, I have just minimal neoprene toe covers which are already waterlogged, and I’m looking down at my index fingers that are starting to go deathly white with Raynaud’s. We’re riding on the wheels of some strong Germans, who are in full through-and-off mode, riding as if they’re escorting their GC leader to the bottom of the climb. Maybe they really are. We give them a couple of turns out of etiquette, but Joe has already made up his mind that he’s not going up and down the Giau in this freezing rain and I’m now in agreement. There’s a point at Cernadoi where the route splits and you can choose the 'medio' route, which cuts out the Giau and instead takes a short cut up the Valparola, also the final climb of the long route. Now there’s no doubt in our minds. We swing off to the left. “Hey, you are going the wrong way!” shout the Germans back at us. “No we’re not,” we answer.
The Passo Valparola from Cernadoi is 11.8km at 6.7% and is the longest climb of the medio route, but the gradient is fairly even and we grind up rhythmically through the wooded hairpins, climbing eventually arriving above the the treeline to the rocky plateau where the road from the long route, post-Giau, rejoins it. Joe has dropped me by this point – I was almost too tired to notice – and I’m in bottom gear all the way to the point where the road finally starts going downhill towards the finish about 20km away. On the top of the Valparola there’s an event photographer who kindly gives me some encouragement – it must have been clear that I was suffering – and afterwards I bought the photo off the website because of the expression on my face. Obviously there’s the pain but there’s also happiness – I never forgot what a privilege it was to be riding in this place even when I was at my coldest and weakest, and I can see in my eyes that I’m in the middle of an unforgettable experience. I want it to end but I don’t want it to end at the same time. I’m suffering but I’m joyful, exhausted but exhilarated, proud but embarrassed – “I know, look at the state of me… I’m going really slowly and I didn’t even do the Giau,” I seem to be saying to the photographer.
And that’s what the Maratona is all about – it’s a mix of everything we love about cycling. Sublime scenery, a punishing parcours and a experience you remember for the rest of your life. We like to push ourselves to our personal limits and beyond and we don’t want it to be too easy. Did I have any regrets about not attempting the Giau once I was back in Corvara, showered, warm, with the circulation returning to my extremities and looking forward to a few recovery beers in the Kask enclosure? Yes of course, especially when Safa and Luke joined us in there, both having done the long route. But I knew in those conditions, lacking warm clothing and simply not fit enough, it was beyond me. As Boukreev said, “mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve”. However, there’s no doubt that I practised my religion in the mountain cathedral as hard as I humanly could that day.
How to ride the Maratona dles Dolomites with Rouleur Travel
Experience the Magic of the Dolomites with the Rouleur Team.
Join us for an incredible four-day cycling adventure in the heart of the Dolomites, taking on the prestigious Maratona dles Dolomites Gran Fondo. This exclusive event offers you the chance to ride through one of the most breathtaking mountain ranges in the world, tackling iconic climbs and enjoying the unique culture of the region.
