the Bike Infection XCO-Race Fusch: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The lap starts on the meadow between the L217 and the forest edge, which is also where start and finish, the feed and tech zone and the race office sit. From there the course turns straight into the forest edge west of the Güterweg: around 700 metres of tightly packed switchbacks and short counter-rises between 828 and 838 metres, without a single long straight.

From kilometre 0.65 the course drops close to 40 vertical metres to the works yard and then swings out into the large eastern loop around the still-working gravel pit. This is the most open and fastest part of the lap, on loose material rather than forest floor. At kilometre 1.27 the lap's only continuous climb begins: 650 metres at 4.1 percent on average, up to 9.4 percent at its steepest, 27 vertical metres back to the finish straight.

The club built the course itself, under course chief Gerhard Pirchl, with mowing, digging and woodwork. 2026 is the second edition; the 2025 premiere ran with 64 starters and doubled as the Salzburg state championship. Two marked B-lines offer alternative lines at the technical spots, spectators watch from the Embacher meadow, and all around is the valley floor below the Grossglockner high alpine road.

Pacing Strategy

A time-based race is not paced in kilometre splits but in laps. The first lap counts twice over: the jury reads the lap count from it, and it decides your position. The start area on the meadow is short, the forest edge then swallows the field, and passing in the tight switchbacks is barely possible. Being stuck behind the wrong group there costs more time than any later attack can win back.

The race is decided on the climb from kilometre 1.27, which you ride once per lap with less in reserve every time. An average of 4.1 percent is moderate, but the ramps up to 9.4 percent sit exactly where you arrive off the fast gravel-pit loop.

That eastern loop is the trap: open, fast, easy to ride, and therefore the place where riders spend too much. Then there is the timing. The start is at 14:00 in August, the eastern loop and the meadow carry no shade, and 35 minutes at the limit in afternoon heat cost more than the profile suggests.

Training plan for the Bike Infection XCO-Race Fusch: 12-week build

Plan for roughly 35 to 45 minutes of racing, depending on how the jury sets the laps. The demand is anything but even: a good six percent of the lap is flat, some 42 percent goes up and around 32 percent goes down. That means many short, hard accelerations out of the switchbacks, each followed by seconds rather than minutes of recovery. Physiologically it is an effort at threshold with constant excursions above it.

Two sections decide the race. The climb back to the finish straight asks for clean pacing on every single lap, and it comes straight after the fastest part of the course. The forest-edge section asks for handling under fatigue: tight switchbacks, short counter-rises, two marked B-lines as an alternative at the technical spots. Mistakes there do not cost seconds, they cost contact.

Conditions belong in the preparation. The course sits at around 800 metres on the valley floor, the race is run in the afternoon in August, and the surface alternates between mown meadow, forest floor and loose gravel around the pit. Heat adaptation and a drinking plan for a short, very intense effort belong in the plan, as does a feel for grip on loose material.

In training that means blocks of 30 to 45 minutes just below threshold with 30 to 60 second surges mixed in, plus short repeated accelerations on a climb. Add technical riding on soft and loose ground, and practise braking and cornering when already tired. The unofficial Friday afternoon training and the Saturday course inspection are the best chance to settle your lines and your B-line choices in advance.