Bodensee Radmarathon: Course, Elevation & Route Profile

Course & Elevation

The Platintour shares the entire big lake circuit with the Goldtour: flat shoreline through Rorschach, Arbon and Kreuzlingen, the Untersee out to Stein am Rhein, the climb over the Bodanrück, the ferry from Konstanz to Meersburg and, straight off the ramp, the short Mur du Bodensee wall with pitches of up to 17 per cent. On top of that comes the extra Überlingersee loop, which is what separates this tour from the Goldtour's 220 kilometres.

That extra loop also makes the Platintour a different proposition organisationally. The other road tours are waymarked throughout with orange signs, and the organiser states explicitly that the marked route is the one that counts; on the Überlingersee section, by contrast, only the most essential and critical points are signposted and marshalled. Riders there navigate for themselves, using the route file the organiser hands to registered starters.

The organiser publishes no detailed description of that extra loop; the official file goes out to registered starters shortly before the event. What is reliable are the headline figures: 300 kilometres, around 2,376 metres of climbing, open roads with no closures, a start window from 07:00 to 09:00 for the whole field and posts closing at 19:00.

Pacing Strategy

The first pacing decision comes before the start. The field may set off any time between 07:00 and 09:00, but posts close at 19:00 regardless, so every hour you start later is an hour taken out of your window. Over 300 kilometres a 07:00 start means holding 25 km/h overall including every stop, feed and the ferry crossing; the gross figure is the only one that matters here.

Over 300 kilometres the Mur du Bodensee is not a finishing sprint but a short anaerobic spike in the middle of the day. Ride it in your own rhythm on the lowest gear you have rather than chasing a group up it; the time gained there is seconds, the price can be an hour.

The real trap sits in the flat opening third along the shore. Fast groups roll there, the legs are fresh and 40 km/h feels cheap, and the bill arrives on the Überlingersee loop, where you navigate without continuous waymarking, lose speed at junctions and still need to be mentally sharp. Treat the last hundred kilometres as a stage of their own and eat on the clock rather than on appetite.

Training plan for Bodensee Radmarathon: 12-week build

For 300 kilometres with around 2,376 metres of climbing, an amateur rider should plan on eleven to thirteen hours of riding time, and the post closure turns that estimate into a requirement. The demand is steady aerobic work over long stretches of flat to gently rolling terrain, with changing group dynamics as the main variable and one short, hard spike at the Mur du Bodensee.

The core of the preparation is very long endurance rides of six to eight hours, plus at least one ride beyond two hundred kilometres so you know how your body feels after eight hours in the saddle. At this distance position, saddle and gloves decide the outcome more than any interval session does.

Fuelling is a training goal in its own right. A carbohydrate intake that holds up for twelve hours has to be rehearsed: solid and liquid alternating, a fixed rhythm, and at least one long ride on which you eat only what you will actually carry or find at the posts.

Two conditions call for concrete preparation. First, navigation: the Überlingersee loop is not continuously waymarked and is ridden from the route file the organiser issues, so loading the route and having a battery that survives twelve hours of recording and map display belong in your kit planning. Second, the day itself: a dawn start by the lake in mid-September is cool and often damp while the afternoon can be markedly warmer, so train at both ends of that range and plan clothing you can shed on the road.