Duathlon Wendelstein: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The opening is 6 kilometres, run as three passes of a 2.1 kilometre out-and-back. The profile is flat: 29 metres of climbing in total, two thirds of the route level, and an altitude band of just eight metres between 341 and 349. There is no rise here to set a rhythm.

The bike course is four laps of a 5.2 kilometre off-road circuit, 20 kilometres in total with 222 metres of climbing. Every lap holds the same ascent: some 480 metres averaging 3.9 percent, whose steepest section touches a good ten percent. It sits shortly after the start of each lap, at kilometre 0.4, 5.7, 10.9 and 16.1. Between 348 and 392 metres the terrain stays rolling rather than mountainous; only 36 percent of the lap is flat, so outside the climb there is barely a stretch without a rise or a fall.

The race is run by Radlerclub Wendelstein 1913 under the Team Optimum name, DTU-sanctioned, with a small, family-oriented programme including children's and Bambini races. The switch to a cross format is new: the organiser has announced revised courses for 2026 but, at the time of writing, has published neither detailed maps nor a start time. The closing 4 kilometre run uses a shortened version of the opening course.

Pacing Strategy

A run-bike-run starts faster than it should, and this one especially: the opening 6 kilometres are flat, easy underfoot and legible over three short passes; nothing about them slows you. That is exactly why the pace here has to sit deliberately below what a standalone 6 kilometre run would allow. As a rule of thumb, you should reach transition still feeling you could run considerably faster.

On the bike, repetition governs everything. Four laps with an identical 480 metre ascent pitching to ten percent mean every mistake shows up four times. Ride all four passes at the same intensity, with one gear more in reserve than you think you need; off-road, too big a gear on loose ground costs traction as well as watts. Between the climbs the circuit is only 36 percent flat and therefore permanently in motion, which makes smooth pedalling more valuable than any single attack.

The race is decided on the fourth bike lap and in the opening metres of the closing run. The classic trap is lap three: by then you know the climb well enough to attack it, and you have not yet registered that four run kilometres follow. Those four kilometres are flat and offer no recovery from the terrain at all.

Training plan for Duathlon Wendelstein: 12-week build

The duathlon takes roughly 1:35 to 2:15 depending on level. The demand is mixed: two flat run sections at an evenly high intensity, and between them an off-road ride whose four identical climbs and 64-percent-uneven circuit force constant small load changes. That is a different requirement from a road duathlon over the same distances.

The race is decided in the switch from the fourth bike lap into the 4 kilometre closing run. After 20 off-road kilometres with four ramps the legs are tired differently than after a road ride; the load sits more in the trunk and quads, and a flat run does not forgive that.

Bike training therefore needs terrain. Ride repeated climbs of 60 to 120 seconds at 4 to 10 percent on unsurfaced ground, at least four per session, so that the repetition itself becomes the stimulus. Add skills work on loose surfaces: traction on the climb, line choice in the rolling ground between and the pick-up over each crest.

Two things are specific for the run. First, double brick sessions of 20 minutes running, 40 minutes riding and 15 minutes running, because that is exactly the race sequence and the second transition is the harder one. Second, the season: a mid-October race day in the Nuremberg hinterland means cool starting temperatures and ground that becomes markedly heavier and more slippery after rain; tyre choice and clothing layers therefore belong in the same preparation as the intervals.