Giro delle Dolomiti: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The week adds up to roughly 548 kilometres and about 13,550 metres of climbing across five very different days. Stage 1 crosses the Ritten plateau into the Villnöss valley and up to the Passo delle Erbe, stage 2 is bussed to the upper Vinschgau for the Stelvio and its 48 hairpins, stage 3 starts in Ponte Gardena and strings together Passo Gardena, Campolongo, Fedaia and Sella in one day, stage 4 runs from Cortina over the Giau, the Pordoi and the Costalunga back to Bolzano, and stage 5 closes with the short, steep ramp onto the Alpe di Siusi.

The racing lives in the timed sections. Together they are about 51 kilometres long and hold some 4,175 metres of climbing, an average of just over eight per cent. They range from 6.2 kilometres to Compatsch on the Alpe di Siusi to the 18 kilometres and 1,471 metres from Gomagoi to the Stelvio summit, by far the biggest single item of the week. Only there is the road closed, and only there does anyone ride flat out. The rest of each day is a group ride at around 25 km/h on open roads.

The logistics base is the Bolzano exhibition centre: race office, bike park, mechanics and masseurs are all there, luggage is moved for you, and every stage ends with a hot lunch, on the cathedral square in Bressanone, in the shade of the town wall in Glorenza, or straight behind the finish arch on the Passo Fedaia. The field is small: up to 400 places per stage, and around 80 per cent of riders do all five days.

Pacing Strategy

Because only the five timed climbs count, the real task is recovery between them. Empty yourself on the Stelvio on Tuesday and you still have a long descent and valley run to sit through, and you have to be able to race the Fedaia the next morning. So plan the week like a stage race, not like five separate events: sit in where the group sits in, eat at every feed, and keep the intensity strictly inside the timed kilometres.

The timed sections themselves are hill climbs of twenty minutes to a good hour. The Stelvio is the outlier and needs a genuine threshold pacing plan over 18 kilometres to 2,758 metres, where power drops noticeably. The short efforts to the Halsjoch, the Giau and Compatsch sit well above one-hour power; ride them like the Stelvio and you leave time on the road, ride the Stelvio like the Giau and you will blow eight kilometres in.

The classic trap is day one. The timed climb to the Halsjoch is only 8.6 kilometres, the legs are fresh, and around 100 kilometres of group riding still follow. The week is not won on Monday, it is won on Thursday and Friday with four days in the legs.

Training plan for Giro delle Dolomiti: 12-week build

Expect five to seven hours in the saddle on the long days and three to four on the short ones, including the stops at feed zones and lunch. Across the week that is roughly 25 to 30 hours of riding. The demand splits in two: very long, very easy group kilometres, interrupted by one hard hill climb a day.

Train that split. Long rides with a single hard climb in the final third, repeated several times in the same week, teach the body to go back down to endurance pace after a maximal block. An interval programme without volume does not prepare you for this week, and volume without hard climbing does not either.

Conditions are high alpine and, in July, often extreme. Thirty degrees and more is normal in the Adige valley around Bolzano, while the Stelvio, the Fedaia and the Giau can drop into single figures in the rain. Two of the five timed finishes sit above 2,000 metres, the Stelvio at 2,758. If you can, ride above 1,800 metres beforehand and include deliberate heat exposure; a wind vest and full gloves for the descents are part of the kit, not an emergency reserve.

Two skills are routinely underrated here. First, riding in a bunch: the stages are covered as one closed group on open roads, and a rider who never trains in a group burns energy doing it. Second, descending. Every timed finish is followed by a long descent, often on cold legs and a tired head, and the time you win there counts for nothing.