The Grip Pinzgau: Course, Elevation & Route Profile

Course & Elevation

The course is a permanent driving-technique and handling circuit, not a closed-off town centre. It measures around 1,183 metres, is tarmac throughout, and carries roughly 19 metres of climbing per lap spread across short ramps that touch eleven per cent in the steepest part of the site. That looks trivial on paper and is anything but in the race: over about 25 laps across the day it adds up to nearly 500 metres of climbing, all of it ridden out of the saddle and in a bunch.

The day splits in two. From 13:00 four mixed heats of roughly 20 minutes each are run. Timing then evaluates the results and allocates the field into four fixed performance classes: Racer, Ambition, Sporty and Reines Hobby. From 16:00 the four finals follow in homogeneous groups, each seeded with prime laps. In the fastest final, ten scored race laps are covered in about 20 minutes, around 1:35 per lap.

Because the site was built for driver-safety training, it is made of tight radii, linked corners and changes of gradient rather than long straights. Each of the four classes is scored separately for women and men, the field is capped, and licensed riders may start alongside licence-free road cyclists.

Pacing Strategy

A criterium on a 1.2 kilometre loop is not a steady effort. At around 45 km/h in the fastest final the same combination of corners and the same short ramp come round every 95 seconds, and every time you have to accelerate out of it again. The power file afterwards looks like a saw blade: many spikes well above threshold, and stretches in between where you barely pedal in the wheels.

The race is decided on the ramp and in the corner before it. Sitting too far back there costs you metres you then have to close with a sprint on the short opposite straight, and it is exactly those sprints that drain you over 20 minutes. On this circuit holding position is cheaper than regaining it.

The biggest trap is the heat. It only determines which class you are seeded into, yet it tempts you into emptying yourself at midday when the final is still three hours away. Ride the heat controlled at the top of your threshold, save the accelerations for the final, and let the prime laps go if you want to contest the overall win in your class.

Training plan for The Grip Pinzgau: 12-week build

What matters in preparation is not the daily distance but the shape of the race day: two hard blocks of about 20 minutes each, separated by roughly three hours. In character it is a strongly anaerobic effort. On a loop this short you re-accelerate every ninety seconds for twenty minutes, which means many brief spikes far above threshold and very short recoveries in the draft.

The decisive points are the corner exits and the short ramp that supplies the roughly 19 metres of climbing per lap. Accelerating badly out of a corner costs you again every single lap, and across 25 laps it adds up to nearly 500 metres of climbing taken out of the saddle rather than seated.

Training should therefore lead with short, repeated maximal efforts: sets of 10 to 30 seconds with incomplete recovery, exactly as a criterium delivers them, plus over-under intervals that train riding just above threshold with spikes layered on top. Underneath that you still need solid threshold power, so that the stretches between accelerations actually function as recovery.

Technically, group riding through tight radii pays off more than any wattage figure. Entering corners in a bunch, braking late, getting back on the gas early and holding a line are the skills that save time on a handling circuit. And because several hours sit between heat and final, repeatability belongs in the plan too: a second hard block on the same day, with the right fuelling and a full second warm-up in between.