Stage 3: Pfunds – Bormio
Today the Stilfserjoch awaits, the highlight of the 2025 Transalp, the place of longing for pass fetishists. And it's also the pass monster's birthday. There's no better reason to celebrate.
The road to the Stelvio Pass was opened in 1825 and - perfect timing - just in time for the birthday celebrations, 200 years later, a few hundred intrepid riders with Transalp start numbers on their handlebars are once again allowed to climb these 1900 metres of altitude without a flat break. It's a long way up to an altitude of 2757 metres, until after 48 hairpin bends the air becomes thin and your breath catches, because the might of the mountains in the shadow of the 3905 metre high Ortler also makes a powerful impression. Few Alpine passes are in the same league as the ‘Stelvio’, all the controls are set to ten as you unwind this endless composition of tarmac in an epic landscape with a roaring final chord as you reach for the sky. The pass is of course the centrepiece of this stage, but it has a lot more to offer. The Via Claudia, the old Roman
road, doesn't let us go at first. It has accompanied us since the first day and ultimately also leads along our route on the third stage over the Reschen Pass to South Tyrol. And as a small appetiser for what is still to come on this day, the Norbertshöhe is first on the programme, the 450-metre-high pass connection from the Swiss border station in Martina up to Nauders.
This is the last village in the Tiroler Oberland, the last municipality in North Tyrol - before South Tyrol greets you after just a few flat kilometres, behind the Reschen Pass. Lake Reschen now dominates the scene and its dam wall soon marks the start of the descent into the Vinschgau Valley. In the South Tyrolean valley of the Etsch, which has its source at the Reschen Pass and much later seeks its way past Merano, Bolzano and Trento into the Po Valley, the sun now shines over wide meadows and soon over apple orchards, which at 1000 metres above sea level are happy to be spoilt by the radiant star in the sky. The curving Reschen Pass road is easy to ride on, the view of the eternal ice of the Ortler provides a feeling of happiness and you make rapid progress until you finally reach Prad, the South Tyrolean gateway to the Stilfserjoch. What follows has already been told, but not yet what awaits on the other side. The descent to Bormio is also a festival of hairpin bends, and you can't get out of this great mountain world until you reach the finish in Bormio. You also can't get out of that impression, marvelling at what you've experienced today, what you've seen and what you've achieved today. Epic!
