The Ötzal Glacier Road, connecting Sölden with the glacier ski regions in Rettenbach, is one of the highest roads in the Eastern Alps. It starts at an altitude of around 4,518 feet, winding its way up to a highest point of nearly 9,285 feet. That elevation gain of nearly 4,757 feet occurs in just around 8 miles, giving the road an average gradient of 11% and a max gradient of 13%.
You don’t need to be a cyclist to know that biking up that road would be quite the challenge. Europe is home to quite a few incredible road bike climbs, and this route, which has been featured in the James Bond movie “Spectre”, is no different. It might not be as iconic as the incredible Alpe d’Huez, arguably the most famous climb in the Tour de France, but it is a decent bit steeper. German ski instructor and YouTuber Marius Quast tackled the climb on his bike, sharing the experience with his world-wide audience.
Marius managed to complete the climb in about 1 hour and 48 minutes. That’s quite a gruelingly slow pace, an average somewhere around 4.5 mph. That’s not to say that Marius and crew are slow, his other biking videos prove that he’s an experienced and strong cyclist. Instead it shows just how brutal of a climb it really is. It might not be the highest road in Europe and it might not be the steepest, but it has to be among the hardest.
