Sarah Bacher Tackling Kühtai

Tackling Kühtai, a wonder of the Austrian Tyrol, with Sarah Bacher

As we move into autumn, snow has started to whiten the tops of the Alpes de Stubai massif which surrounds the valley of Innsbruck.

For this year’s winter season, I decided to settle in Innsbruck. I still have a month’s preparation left before things really get started, but I’m already so looking forward to letting it rip. Seeing the first flakes fall gets me impatient and I’m so excited by the thought of getting on my snowboard and hurtling down my first descent.

This town was unveiled to the cycling world during the 2018 World Championships, but I already know it pretty well. My path ended here many times when I came to ski in the surrounding ski resorts. Lots of my friends live here too, including Louisa, who’s accompanying me on today’s outing. The advantage of Innsbruck is that its terrain is really versatile. You can cycle along the flat bank of the Inn River, just as you can venture up the neighbouring mountain slopes, where summits can reach over 2000m in altitude.

Louisa and I met at school. It served as a specialist school for skiing. We have kept in touch ever since. At the time, I was already partial to snowboarding and Louisa to skiing. Unfortunately, she suffered several knee injuries and had to quit racing . She then discovered a love for cycling, which leads us to the here and now. It’s going to be awesome to share my training sessions with an old friend on Tyrol’s superb roads. It’s Louisa who will serve as our guide today, and her advice is going to be important for me as I climb the giant of the Alpes that is Kühtai.

These last few months I’ve put my cycling on the back burner a bit because my training has already started. Each day, I train for two hours. I spend this time out running to work on my balance and core strength, or at the gym, doing weights.

On other days, I spend my time revising my lessons online. Since September 2021, I’ve been studying for a university course about dietetics. The programme focuses on top-level athletes and I will complete it in 5 years instead of 3. This winter, with training, travelling and competitions, I won’t be able to dedicate as much time to cycling as during my off season.

Kühtai has a special place in my heart because it’s there that I participated in one of my very first competitions. I was 10 years old when I took a trip across to Austria to battle against all the other young skiers from the country. Each year in fact, a series of competitions bring together all the junior winter sport competitors, an opportunity to spot the future talent. I won third place at my first competition and it’s a fond memory of mine. It all started from that moment and things quickly snowballed.

I was worried that today’s weather wouldn’t be on our side because autumn in Innsbruck can be quite unpredictable - the weather can do a 180 on you. But luckily, we had sunshine all day long and the temperature was mild, at about 12 degrees (except at the summit, where the snow was waiting for us and where the thermostat showed sub-zero). We tackle the climb at a good pace: 23 km of up-hill riding is on the menu. Louisa advises me to keep some gas left in the tank to get through the long and hard 1km climb at 15% (with parts at 20%) which starts at kilometre 11. We reach this wall that rises up straight in front of us – it’s really quite impressive.

Once we’re passed that, the kilometres go by quicker, just as the landscape becomes more and more breathtaking. The last 4 km are the icing on the cake – the beauty of the place makes us almost forget the 18 km of hard work our legs have already endured, not to mention the cold wind that freezes our cheeks. We pass snow ploughs heading in the opposite direction and the descending cars have snow on their roofs, all signs that we’re getting close to the summit. Soon, snow is added to the frame and borders the road, making our ride even more epic.

And there we are! We reach the summit. We stop for only five minutes, immortalising the moment with a picture in front of the “Kühtai 2020m” sign, before wrapping up to brave the glacial descent.

I always enjoy the descent, I like the feeling of freedom, the sensation of flying. It reminds me of snowboarding. But today, the cold paralyses my fingers and tenses my muscles, which makes it less pleasurable than usual. Thankfully, the magnificent views and the sun warm us up a little bit.

This ride will surely be the last one of the year for me, the cold and the snow are coming quickly. I turn my sights towards the imminent winter season. But this little escape has already given me some ideas for new cycling adventures next spring, and why not Innsbruck – Nice ?

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