A dream coloured in blue from Malcesine to the summit of Monte Baldo. The blue of Lake Garda blends with the blue sky in an extraordinary panorama which pleases the eye with all its breadth: from the snowy peaks of the Alps to the sharp silhouettes of the closest mountains, and the gentleness of the plains. This course is able to arouse new emotions every time.
The circular course starts and finishes on the lakefront of Malcesine and takes the athletes to an elevation gain of 1700mt in about 11.5km. From the 89mt ASL of Malcesine it reaches the 1769mt ASL by the summit cable car station. After the first 2km on tarmac, the course exits from the town to immediately climb on a panoramic path, first on cart tracks and dirt roads, then on singletrack through oak and chestnut forests.
The first refreshment station is at Km 9, near Bocca di Navene (1420mt ASL), where the view discloses the Eastern slope of Mount Baldo. Some meters past the refreshment station, which is also a split time checkpoint, the course enters a singletrack trail that climbs progressively through an increasingly sparse vegetation, to reach its highest point at km 11.5 (1769mt ASL), by the cable car summit station, where there are the cut-off point, the second refreshment station, and the second split time checkpoint.
From this point onward, the course follows a progressive descent: some of these steep slopes consist of technical sections, some others are more smoothly runnable, crossing forests of conifers first and beech then. The descent, passing through loc. i Prai, leads in about 9 km to lose a little more than 1100mt of altitude until reaching the intermediate station of the Cable Car in loc. St. Michael’s at which the third refueling point will be available. There the course enters the “fascia costiera dell’Ulivo” (“coastal strip of olive trees”) and descends on cart tracks and trails to reenter the town for the last 2km on cobbled road and tarmac.
