Looking for ideas for my muni vacation

General
1

hello everyone.

i would like to go on holiday to austria this summer with my unicycle(muni).

i want to explore the mountains but i am a bit stuck in which category you choose best. I’m not looking for jumps or flowy easy tracks, but more technical ones, some rocks, tree roots and so on.

mountain bike parks trails are probably only accessible for bicycles and a unicycle does not fall under that and because we are much slower and not practical? and hiking trails for hikers are probably not accessible for unicycle, or is there no supervision?

thank you in advance!!

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It may depend on the park. I’m not sure about Austria’s, but French parks usually allow for unicyclists. You simply have to be careful to let bicycles overtake you without danger. As far a I remember, a single park ever forbidden us to ride on the DH trails. We had to stay on the enduro trails.

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Hello Kneupje,
I guess there are quite many different possibilities in Austria and some factors to consider :slight_smile:

Some factors to consider

  • Altitude meters
  • Exposure
  • Rideability
  • Steepness
  • Accessability
  • Terrain

Possibilities

  • Mountains: Hiking routes with usually many altitude meters. Rather no uphill cycling possible. Partially accessible via cable cars. Contain long (exposed, steep, “not rideable”) technical parts. But there may also be some easier to ride scenic hiking routes along the mountains. Terrain: gravel, rocks, alpine
  • Alpine pastures: Nice downhill possibilities may exist (hiking paths, mountain biking routes are often using the forest roads). Usually accessible (also) via forest roads (usually no very technical downhill) and cable cars in skiing areas. Terrain: forest, gravel (forest roads)
  • “Hills”: A few hundred altitude meters high. Hiking or mountain biking routes. Accessible usually via car/bus or (uphill) by feet. Terrain: Forest, gravel, (meadow)
    E.g. “Gaisberg” (although it has mountain in it’s name I’d rather classify it (in this comparison) as “hill” (it’s always a relative perspective)) in Salzburg is a good option for downhills, due to it’s accessibility by bus from the city center.
  • Along rivers, lakes: If it is a bike route usually not technical. If it is a walking path it can be also quite technical (e.g. roots). Terrain: (rather) flat, gravel, forest, paved

Depending where in Austria, you have more or less of the above mentioned possibilities available (west rather the first ones, east rather the latter).

Here you can find a few (rather short) muni routes: The Best Mountain Unicycle Trails in the World | Wikiloc

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I’ve usually not had any issues with bike parks (and I know others have ridden ones in Austria), most of them were friendly and enjoyed the “novelty” of seing a unicyclist. How fun they are depends on the trails, your skill level and how busy they are, constantly having bikes coming up at high speed behind you can be stressful, so try to choose a good time and day.

Hiking trails can generally be accessed by everyone on anything. As far as I know, in Austria, mountainbiking is technically not allowed on anything that isn’t a road (but lot’s of people still do). I’ve found that on a unicycle you tend to get more leeway in those situations anyway. Be friendly and courteous to anyone you meet and you’ll probably be fine.
The only part where getting denied is relatively common are uplifts, especially ones where they don’t normally take bikes.

I tend to use Komoot and trailforks to take a look at any MTB and hiking trails that are marked in the area, the descriptions and pictures can help to get a good sense of what the trail might be like to ride. Honestly, a day out in the mountains is rarely very bad, so I tend to not be disappointed. As a conservative guess go by the estimations for hiking to plan how much time it will take you (300m of elevation ascend per hour for uphill, ~5 km/h distance on flat or downhill) to start with.

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This site has some links to trails in Austria where mountain biking is allowed, and talks about the legality of mountain biking in Austria:

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6

Some good info here. And yes, there are lots of great options in Austria depending on your ability and wishes. There are almost no uphill trails, so uphill is either riding forest roads, walking up trails or taking the lift. And down there are mostly (boring) forest roads or flowy MTB trails and very challenging hiking trails with very few easy downhill singletracks (not like the North America or Australia where there are lots of easy built trails). If you like challenging downhill you will be very happy.

Bike park and gondolas (uplifts as Finn translated a little unconventionally) in Austria almost always take unicycles (in Germany it’s often a problem). Sometimes unis are free, sometimes you have to pay the bike price and sometimes half a bike :wink:

As Finn correctly mentioned, mountain bikes are technically banned from almost all trails. However, this is only for liability reasons, and you will get route info from the official tourist office that goes on many many trails. So you can basically ignore that.

Mountain biking is an important tourist activity in Austria and important for the economy, so there are lots of options and facilities. And unicycles are generally well accepted (although as most places not well known). There is much less of the liability problem that is common in North America.

If you are a technically strong rider, you can take forest roads uphill and then ride down hiking trails. But most are pretty challenging.

About 70-80% of the tracks in bike parks are fast flow trails that are not much fun and pretty sketchy on the uni, as the speed is much slower. However, there are some great bike park tracks, usually the more natural ones that can be challenging and fun.

Komoot is probably a decent resource, but there are many online bike routes, although many will be more endurance bike rides with little technical challenge (look for ones marked as technically difficult).

If you have a few days for muni I think I would recommend trying all three types: 1) a bike park, 2) taking a gondola/chairlift up and riding hiking trails and 3) also try riding 1000m+ forest road uphill and descent on hiking trails, as each has it’s own flavor.

Maybe post what region you want to visit and someone can give more detail info (if you go to Steiermark than you can preride the XC and DH courses for Unicon 2026).

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Thanks for the responses guys.

It’s my first long trip so it will be exciting for me.

Now, my destination will be Innsbruck. I’ve already looked at trailforks and komoot. My eye has fallen on Bikepark Republik Sölden. anyone who has been there?

And the next trail center would be the Tiroler Zugspitz Arena near Ehrwald.

It will be for one week, for the destination I have chosen these two seem like nice locations to start with.

It’s about an hour’s drive for both, not too bad. And it would be my first time going to a bike park.

How does that work. Are you allowed to go on the trails for free, do you only pay for the lift.

So what do you think, anyone else have a nice location in this area? If anyone happens to go there on holiday with a unicycle, that would be the best. I always ride alone, I don’t know anyone in Belgium. Anyway, have a nice day everyone.

Bye

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Good further inputs and summaries :slight_smile:

I can’t help with your latest questions. Maybe @einradfreak can - Innsbruck is his living room :wink:
Maybe there are some nice things at Nordkette or Patscherkofel, …

Here some more ideas/numbers:
I think steepness/altitude meters could be one of the most important things to think about/consider (hiking in the mountains can sometimes be like climbing steps).

My experience is, that you have to get used going downhill (steep(er) sections) by muni. Best to practice this in Austria are in my opinion forest roads (and easy mountainbike trails). Steeper (minor) forest roads which are not best maintained can also be nice (easier) longer downhills (camber, loose gravel, heavy rain did it’s work).

The other thing is to get the muscles used to accomplish altitude meters (uphill by muni or feet, probably also downhill (non rideable sections, use the break to relax your muscles). Sore muscles can limit the fascinating possibilities to accomplish within one week of holiday.

Steep cobblestone roads in Belgium could be, beside every “mountain”/“hill” (do them more often in a day, uphill also by foot), a good training area.

Here some numbers:
Main forest road: Maximum 10%(/12%)
Ski slope “blue”: Up to 25%
Ski slope “red”: Up to 40%
Baraque de Fraiture ski area in Belgium: Max. ~13%

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@unilnz was a bit quicker than me to raise an important point …that I’d like to stress: riding in the mountains (and I’m primarily thinking of downhill, though uphill is probably even worse) can lead to nastily sore muscles. I had that recently: stayed in the Alps for 6 days. Did 5km downhill on day 2 then had sore muscles during days 3, 4 and 5. Only on day 6 were my legs again fit enough to do the same ride (plus an additional 2km) again. No sore muscles after that ride, to my big surprise.
Bottom line: if you’re not used to the sort of riding you intend to do during your vacations, it is worthwhile to try and train for it beforehand, if you have the opportunity (aka hills) to do so.

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Hi,

if you stay in Innsbruck, Stubai Valley might be worth a visit. There are 2 dedicated bike trails I am aware of, both accessed with the same cablecar from “Neustift”, which is less than 30mins by car from Innsbruck.
That’s the easier of the 2 trails.

I’ve rarely seen lots of people there, so I don’t expect the Muni to be a problem.
Those are typical “bike trails” with a couple of faster flatter segments.

Hiking trails, if you act friendly, should be fine as well, especially if you avoid the “weekend rushhour”. The range of possibilities and difficulties is pretty unlimited. From the sight-seeing point of view you should go up “Seegrube” by cable car which is right above Innsbruck. There’s a bike trail which is no longer maintained, but parts are still accessable. Other than that there’s a range of hiking trails in basically any difficulty going down from Seegrube to Innsbruck.
There are some interesting ones west of Seegrube via “Höttinger Alm” or east of Seegrube via “Bodensteiner Alm”.

I have no idea about Sölden, except the mountains and the landscape is very nice. But I would expect the trails to be more crowded, because it’s a well known MTB destination.
The same could be true for Zugspitze, which is also a beautiful and unique mountain, which attracts lot’s of people. (But perhaps - similar to Seegrube - people usually go just up and down by cable car, so the trails might not be crowded at all)

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If you’re going to Innsbruck/Zugspitze, then we should try and meet up to ride. I would most like to do self-powered climbs of 1000-1500m with very technical descents on hiking trails, and I know quite a few great options near the German/Austria border, also by Lermoos/Ehrwald and towards Innsbruck and Imst.

The Zugspitze ski area is actually not a Bikepark and the German side is downright anti-bike with almost all the trails closed to bikes (I’m not aware that the Ehrwald side transports bikes either, but is at least more relaxed). Lermoos does have a bike park and might be OK (I haven’t been in maybe 10 years).

Oh, you asked how it works. At the official bike parks it works just like skiing, you buy a day pass and then can take the lift and ride the marked trails that are closed to other users for free (they even keep winter ski hours so the lifts close at 4:30 which is annoying in summer).

Some other places just have lifts that are open to hikers and bikers (mtb costs extra) and may or may not have marked trails and you pay per ride up.

Although what I would recommend is Samerberg Bike Park which is in Germany. It is a small bike park but has hosted many DH unicycle races and is generally very muni-friendly (although it can get crowded on the weekends). The bike park in Oberammergau is also decent for Muni although it only has T-bar lifts (I organized the unofficial German Muni DH there in 2022 and has a few easy trails, quite a few moderate Muni and then 2-3 very technical DH trails).

I haven’t been to Sölden in a long time but I would expect it to be fine, except that most of the tracks will be more high-speed flow trails, so you should look for the more technical or other options.

I generally ride self-powered technical tours on tracks just north of the Zugspitze (southern Germany has only 2-3 bike parks).

Let me know your dates and we can try and plan something (I’m gone most of August).

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Oh, Zillertal is just south of Innsbruck and has both independent lifts and MTB bike parks. There are great muni trails all over the valley.

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hey. i changed my sleeping location a little bit because i found something in habach germany, which is a bit cheaper. just a bit further between the border of austria and germany 45 min from mittenwald. when i look on trailforks i see in the area of ​​garmisch-partenkirchen that they have nice trails around there. i have a car so i can also move a bit further and i stay for 10 nights from july 21 to 30. and as for bike parks, the ones that are really busy i might leave for another time. i have only been riding for two years, i can do reasonably technical courses but maybe first explore the area a bit and build up confidence in the area because the difference in altitude in my country and there i am not used to. hehe

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I’ve taken my muni to Austria before, and you’ll find plenty of technical trails with rocks and roots, especially in the Alps. Hiking trails are usually fine as long as you’re courteous to hikers—nobody really checks unless you’re in a heavily regulated national park. Bike parks are trickier since they’re built for speed, and unicycles don’t exactly fit into their system, but some might be okay if they’re not strict about it. I’d just avoid super touristy spots and stick to quieter mountain paths—you’ll have a blast.