Hi

I’ve really got into road biking over the last few years, and have enjoyed doing some sportives over here. For next year I’d love the challenge of a big Alpine event, mainly looking at the Maratona dles Dolomites as it sounds a great event & I love the area.
From what I’ve read these events are massively over subscibed. I would like to enter myself and travel/stay in my campervan and so don’t really want to go with a ‘tour’ (& they seem really expensive!). When do entries open? Is it just a case of entering through the website? Any other advice welcome! And how does it compare to the Marmotte (how hard!) as that’s the other one I like the look of?!

Ta!

If you want entry to the event only then yes you still need to go through the website…
http://www.maratona.it/home.php
It says that details about entry for 2013 will be posted at the end of september. We went with a package two years ago and I think the entries were open oct/nov time. We really enjoyed it two years ago – having been to both, IMO the maratona trounced the marmotte in terms of riding and atmosphere even with 11,000ish riders. We are looking at the Gran Fondo Stelvio for 2013.

Just submit an initial application via the website. If you get selected then you have a period of time to complete the application and pay for your entry. Foreigners get some kudos and bigger groups get more chance too, so if you can find some buddies then that wil help. We got in with a group of about 8 brits in 2011.

Maratona is hard but not as tough as the marmotte. Maratone has more hills and the Giao is hard but the marmotte has more metres of climbing, and is longer. Watch the time cutoffs too – if you start at the back then you can’t hang about or they’ll stop you doing the long route (missing the Giao).

Great event though – very well run and a lovely area. Transport in/out is trickier than the marmotte though.