A few bikes leaning against the wall in the morning, helmets ready, a pedal clicks in somewhere - this scene is part of many mountain bike hotels in the Alps today. At the Hotel Steineggerhof between Bolzano and the imposing Rosengarten Dolomites, the scenery is not just a backdrop, but the result of a development that began long before dropper posts, trail parks and e-mountainbikes: With an ad that no one initially responded to.

In the mid-1990s, mountain biking was not yet the widely established vacation code that it is today. Nevertheless, as a young host at the Steineggerhof, Kurt Resch was quick to focus on the topic: in 1994, he placed the first advertisement for a mountain bike camp in "bike". Response: none. The first small breakthrough came a year later - two mountain bikers, Achim and Sedat, showed up at the door. For Kurt Resch, these were not simply "the first guests", but a kind of reality check in the terrain: uphill and downhill, he could not keep up with the two guests. They waited - not out of politeness, but also because they didn't know the area.

What sounds obvious today - guided tours, local knowledge, logistics, suitable routes - first had to be invented back then. And it didn't grow at the push of a button. For the Steineggerhof, this meant The number of bikers doubled or tripled every year, but if you start with two people, you need patience until it develops into a viable offer.

When 50 to 90 kilometers were normal and cable cars were frowned upon

Today, anyone planning a "house tour" as a hotel guide often thinks about trail share, flow factor, shuttle window. In the 1990s, the tactics were different - also because the technology was different. Bikes were at the beginning of the bike evolution, and only a few could ride demanding trails. So they went far: 50 to 90 kilometers, 1200 to 2000 meters in altitude, sometimes more. Forest roads, forest paths, easy single trails at best: yes. Asphalt: no please.

Cable cars were a taboo for many at the time, and shuttle cabs were practically non-existent. Tours such as the Latemar Circuit, the Prügelsteig am Schlern, the Schlern Circuit or the Jochgrimm Tour started directly at the hotel - without a lift, without transport assistance, of course. Back then, it was clear: if you came, you were in good shape.

The leap from fitness to technique was based on a simple unit of measurement: suspension travel. 2.5 centimetres on early Manitou forks, later 6 centimetres on the Marzocchi XC 600 - and when 8 centimetres appeared, the initial reaction was: "Nobody needs that." As is so often the case, the future lay exactly where it was first smiled at.

Fullys were still exotic back then; the first fully in the house was a Cannondale with a carbon swingarm and a kind of status symbol that you didn't just ride, but showed off. Kurt still cherishes and maintains the legendary Cannondale today, but now as a kind of museum piece. As the bike's performance increased, the programme also changed: guided tours became "single trail tours", specialization instead of all-round riding.

Guiding between mise en place and late return

The Steineggerhof narrative is not the romantic story of bike pioneer Kurt Resch alone, but of a balancing act. The hotelier was a chef and still rode tours with guests on the same day. Initially, there were two guided rides a week, later more if groups didn't fit together or guests wanted to ride more often. It sounds like "passion", but there was a tangible price to pay: preparing meat and vegetables the day before, making arrangements with the team, returning in the late afternoon - sometimes straight from the trail to the kitchen without having to move.

From today's perspective, this is perhaps the most honest passage: guiding was not an additional service that you let run with you, but a second shift - at a time when there were neither standard processes nor a well-established team of guides.

1998: Bike hotels as a response to a growing scene

The next milestone was strategic: in magazines, we saw that other South Tyrolean businesses were also courting mountain bikers. This gave rise to the idea of joining forces and placing larger advertisements together: In 1998, the "Bike Hotels Südtirol" was founded under the aegis of Kurt Resch.

This is more than just an anecdote. It marks the moment when individual enthusiasts became a marketable structure. It was an early form of what we know today as networks, quality labels and destination branding.

With growth came the limit of what was possible. In 2004, Kurt hired his first own bike guide: Christoph Frei. He rode three guided tours a week for the hotel and three days for another bike hotel. It was a model that shows how young and thin the guide landscape still was back then.

Another notable change: from 2009 to 2017, the hotelier no longer worked in the kitchen, but mainly as a bike guide. Kurt Resch was involved in 130 tours a year. Today, back at the stove, there are still 10 to 20. This is not a retreat from the bike, but a reminder that specialization in the business also means: roles change. And it is the consistent step taken by Kurt Resch as a pioneer: he built the Steineggerhof into one of the first organic hotels in his tireless drive forward.

Media, brands, shoots: when the hotel became a backdrop

With professionalization came visibility. Good contacts with the bike industry, photographers and filmmakers helped to make the Steineggerhof better known as a bike hotel. The hotelier was on the road as a scout, looking for locations; teams from Flyer and Bosch filmed at the Rosengarten, sometimes with up to 20 people on location - including catering, logistics and models. Images from the area ended up in print media and increased awareness. This also shows a pattern that many businesses are familiar with: It's not just trails and tours that make a bike hotel great, but also images, stories and multipliers in particular.

At some point, every pioneering story reaches the stage where you no longer set the pace yourself. Without shuttles and cable cars, it soon became impossible. From 2014 at the latest, the competition from ski resorts was felt, as they expanded their summer offers for mountain bikers, having previously tended to reject them.

And then came the turning point that turned the entire scene upside down: e-mountain bikes. In 2011, the hotelier and guide Dieter tested an early e-bike prototype. It put a smile on everyone's face. A year later, the first rental e-bikes were available at the hotel, at that time still hardtails with a 300-watt battery, hardly suitable for off-road use, but enough to reach a new target group: Forest trail riders.

The path to the off-road suitability of e-bikes ran through technology, but the real hurdle was cultural: nobody wanted to be the one riding "E". Even free testing did not convince many - out of principle, world view and sporting ambition. Today, the late satisfaction is that many of the critics at the time ride e-bikes themselves.

It is also interesting to note the forecast, which was only partially fulfilled: It was expected that technically adept bikers in particular would switch to E-MTBs to experience "flow" uphill as well. Instead, families, non-bikers and touring cyclists came first - three groups that grew rapidly and now make up a significant proportion of guests. This has radically changed guiding: the trails are increasingly being joined by forest and forest path tours, more riding techniques for beginners, more local courses and new topics such as range planning and charging points at mountain huts. The sport has become noticeably more popular.

The classic, often stuffy bike shuttle is hardly needed anymore, says Kurt. Many of these tours work with and thanks to the e-bike directly from the hotel.

Guiding 2026: less competition, more group feeling - but more complex

With the e-mountain bike, the fitness issue has been defused, but not the technical issue. On the contrary: when physical differences disappear, riding ability and overconfidence sometimes clash more strongly. And the scene has changed socially: Twenty years ago, it was more of a competition, everyone wanted to outride the guide; today, the community aspect is much more important.

The next building block of professionalization fits in with this: advanced riding technique training. In 2011, Kurt invited Harald Philipp to lead a course with him - including a break in style: clipless pedals down, flat pedals up, saddle down. Later, other well-known names from the scene joined him for technique and trail camps, including Marcus Klausmann, Manfred Stromberg, Stefan Herrmann, Daniel Schäfer, Stefan Schlie and Tom Öhler.

What remains from the beginning

The history of mountain bike guiding at the Steineggerhof is not a linear success story, but a series of adaptations: from endurance expeditions without a lift, to a leap in suspension travel, to a focus on single trails, from a one-man show between kitchen and trail to a guide structure - and finally to the reality of e-bikes, which has reorganized target groups, routes and dynamics.

In the end, the first, unanswered ad from 1994 seems like an omen: If you're early, you have to live with the fact that the world won't understand what's being created until later. And sometimes all it takes is two guests waiting because they don't know where to go. And a hotelier who gets back on his bike anyway.

Further links

Website Bio- und Bike-Hotel Steineggerhof