there are times when i completely overestimate myself and do something entirely stupid.
this time i went and registered at the salzkammergut mountain bike trophy in bad goisern. after all: i normally do about 20 km and 500 meters (change in altitude) for fun in the evenings; how hard can 53,7 km and 1936 meters be? well …
of course i had a good look at the chart above before the race. one little hill to get warm, a big one that needs to be tackled slowly (to conserve energy) and then a nasty big and steep climb. after that it’s just downhill (which would be good for me & my bike). little did i know.
i was right about the first climb. i was also right about the second climb. the third climb, however, was worse than i had expected in my darkest nightmares: almost 650 meters spread over about 5 km, most of the time the path was climbing at 15% or more, and there was very little possibility to relax.
i probably hallucinated, but at one point i thought i saw an old lady with a very fat little dog and a large shopping bag passing me by and waving back at me. i looked around to check if anyone else had seen it, but when i turned back she was gone. must have been all that isotonic drink.
after what is marked on the profile as point ‘p’ every meter i had to climb hurt, luckily the track mostly dropped from there. no wonder my expression got a bit wooden …
on the downhill bits i enjoyed the parts of the bike that cost me quite some energy on the way up, like the front fork, the brakes and the huge ‘fat albert’ tires. i was able to regain a few positions here, but i still ended up 691st out of 722 who made it to the finish line of the 53 km course. i sense some improvement potential there …
one of the nice points of the course, the ‘ewige wand’ or eternal wall (point ‘s’). i am not sure why it got this name, but you got a great look down from there.
from point ‘t’ it was an ‘easy’ way back, just another 10 clicks flat to the finish line. i finished after 5 hours 40 minutes and 7 seconds. as far as i was concerned it was not a second too soon. 😉
i do, however, consider it a great blessing that i can still walk, and – even more importantly – sit today.
and he is the one to blame: my brother in law richard. he lives close by and participated for the fourth time. local knowledge must have been his key advantage; he beat me by almost 20 minutes (he finished in 5h 22m 14s). then again, it might have been my lousy physical condition …
btw: the winner of the 53 km trophy finished in 2h 26m 41s.
a bit unfair, don’t you think … 😉