After leaving Livigno, we headed our to Immenstadt in Germany to meet up with Matty Z and stay a night with our German friend, Spunti. On Friday we drove to Fussen and had our first experience of the Transalp, and let me tell you, everything about this race is huge. There are over 1000 riders, big expo areas, heaps of euro trade teams and every little town seems to get right into it.
Stage one was a realively straight forward 80km with 1900m of climbing. It took a little while to get used to the race format with teams of two, which require you to stay together. It was pretty hectic at the start as all the riders rolled away though the village of Fussen. I got a little caught up in the excitment and before i knew it i was jumping up gutters and taking sneaky urban freeride lines to work through the huge field, unfortunately i lost Matty and had to wait - lesson no#1. We regrouped and settled into a tempo, unfortunately it was slightly over Mattys threshhold, and over the top of the days big climb he was doing it tough. Luckily it was mostly downhill to the finish so we got home in a credible 61st place. Overall an enjoyable day, but no single track had me questioning whether or not this was actually a moutnain bike race.
Stage two was a bit tougher, slightly shorter at 78km but 3200m of climbing. Luckily we learned a lot from the first day and we took a much more sustainable approach to this stage, after all, this is a 8 stage race and there are plently of tougher stages to come. We kept an eye on matty's heartrate and tried to limit it to 170bpm. It worked pretty well becasue we cme over the top of the first big 1400m climb with a bit left in the tank, and looking forward to the singletrack sections. The singletracks today were really cool, typical twisty euro-style muddy, rooty and steep. It started off really fun but we got held up for most of it by Euros walking down the track....very frustrating to say the least. We finished the day in 64th, dropping to 64th overall, but we are happy with how its going and think that we have the approach sussed out that will allow us to get throught the big days and hopefully get some places back. ciao
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3 comments:
go blairy OI OI OI looks like you seem to be doing ok wish i could be there to cheer you guys on good luck
Tony
Hi Andy - good work. You still seem to be enjoying yourself. If only we could all be there to join in the fun (ie Celebrations) and to watch you and your team mates do so well. Look after yourself, take care and say Hi to Rosie for me.
Regards
Frog
Sounds like some harsh racing Blairy. Hopefully this will harden you up and you can come back a man!
Anyway hope you having an awesome time doing more climbing than we have on our whole continent. I think you must have done the last stage today. Hope you enjoyed it all!
Talk to you soon,
Love Hendo xxxx
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