June 2009

Very special month. At the 7th of June I climbed up the Großglockner by bike. What an experience! Even though the weather was terrible this was my best day in 2009 so far. Last year in May I drove up the Großglockner with my car. I have started biking again after doing nothing for years and when I went up there by car I swore that I will go up there once by bike. Well, this year I became 40 so to do something against my midlife crises I decided to do it now - do go up the Großglockner this year. Since we moved to the countryside I started to ride my bikes all year long. During spring and summer I ride my race bike and in autumn and winter I use my mountain bike. As I live in the Viennise forest I have a lot of small climbs right beside my door. Since February 2008 I climbed over 70.000 meters in total but I never ever climbed 1.700 meters in one ride. I was close with a 100km in April with 1.540 meters but the Glockner was something completely different:

1. I would have to ride my bike up to over 2.400 meters above sealevel. The air becomes thinner there and therefore it means more effort.

2. It is one single climb! Usually I climb up a small hill then go down again and up the next hill and so on. The sum of all climbs might be the same but it feels different. After the climb you can relax and recharge you batteries in the down hill. At the Großglockner you can´t. The finishing line is on the top.

So here is the data of the "Glocknerkönig":

27km, 1.694 meters to climb, max. gradient 12%, in fact after a rather flat first 14km the final climb is over 13km long with an average gradient of 9,7%. It´s one of the hardest climbs in the Alps.

To be honest: I was a little bit nervous. It was the first time for me to start at such an event ( and this was a big one with almost 2.700 riders ). It was the first time for me to climb up such a mountain. It was the first time to bike at such an altitude. Nevertheless I needed a target. First one was to finish. But of course that was not ambitious enough so I raised the bar in claiming I plan to finish in under 3 hours. That was fine as long as a colleague came up with his time: 2 hours 40 minutes on a mountain bike. Ok that meant I had to be at least under 2 hours and 40 minutes. But my real goal was to be under two and a half hours.

The day before the race my wife, my friend Josef and me went there and up the mountain by car. Up there we had 2 degrees Celsius, rain and a very strong wind. Outlook for the next day wasn´t very good either. It didn´t look like a very smart idea to go up there in a Jersey tomorrow.

Next day the alarm clock rang at 5am. First look out of the window confirmend: heavy rain! After breakfast though the rain stopped and I went to the starting block. But 40 minutes before the race started it started to rain again. Standing there on a Sunday at 6:25am in the rain I really wonder why I have to do this. Am I mad? Well if then more than 2.500 riders are mad too.

That was all forgotten after the start. I cannon was fired and we started to ride. I tried not to overpace in the beginning and I also rode very carefully to avoid a crash. I´m not very experienced regarding riding my race bike in heavy rain. It took me more than 45 minutes to get to the toll charge station, the place were the real climb starts. As Is started slow I was able to overtake a lot of people in the beginning of the climb. I felt very good and so I decided to raise my speed for the last 7km. I had the idea that a finishing time of 2 hours could be possible if I ride the last 6km with 9km/h in average. I overtook at least 20 to 30 riders, I felt great but I was wrong: After 1km of "furious" racing ( well for my abilities ) I was totally empty. I became slower and slower and it felt like my rear brakes touch the rim. All the riders I overtook came back and now the overtake me. I felt terrible. I suffered. Now even the 2:30 hours looked out ot reach.

This lean period lasted for 1km but than I started to recover. My friend Josef waited about 2km below the finishing line and he was totally enthusiastic. That pushed me even further and I raised the pace again. In the final kilometer I overtook a couple of riders and crossed the line at full speed because there was no reason to hold back anymore. I finished in 2:17:12.

My wife waited after the line. She obviously was extremely happy to see me. The first thing I said to her was:"Das war kein Spaziergang!" ( This was not a walk in the park ). And I said it twice.

For the first time the pictures of the month were not taken by me ( but I have an excuse - I was busy ). The first was taken by a company named FirstFotoFactory. It shows me in the final stage I guess around 1 to 2 km before the line. The other two were taken by my friend