The Final Finish Line in Riva del Garda, Italy
I’ve been home from Europe for almost a week now and, while some days I feel pretty good, on others I feel like I got hit by a bus! Make no mistake, the TransAlp Stage Race was an amazing experience and when I’m old and sawing away in the proverbial rocking chair, the memories of my time there will be among the fondest of all of my years of racing. It wasn’t just that everyday they played “Highway to Hell” just before the start; it wasn’t just that I had the strongest guy in the race for my teammate in Austrian superhero Alban Lakata; it wasn’t just that I had the best support possible from Topeak Ergon in the form of our physio Werner Faust, our mechanic Lars “Larry” Hartwich and our logistics arranged by team manager extraordinaire, Dirk Juckwer. No, it wasn’t any one part of the trip but rather just the whole experience, lock, stock and barrel.
TransAlp is a crazy race. The field of 550 teams of two (you must stay together, more or less, at all times during the race), like most big endurance races here in the states, has all walks of bike represented. There are some really fast guys at the front and, unlike here in the states, a whole crew of them are pros and a good few of them are earning a living as “Marathon” racers. The atmosphere up front reminded me of how racing was on the NORBA Circuit 15-20 years ago. Guys racing hard, trying to beat each other silly on the track but then fast friends off of it.
Then, the rest of the spectrum is represented going all the way back to seat of their pants weekend warriors doing the most epic thing of their lives. I saw proof of this before stage 1, when it was raining and cold, and a couple of teams were rolling around in fabricated rain gear made out of garbage bags. And I figured all euros were sophisticated, well-prepared cyclists!
Long story short, the race starts in Germany on the north side of the Alps, crosses into Austria for a day or two and then is in Italy until the finish at Lake Garda in the southern Alps, 8 long, hard stages and days later. Total mileage is probably around 350 to 400 miles but the premium is on climbing with over 50,000 feet of vertical to be gained. Singletrack is scant. Certainly lots of pavement and, what was in my mind, super sketchy descending. The descents are long, as in thousands of vertical feet, and many are steep. You let go of your brakes and you can almost instantly be going 45-50 mph, barreling down loose gravel or pavement or cobbles or some crazy grooved concrete that they use on the really steep places. And generally, the way is about as wide as a small car or an urban bike path. Nothing is closed so you have literally hundreds of blind corners that you’re hauling ass into and around kind of wondering what might be lurking. You’re not sure if it’s an increasing radius turn; if there may be a car coming; if farmer Herman might be there with his tractor and a load of sticks; or Heidi might be there with her goats. And these guys derby down this stuff; so fast. And if it’s early in the race, you’ll be doing this in a group, one of my favorite things of all time. Riding the descents safely is no problem. Racing down them at or even near the pace of the top guys felt like the most dangerous thing I’ve done racing mountain bikes.
This Was Pretty Much How it was for Me: Trying to Hang Onto Alban's Wheel!
So, much to Alban’s chagrin, I just rode my pace. In fact, I had to ride my pace down and up, too. I just couldn’t quite ride with the leaders on the climbs. I was able to stay pretty close for the most part on days 3-5, but days 1, 6 and 7 saw me in the hurt locker. It was lucky for me that stage 1 was canceled and that stage 2 was shortened. I may not have made it otherwise. Alban was totally cool but I could tell he was chomping at the bit to throw down. Pretty much everyone there felt like he was the strongest guy in the race. I’ll be watching him at the Marathon Worlds later in August.
Part of what was cool was the daily routine you get into. Here’s a snapshot of our daily routine (and Topeak Ergon made sure we were dialed, as good as anyone there.)
6am Wake up and have breakfast in the hotel or eat Alban’s oats that he’d cook in the room. Mix up our bottles. We both use PowerBar products and we’d make 3-6 bottles of Endurance with two Gels attached to each. We’d also make up a bottle of Recovery. I bought a canister in Innsbruck and over there the Recovery comes in chocolate and is milkier, which I like in a recovery drink. I always had (always carry one in fact) a Performance bar, the original PowerBar from back in the day, in my pocket, too. We’d get all kitted up and either ride or drive to the start of the race. There, Alban warmed up on his trainer and I’d scope out what the first few k’s of the course had in store. Sometimes it was pretty straightforward up a long climb but other times it was downhill, turny and you had to pay attention or you’d go straight to the back or crash into post or something euro like that.
Lars, me, Alban and Werner
9am The race started by AC DC and pistol each day. I’d be on the gas, as hard as I could go, from start to finish and the races were 2 to 4.5 hours long.
Noon to 130pm The race finished, I’d spin around while Alban rode his trainer, then we’d get some lunch and head back to the hotel with Werner, our physio. Werner is in his mid-fifties, super fit and an amazing physio. He’s a cyclist, a triathlete, an alpinist, a kayaker (including two first descents in Nepal back in the day), a trekker and a former German champion in badminton. More than all of this, Werner was simply a great guy and we hit it off really well from the start. The afternoon was for massage and recovery. We always had The Tour on and got to see everything go down live just like here on Versus only it was in the afternoon and there was no Phil Ligget or Paul Sherwyn, just either German Eurosport or Italian coverage. Of course you don’t need to hear anything to watch Lance and the boys go at it in the Alps but I do love to hear Phil Ligget say, “…and he’s a very good bike rider.”
After our rubs, we’d meet up with Lars, who had spent the afternoon buffing out our bikes for the next day. We were both riding our Rotwild Team RR2 FS fullys (the only fullys in the top 10 teams. Yeah, it was the land of hardtails over there) with DT Swiss Carbon Wheels (and rear shocks) and Continental Race King 2.2 tires with latex tubes. Magura brakes and front suspension smoothed our way and kept us under control. As for grips, Alban is kind of a North American Austrian in that he doesn’t use barends. His grip choice is the superlight Ergon GX1. Me, I’m more of a Euro North American I guess in that I love my barends (of course I was using Onza Ti barends back in ‘90 when lots of these guys were using diapers!) so it’s the GX2 for me. I have a great relationship with Ergon now, but I came across the grips on my own and was using them long before I ever had any contact with the company.
But back to Lars. Lars is a great mechanic and we became fast friends, always joking around and having fun. He’s 24 and has that amazing enthusiasm for the sport of mountain biking that I love to see and remember well myself, not that I no longer have it, but it’s different, just a bit more familiar, I guess. Right at the end of our trip I told Lars that in American English his name was Larry (said with an emphasis on an American accent) and boy did he get a kick out of that! What a tight crew we were, Alban, Werner, Larry and me! An Austrian, two Germans and an American representing four different decades in age but all working together, laughing together, learning of each others life experiences and adding to them as we went. I won’t soon forget these guys.
6-8pm Okay, that was a tangent. Now it’s off to dinner and these were our best times together the four of us. Usually we’d take our evening meal in a typically classic Italian pizzeria and enjoy the Penne Arribiatta, wood fire oven Pizza, Gnocchi and ensalata mista or other Italian delights. A few Radlers went down along with a Tiramisu or two, as well. And great conversation and lots of laughs.
9-11pm Bedtime for bongos. That usually meant Alban falling asleep before his head hit the pillow and me with Cormack McCartney and The Orchard Keeper trying to tire my head as much as my body. I would fall asleep for a couple of hours but usually woke up wide eyed at some point and had to break out the book again and read by headlamp.
6am Repeat.
Here are some excerpts from my daily log:
July 18 Stage 1 Mittenwald to Albachtal - Today’s stage was canceled by rain and snow up high. Over a foot on the passes. Drive to Albachtal and ride the trainer. Did go to an Austrian shopping mall in Innsbruck with Alban in full race kit and had a coffee at McDonald’s in a little kiosk called McCafe. At first I thought he was kidding when he told me we’d get coffee at McDonald’s but then I realized he was dead serious. I don’t know if they have them here because I only go into McDonald’s to use the restroom on road trips, but McCafe is basically a McStarbucks with good coffee. You just never know…
July 19 Stage 2 Albachtal to Mayrhofen - Egad! Started okay, but it was too hard for me, I tried to hang on too long and I paid for it. Once I came off, I got work’d. Don’t think I could have done another climb and they shortened this stage, taking out the biggest climb, due to snow hanging around up high. Good thing for me as I lost us 13 minutes to the leaders. Race was about 2:20 with 6310 vertical feet on my always reliable 5-year old Suunto.
July 20 Stage 3 Mayrhofen to Brixen 95k - Better today. Road race for first 30 or 40 minutes; huge group, lots of fast euros making there way to the front. One tunnel where it got totally dark and we’re in a huge group. Nice! This one is one long climb, first full-on wide paved road, then smaller, then gravel then rocky singletrack with mostly pushing and some rocky, steep climbable to the pass. Lots of cow shit, too, and fresh. I’m at my limit dangling off of the top 10 or so teams but Alban is an animal and brings me back to the lead group as we have a long gradual way into Brixen. Legs are cramping a bit on the little poppers at the end but we get a group finish with the leaders. 3:25 race time and just 5900 vert. Tomorrow is the test, the first of 4 hard stages in a row.
July 21 Stage 4 Brixen to St. Christina 84k - Toughest stage on paper with over 10,000 feet of climbing. Sketchballs start as we twisted and turned, speed’n all over through the narrow confines of the old downtown area. People, dogs, shopkeepers, delivery trucks, and all that before the 3.5k of downhill bikepath! I survived this by jumping out wide on a piece of grass and moved right to the front as we did a 90 onto a narrow bridge and then onto a short piece of urban singletrack. Good motivation knowing there are more than 1000 rabid mainly euros (weekend warriors or not, when they can, and for this kind of start they can, they’ll try to get to the front!) right behind you! We raced steady, my pace, and finished 5th. What’s different for me here is that I’m on the gas 100% start to finish. No other endurance race (if you call four to four and half hours endurance racing, I know some don’t) I have done save the Firecracker 50 is like this, even though the Firecracker climbs just over 4000 feet total. Leadville, so far anyway, has always felt pretty mellow, at least to about mile 40. Here, I’m at my limit the whole time and not riding with the leaders, either. I was solid until the last paved climb where I cracked pretty hard. Imagine a pretty good, hard race and then climbing in the granny and pushing to the bottom of Monarch Pass, racking up around 9000 vert in 3.5 hours and then having to climb that, too. I was fukt (it’s a German word for tired that Lars taught me) for that last climb, beautiful as it was as we dropped into Val Gardena’, Italy. Throughout the stage, we were riding through the heart of the Dolomiti and the views, when I could take an opportunity to see them, were incredible. We finish 5th but I lose us 6 minutes on that last climb. 4:15 race time with 10,940 vert.
July 22 Stage 5 St. Christina to Sarnthein 83k - Steep assed pavement right out of the start but not too long. turned to gravel and then eased up to undulating. Killer views of the Dolomiti! The front group of about 20 riders stay together for some cozy, high-speed group descending. One of the Merida guys was picking his nose or something and goes down on a wideish, pretty fast section of gravel strewn pavement where we were bunched up. He’s ahead of me and to the right but, uh-oh, here comes his bike! I bunny hop as best I can and still get it pretty good but I don’t go down. But he’s back, a bit of road rash but none the worse for wear, by the time we hit the bottom. Later I find out he does that all the time. This descent, close to 5000 vertical feet, is followed by a climb of over 5000 vertical feet and it’s hot now! No snow to speak of. I’m doing okay on the bottom, then we get caught and passed by some guys from behind in the middle, then I come around toward the top and we’re less than a minute behind the leaders. All grouped up again for undulations, some nice (rare) singletrack and sketchballs steep, loose descents where brakes can easily fade. We end up 6th on this day. 4 hours race time and 9339 vert.
July 23 Stage 6 Sarnthein to Kaltern 77k -3rd out of 4 of the really hard ones. This one is two big overall elevation gains but with lots of smaller undulations along the way, too. This was my best race of the trip as it had some great ripp’n singletrack, gnarly hike a bikes and lots of climbs more like what I’m used to around Gunni: short little poppers as opposed to grinding away up some unrelenting climb, k after k after k. All of this good stuff came toward the end, too, and while we weren’t able to track down the leaders, we were able to ride away from the Rocky Mountain, Vaude and Cube boys once the going got mountain bikey. The master link even fell out of my chain as we descended this crazy gully full of about a foot of organic materials, leaves, twigs and sticks, and something came up and got wrapped up in my drivetrain. But since it was just sorting the chain back out (lucky we didn’t loose it in there!) and putting in a new master link, we barely lost a minute and nobody came by. Far and away my best stage. I wasn’t back on my heels and felt pretty strong all the way through to the finish. Highest quality riding, too, and still magnificent scenery. Race time of 4:05 with 9250 climbing and over 11,000 feet of descending.
July 24 Stage 7 Kaltern to Andalo 75 k - Another close to 5000 footer right from the start. What a difference a day makes! This one started out rolling up some but then got pretty steep and consistent. I’m a bit hosed, I guess, from the whole experience. Today my effort was the same - at my limit - but I’m not able to hang with the same guys we’ve been targeting on the climbs, mainly Rocky and Vaude. Finally top out and more typically sketchballs TransAlp style EuroUrbanRural descending and then I flatted. Got it fixed but now we’re back with teams we haven’t seen since the first stage and I can’t even stay with them. A demoralizing (for me) climb at the end: steep gravel with even steeper tiers. I think we finished in 9th place but that likely doesn’t include at least two Masters teams. 3:50 race time with 9140 vert today. I’m shelled and in need of taking a giant %#@&. Lots of food going in but not much coming out! I hate that. No cell service here to call Suzee and the boys so checking in at home will have to wait until after the final stage tomorrow.
July 25 Stage 8 Andalo to Riva del Garda 61k - The final stage of the 2009 TransAlp. I hear “Highway to Hell” for the final minute before the gun fires for the 7th time! This stage has a short climb (less than a thousand feet!) then a quick descent of more than 1000 feet, then a grind, pretty steep at first then less so, of over 3000 vertical before the bottom drops out for a steep and nasty singletrack descent that has been greased up by overnight thunderstorms. The meat of this section drops 2500 feet in very little distance and is rideable, for the most part, by brave souls with good skills. I’m back on my heels again, however, and determined to get on the plane tomorrow without a cast and/or stitches so I’m on foot a good bit. Just running down this trail is challenging as it’s embedded rock, polished smooth from time and with a coating of greasy mud on it. Certainly one of my favorite all time trail surfaces! Being the nimble and athletic guy that I am, at one point about half-way down, I lose both feet out from under, get completely airborne and land flat on my back and right elbow on the rocky surface, cartoon style. This would be my only glitch of the whole trip and while I’m not really hurt, I’m pissed that I fell while being cautious (some people will use a different word).
This descent behind us, I hopped on the Alban Express and we derby hard for 25k to the finish. And derbying it was! Crazy! Imagine a bike path - complete with casual weekend users who have no idea there is a bike race around: rollerbladers, dog walkers, etc. - twisting and turning around dozens of blind corners, ending momentarily as we go through an ancient downtown area then starting up again; Alban reading the turns as he goes me looking past him to have an idea too. Right or left? Little turn or hair pin? Just pavement or with some gravel for added excitement. It’s slightly downhill and Alban is a beast so we are flying! My ride is just about over but not quite! Finally we roll across the finish line at Lake Garda and it’s over. This race took just 2:50 and had only 4100 feet of climbing. We finish 7th overall and while I know Alban is disappointed, and I am too, to a point, but I’m stoked in general with my experience and that I had no major mishaps. Now just a five hour drive in the front bench seat of a Euro Van to Munich and I’ll be back off to Colorado!
July 26 Stage 9, 10, 11 and 12 Munich to Frankfurt to Chicago to Denver to Gunnison - Here I am sitting in a plane on the tarmac in Munich. Long day ahead; I’m not even in the air yet and my ankles and feet are swollen up like Violet Beauregarde in Willy Wonka and the Chocalate Factory. Great!
The TransAlp is just one element of what I believe to be called the Marathon scene in Europe. It is rocking healthy and super cool. Near as I can tell, it consists primarily of big one day Marathon races (75 to 150k) like Roc d’Azur in France and the Lake Garda MTB Festival in Italy, as well as the UCI World Marathon Championships, this year in Austria; and stage races like the TransAlp, and the Tour of Germany. These are but a few examples of tons of these types of races going on on the continent on any given weekend (or week in the case of the many stage races, including races like MTB Challenge Poland (Check out the photo. Is that guy getting ready to have a drink from an eastern European river?) The guys I talked with don’t do the 24 hour thing but can’t get enough of the above mentioned formats.
If I were a younger man and passionate about mountain bike racing and a seeker of adventurous experiences, I think I’d give a shot to spending the better part of a year in Europe winging it, immersed in this scene, trying to do as many races as I could.
Luckily, the Euros don’t have a monopoly on this kind of racing and it’s great to see lots of similar opportunities in North America. TransRockies is the pioneer, but the BC Bike Race and the Breck Epic have established their own reps, namely lots of quality singletrack, in the stage racing world. Another event I just stumbled onto that sounds intriguing as hell is the Pisgah Mountain Bike Stage Race. And while we have the hundies covered pretty well, a robust crop of sub-hundies, yet still epic one-day races are cropping up, too, similar in distance to the Euro marathons. The 50 to 75 mile distance is compelling to a lot of riders and with more challenging courses, are almost as hard as some of the roadier hundies. Of course I’m biased, but the Original Growler put smiles on some faces in May. Other favorites I know of are the Whiskey Off-Road in AZ and the Cohutta Big Frog 65 in Tennessee.
And that’s all I have to say about all of this. Now I must try to figure out how to be able to go as fast as I can in two weeks at Leadville. Lance, Tinker, Jeremiah, Ethan, Jonathon and some other guys I may not even know of are gunning for this one and will be bringing it!
