The Race

Since my last (also the first ever) writing was a success beyond my imagination, i'd like to thank everybody who actually read the whole of it. The snow is slowly but surely melting here in Finland and our training has gotten pretty well on the way, so i thought to write something about the race itself.

Craft Bike Transalp is a stage race which lasts for eight days straight. No days off, no dual stages in a day, no time trials. Plain and simple, riding everyday for a few hours and starting from Mittenwald in Germany and finishing off at the beautiful Riva Di Garda in Italy about a week later. It'll be roughly 670 kilometres of trails, paths and all sorts of roads, but in fact it's not the length of the race that's scary, it's the amount of climbing we have ahead of us. The total vertical metres are about 21 500, which makes it almost 2,5 times of Mount Everest. So how does climbing twice in a week from the sea level to the top of Mount Everest sound to you? Oh, yes, and once more to the half way! It won't be very technical or tricky. It'll be loooong, steep and hard uphills day after day, mountain after mountain. OK, if you go up, you'll have to come down, so there will be downhills. A lots of them. And breathtaking landscapes and scenery, of course, with a little stream or a river every now and then and probably some snow, too.

It is a team race, with each team consisting of two riders. There are many different categories, ie. men, women, mixed, masters etc, 550 team all together. The start of the stage will be at 9:00 a.m. every morning and the stage winners are expected to arrive at the finnish line some time after noon and the route is open until 6:00 p.m. so everybody have 9 hours to finnish the stage. That leaves some time to fix a possible technical problem or have a crash or two during the day. Even a famous bonk (running completely out of energy) won't slow down so much that one couldn't finish within the time limit.

109 days to go until the race starts. Ill try to keep you up with the news every once in a while. Hopefully i can tell you something about our bikes and equipment soon...

Take care, everybody, and in case you enjoy reading this, feel free to spread the word.

-riku