Road TransAlp 2009: Pre Race Jitters

Well here we are in Germany. We arrived a couple of days ago and after a few hassles picking up our vehicle we eventually made it to our first nights stay in Fussen. I picked this location as our jump off point because there is some really spectacular scenery in the local area and it is just a short ride to Sonthofen. Yesterday we tooled around Fussen and checked out the Neuschwanstein castle. Our intention was that after lunch we would spin our way to Sonthofen. As fate played with us, it started to pour as we toured the castle and despite waiting through lunch for the rain to stop, it did not let up. Plan B quickly became “Let’s drive to Sonthofen and maybe get a ride in there.” The drive was spectacular and by pure chance (we were following the GPS directions) we drove right down the first climb that we will attempt in the race. Everybody’s eyes tuned in and we surveyed the first of many climbs we will see in the week ahead. Much bravado filled the van about how it did not seem particularly intimidating. I guess time will tell!

Today we are checking out our start town and meeting up with the rest of our crew. In total there are 26 Canadians from the Vancouver area over for the race. Joerg Becker http://www.magicplaces.com/ has been running trips to the Tour TranAlp since its inception. He lives in the interior of BC and we used his vast knowledge of the logistics required to help plan our trip. This year he is running support for multiple teams. After a great breakfast and registration, we intended to go for a ride but again the skies opened up and rain poured down. Shelve that idea for a little while. Instead we cleaned and tuned bikes and stocked the van for the week ahead. Everyone hunkered down under the awning and we all got to know each other a bit better.


Joerg has managed to garner us some small perks. We are all starting in the first start block tomorrow so we have only 100 riders ahead of us, and 900 behind us. That should make the start a little less hairy. He also managed to get Trevor Linden his favorite number so the beast goes off with plate #16. Dave and I have #76. My partner is Dave MacLennan who is a colleague from work. This is his first road race also and he is a little leery as to what the week ahead will bring. I think that his biggest worry is not the length or breadth of the race (he has cycled across Canada) but the tight quarters that a peloton will bring and the possibility of “road crashes”. It is my opinion that in a lot of crashes most of the variables are out of your control. Hopefully we will be in the right place at the right time, and not the opposite.

Tomorrow is Day 1, and the first pass, the Oberjoch awaits us 15 km out. I have butterflies already.

Tour TransAlp 2009: Introduction to Hell

The Jeantex Tour-TransAlp http://www.tourtransalp.de/englisch is a 7 day road race traveling this year from Sonthofen in Germany to Arco in Italy. The dates of this year’s event are June 28th to July 4, but the week has been at the forefront of my psyche for the last 12 months.While my partner and I were racing the TransRockies last year we talked to several of the original organizers of the mountain bike Bike-TransAlp from Europe. We had heard about the road version of this classic race the year before, and knew that there was a good possibility that they could assist us in getting an entry. We had had such a good time racing the mountain bike version as a group of four with supporting driver that we thought why not expand the idea and bring over a larger group. In November our plans came true when we secured 10 entries. Since then we have been training hard, while looking forward to a wicked week of riding.

I have never attended a road race before, so this is quite jump into the deep end. This year’s version is the 4th annual and is 880 km. long with almost 18,000 m. of elevation gain. It traverses through some of the major passes of the Alps, and visits portions of several classic Giro d’Italia stages. Our start location is in Germany and in general the course rolls south and east through the Alps to finish in Northern Italy on the east edge of the Dolomiti just north of beautiful Lake Garda.

We are all approaching this week with significant trepidation. For many this is their first road race, and for others their first attempt at a multi-day tour. A few have some history of road racing, but to remember the lessons learned requires a very deep reach into distant memories. Whatever the past history, the week is sure to bring a quick education. Two days in particular bring out a cold sweat on my brow.

Day 5 traverses a 118km route from Naturns to Livigno in Italy. In between there is 3600 m of elevation to climb including the Stilfserjoch or Stelvio pass, the highest pass in the eastern Alps.Stelvio is an intimidating beast. The approach to the pass displays the entire 24.5 km., 1850 m climb including its 49 switchbacks in its entirety. Can we say “mess with your mind?” This winter I found this website that describes the difficulty of a climb in numeric terms. The formula is (H/D*100)*4 + H2/D + D/1000). My local mountain Cypress comes out with a difficulty of 76, Stelvio has a difficulty of 194! Ouch!!!!!

Follow this day up with Day 6, a 181 km day that climbs not one, not two, but five major passes. Four have a difficulty comparable to Cypress, and the middle one Passo Gavia climbs 1400 m over 26 km. Uli Stanciu says “It is not only the master route of this race, it's also the toughest stage of all Jeantex-TOUR-Transalps ever: almost 181 kilometers and a difference in altitude of 3,770 meters - that will command respect even from the best.” .

Welcome to our nightmare. Stay tuned for regular updates.

Test of Metal 2009

The Test of Metal 2009 went off on a perfect day in Squamish June 20. Almost 1000 riders finished the race. Conditions could not have been better for racing. The last few weeks have been very dry which hardened the course up. Rain the day before the race knocked the dust down and provided a very tacky surface ideal for racing. A new course record was set by Max Plaxton who literally blew the field away. By the time he exited the Alice Lake loop he already had a 2 minute lead on the other elite riders and he extended from there to the finish winning by almost 5 minutes in 2:30:15Steed riders ripped the field. Notable results in the top 100 included Matt Green finishing in 6th, Andy Traslin in 12, Justin Mark in 38th, and Mike Traslin in 71st. The better half of the Steed team was well represented by Melanie Vaughan finishing 4th in Female Elite (116th), Carey Sather 3rd in Womens 40-49 (431st) and Calindy Ramsden 1st in Womens under 20 (476th). Full results at http://testofmetal.com/media/Results/2009TOMResultsOverall.pdf

Spectators were out in force following the action in a multitude of locations.

It is the enthusiasm of these supporters that make this this the classic race that it is. Hats off to all these individuals and the volunteers that make this the amazing event that it is.

The Peruvian Posts: Riding the High Andes

Our trip to the high Andes once again started with the 0500 wakeup and then transfer to the airport. Arrival at the airport revealed mass chaos as it had apparently been closed for several hours because of fog the day before. All flights were backed up and our supposed 1000hr flight finally left at 1600 hrs. This put us into Cusco too late for our planned ride, so we immediately reverted to plan B and hung out on the balcony of the restaurant attached to our hotel. The local drink Pisco Sour soon made an appearance and the night deteriorated from there. Our hotel was on the main square of Cusco and the walls of a few of the rooms dated from the Inca empire circa 1400. The quality is quite amazing; there is often less than a millimeter between adjacent blocks. The engineering and quality of the work is such that local earthquakes regularly send walls from the Spanish conquest crashing to the ground while the Inca ones remain upright and 100% intact.

From Cusco we headed out into the high Andes and for several of us the party of the night before really had a deleterious effect on our ability to ride.Our first ride started with a climb of about 300 m starting at about 14000 ft. Altitude has a funny way of making sure that any testosterone is checked at the door. Pretty much everyone found their own rhythm and spun up the climb, arriving at the top when their personal fitness level allowed it. Once at the top we were treated to a day of riding on a portion of the Inca trail. We found portions of the trail very flowy, as we cruised by small settlements and farms. Other sections were very technical with very steep rocky steps and significant exposure off the side of the trail. Two sections stand out best in my mind; the first was a technical descent through a narrow creek gorge with bridges made of weaved 1 to to 2 inch tree trunks crossing from one side to the other. The other section occurred a little later in the day as we exited the gorge and wove our way around the side of the mountain that had made up the left side of the trail. One second we were riding along in a fairly enclosed place, and the next we exploded out in to the open with the view off the right side of the trail showing a small city about 2000 ft straight down below us.
Over the next few days we rode several sections of the Inca trail, progressively moving farther up in the mountains and farther out from civilization. The native population began to wear much more classic Incan clothes and the farming became much smaller in size and more reliant on physical human labor. Most of the farming was done on small terraces leveled off the side of the mountains. Surprisingly, when you think that we were riding at altitudes up to 15200 ft., one would imagine our surroundings would include massive peaks covered in snow. Perhaps because we were only slightly south of the equator there was only small amounts of snow visible and only on the occasional peak, most of which we were told had elevations in excess of 20,000 ft. Our rides in the high Andes very definitely gave you that feeling of isolation; we were riding trails that very rarely see people other that local inhabitants, let alone mountain bikers. Jayo our guide arranged for us to have lunch one day with a local farming family. Our meal consisted of locally grown corn (the kernels are three times the size that we see here in Canada) and potatoes (potatoes were first discovered in Peru and then taken back to Europe) washed down with coca leaf tea. Afterwards we were treated to a display of locally made handicrafts by the village women. On the last day we finished by riding right into Cusco. The view as we descended down into the city was spectacular, and as we made our way through the city we descended many sets of stairs and would our way through a maze of side streets and alley. Eventually we finished right in front of our hotel in the main square of Cusco…high fives all round for a wicked Peruvian adventure.