Riding in Deutschland

Made it to Germany from Sea Otter with not major issues. Flight was a bit long having to fly from San Francisco all the way to Frankfurt...but a good window seat and a few hours of sleep made for a quick flight. We landed on Frankfurt on Tuesday morning about 10 AM...then it was a 50 minute car ride to Koblenz and the Ergon world headquarters. Dave and myself spent the better part of the day getting new bikes built and getting ready for the trip to Offenburg in the coming days. To cure the airplane legs, we headed out with Kim in the early evening for about 1.5 hours of riding in the hills that surround town.


Kim, Dave, and myself start the ride with a little climbing.



You climb enough, and you get some good views of the city and Rhine River.



On Wednesday, the plan was to pack up the Team trailer and head to Offenburg to get set up. Dave an myself got in a 3 hour tempo along the Mossel River before we would be stuffed into a VW Eurovan for 4 hours of Autobahn time. We made it into Offenburg around 9 PM. We followed that up with a quick dinner and some much needed sleep.



Thursday was all about riding. Dave and myself headed out to explore the Black Forest area. There was a huge map in the hotel will all the roads listed in the area. Dave took the time to map out a super-loop. It involved about 4.5 hours of pedaling and nearly 5,500 ft of climbing. It was an excellent loop with some pavement and some logging roads.



Climbing...



Navigating...



Refueling...



Descending...



"We are going up there."



Pick a trail...any trail.



Long and steep dirt climbs lead to...



...kick ass views.



Once we got done with the ride we rolled back to the race venue to wait for Wolfram to arrive. Once he did...we hit the race course for a bit of a pre ride.





The course is short. Lap times during the race will be less than 20 minutes. The course is soft dirt and roots. Almost a Wisconsin flavor. What makes this course hard? 3 specific spots with nasty steep chin-to-seat drops. Commit to it or not. Don't even think about bailing mid point. You will die. I have no shame in saying I walked 2 of the 3.

Tomorrow we start video and photo shooting. Stay tuned. And keep checking here for photo updates.