Kraftwerktrophy 2009

Last saturday the Kraftwerktrophy 2009 was staged in Vienna – a 12h bicycle race for solo riders and 3-man teams.

My personal goal was to hit the 300km mark which i reached – I cycled 325km. actually i could have cycled more, but after 240km I became a bit lazy…

The event itself was amazing – perfectly organized, perfect weather, not too hot, sun all day but a bit too much wind.

With Jure Robic (4 times Race Across America winner), probably the best Ultra-Cyclist in the world at the moment, the event also had a very prominent starter and a well deserved winner.
Jure, who took the Kraftwerktrophy as a good training unit for the RAAM which is starting in 3 weeks, cycled some amazing 498km and was oly beat by a 3-man team, which cycled 504km, one round more than Jure.
all other teams, and of course solo starters, finished behind Jure Robic – simply amazing…

For me personally, the race started pretty badly – I went to the start-line and saw that my rear tyre was punctured. not a good start with 5minutes to the actual start.
so i went to the official race mechanic, and Robert (thanks again, even though you won’t read it here), fixed my tyre in an astounding sub-4-minutes.
the start flag was just lifted when I jumped over the fences and hit the road with only 200m behind the big peleton.

the rest of the race went pretty well – the first 240km were amazingly easy and i was very positive on going more than 300km. then, however, i started to get cramps in my left leg and i had to take it a bit easy. another problem was that i was there alone, so i dind’t have anybody to hand my fresh water bottles or anything to eat.
so i had to get off the bike myself, which also meant that i was losing the group i was cycling in…

with 75 minutes still to go, i had cycled 293km and i knew that the 300km wouldn’t be a problem. at the finish line my odometer showed 327,8km, the official report states 324,8km.

it was a fantastic weekend and a perfect event – looking forward to my next 12h race in 2 1/2 weeks, this time in Salzburg on the Salzburgring.