42 percent - My time trial Hamburg-Berlin 2010 I look at the map. Look at me the place exactly. Zoom in, can see it exactly. The card looks so friendly. Blue River. Greenery. All friendly Sun Inviting. More beautiful than it was. On Saturday. There, yes, right there, because I gave up the race.
at 42 percent.
Just 116 kilometers far can I take my legs, on that 16th October 2010. And not a meter. I climb out. I groan out jack. Disappointed, disillusioned. Devastated: Gone are the contest idea, the time trial to Hamburg-Berlin. Concluded from.
is the worst: For Steve, my team partner, it went so well. Is considered only by those who as a team - who together - arrives. Settle, let someone back get off someone who does not count. Brevet ride, that is just above all, to go as a team.
All or none. And in our case now so no.
this on race day I was actually really good on it. Getting up at 3:30 for a clock - traditionally before a race - very short, mostly sleepless night, I usually surprisingly good. I torture my pure muesli, I am already almost normal-get down. Today it is more important: energy for my leg motor.
Steven, Sunclass my team-mate, picked me up 5:15 clock in the long line. It is drizzling. It is cold. Really cold!
We sit at Nicole in the van, his girlfriend drives us, the middle seats have been removed, his time trial bike and my Cervélo P2 R3 fit into it comfortably. I can relax, the ride takes about 45 minutes in the dark. Hamburg is already behind us. Nothing but pitch-black night, dancing rain drops in the spotlight.
It is raining. But my packed with 10 layers of plastic wrap Toppits feet close-by and animals should be stunning Smell hold ...
some point, it's the dark meandering dike, peel the roadside silhouettes drought figures from the Dark: The Randonneurs.
cars, vans, caravans to park dozens of the dike. In a small party tent behavior of the RG final sprint glowing light - About a hundred shivering shadows stand in line, start numbers are distributed. Huge number of race wheels are leaning against the discounts. Most expensive carbon steel and Alurenner cars - a handful of recumbent bikes and a few velomobiles.
I meet Ollie, my Berlin recumbent colleagues. I meet with Morten, the fastest Lige cyclists I know (and the longest at that) and some other familiar faces. But somehow they are all far away: Far away, probably already on the immense I always occurring, 280 km route to the capital.
But I am prepared: 4-layer functional clothes should I keep it warm! (If they did not.)
And I also here today. Will my first road bike season end with a bang. My Palm to add a name, Brevet Hamburg-Berlin. Sounds good.
Inside, in the ferry house, they have set up a breakfast at its best. Dressed in colorful clothes of their favorite brands and cycling clubs Crouching over steaming coffee they dig themselves into scrambled eggs, eat yogurt, as yesterday was the first-wall stuff worked, the banana in his pockets and stacked slices of ham on the dark whole grain breads. Carbohydrates stash!
Opposite me sits Phaelim, Irish Randonneur I got to know one of my favorite deck cycling. He and his likeable quirky, British colleague taking a trip today on a tandem in attack.
Ollie decides to not to take. I am sorry, but respect his decision: After all, for today is all-day rain and a headwind the day. Temperatures around 7 degrees and the fact that M5 Lowracer be recumbent in this weather the warranty for 10 hours full-sodden freezing is to let him make this decision objectively. And yet I see disappointment in his eyes.
disappointment that I will soon have much better empathize.
Nicole and Steven leave. I eat quickly to an end: 7:02 clock is our start time. It's all in a trance - like a movie that attracts me by: We roll to the bank. Turn our lights on. I'm freezing notice nothing because I am so excited. Someone calls out "start numbers 210 and 211 on the track!" This is us! And before I know it, we must be going.
time trial Berlin-Hamburg: We're off! Unbelievable. Steven is the navigator - every few hundred meters Garmin beeps his turn. It's still dark, although I can already see on the horizon is a silver lining: there wins the day over the cold night. We drive along the bank, turn off at some point on a roundabout and are on a major road: Single. Hamburg? Seems to me hundreds of miles away.
But soon I see behind the dancing lights of another group. Come closer. Since we both do not know how fast we are, we take a comfortable speed. to pump iron now makes no sense. To whom it brings what, them all to hang out when we then after 100 miles more than any seeds?
Steve goes quiet and round, I find my step, and as we overtook the first group of about 10 km / h excess, I have to just grin: Now I have other worries. The cold is expected ... cold. And my body can (still) do not produce enough heat to keep me warm.
Thank God I'm still me just quickly pulled a long sweater before my baggage was on the bus to Berlin. Only with my 4 layers of clothes bike I would not have survived today. But clearly, to go with a cotton sweatshirt, is somehow anything but sporty. As the sweater today Evening will smell, I can imagine me now.
is miles and miles it brighter. The delicate silver coating is working more and more into a veil of light, Fluorescent Grey. A beautiful sight. And a frightening about this: After all, I can see now what we can expect throughout the day - thick, thick rain clouds!
We cross a highway, have the same dam and the left hand of us and drive around 29 to 31 km / h. It is drizzling, cold me crawling along the face and Steven is continuously on Naseschnauben. I do not want to know how many liters of snot I have distributed in the first hour already on my shoulders.
As we pass through a small, remote place, an age-old grandmother on the roadside weeds in her front yard flower smock. When she sees us she exclaims: "But you are late!"
I have no words.
Is it bad cut grandma?
We are making good progress - even in spite of the headwind, the us, according as we are now back to the dike along jagged, sometimes with sharp side but from the front brakes usually gusty. Then I bless God, the cross-town trips: Behind the rows of houses, you can connect is a quiet, sheltered from the wind.
Marschacht Tespe and fly past, it's raining again stronger. After 30 minutes of opening I got my first Nutrixxion Powergel - for today I have 10 Money with it and plan to provide me every hour with a bag. Lemon Fresh pappsüße I press my stuff into the mouth - disgusting. But effective. rinsed briefly, then it's back in driving attitude.
Two, three other groups move past us. When we make the first bathroom break, another two groups. Then a white velomobile - and a little later the yellow velomobile. And that has a special meaning. After all, this has been the last starter. So now I know that everyone is on the line. And no less a Christian than sitting by a mountain ash at the wheel, the man of the 6 and 12-hour world record has held.
like a futuristic spaceship hiss the sun fellow past us. 60 km / h is he can do. And that's not even the tip - if it is as bright as day once, they will turn up in their daring boxes probably correct.
Bleckede is towards it, we drive around the dike. Strong winds tear again on our bikes. We swear in the twilight, sometimes we cry - but mostly to talk Steve and I about this and that.
right And so we go at it loose. "Today, the fun is quite big," I still had joked at the start trembling. And that was quite serious: None of us ever drove 280 km at a stretch. As we go on the safe side and go on arrival.
Bleckede We leave the 10th miles from the New Darchau, and what's now, I already know of one, two sun-cycling: Mountains. Well, say, increases. In New Darchau but first we hold on to a Edeka, I put myself under a carport beside a bag of bark mulch, Steven buys batteries inside. "It does not beep!" He had earlier called. And the Garmin today should turn out better not. "I'm the good times Duracell taken," he says.
I fill my own bottles, mix me a drink Iso and I am very proud of us when we find ourselves behind another group of cyclists racing again - and catch up. work wave after wave, we ran: Not bitten biting, but very quiet.
at the first ramp we have them.
"Moin!" I call out from behind. The last two of the five turn around, saying nothing, looking only comment on the slope. There may of 10, 11 percent go to the top. Okay then do not, your rude ... Racing cyclists! They were probably in Berlin. Or they had to do with the ramp enough, as politeness costs unnecessarily precious watts.
mountain, as always, I'm somehow a Surplus. Effortlessly, I let the group - but also Steve - are on the rise and dash to the top.
My Cervélo R3 seems to be a mountain goat. Then let me fall I, collecting Steven again and after the second increase is the Moser group to pee. Steven and I are alone again.
We the mountains behind us - the only significant climbs this trip - and drive to become ordinary Daylight quality through a beautiful landscape dike. Krüppelweieden, lush meadows, and occasionally sheep or cattle, and a magnificent reward for us same drizzle in the face, cold feet and burning thighs.
pure contrast: How beautiful, the landscape, how cruel, that day!
The wind is the worst. He does not blow constantly, but comes in gusts, the tug on my bike. Steven, with his aerodynamic Triathlon since it even more difficult because the wind is from the site has to be extra flunderflaches roar attack. Sometimes the wind slows us down to 20 mph. Often I can only drive in an average response of the small leaf.
How do the just the other?
not too different, we think it is. Only that are well trained.
We do not talk much, but if so, we joke and make us courage.
Otherwise we bite us firmly in the arms, bend forward to our hard saddles and turns trying the other to go along in the slipstream. Crosswind that works only minimal.
Meanwhile, there is as bright as day - or what one could call it that. The sky is a thick, ragged clouds waste soup - evidence for all the work of the wind. Willows and poplars bend to rule, if the cold air masses tugging at her. The tall grass produced on the meadows swell. We have two drivers fighting Cervélo us lonely lot of holes in asphalt kilometers and kilometers.
first, than at any time of the dike is high right next to us - twice, three times as high as at the beginning - he creates enough wind protection to let us go for a few miles in the wind shadow. And hey, we even come across the 30 mph!
It is only 20 kilometers to the first checkpoint and Steven, it can hardly be expected: after all, his friend with the van on the road and will await him there. Pure motivation, of course. Waiting for me in Dömitz a hot coffee (I hope) and something to eat, because my strategy for me to eat only gel suggests today failed somehow.
We take a small country road, we wind hisses around the ears and I can almost feel the lactic acid in my thighs. At some point, we turn to the right on a busy, almost like a highway road upgraded from: "6 km Dömitz" stands on it and suddenly I feel victory swell up inside me.
The first checkpoint! The first damned checkpoint at your fingertips! But on the gas - but not over-tighten. Now purely show off again - but do not get ready. Easier said, for these last 6 kilometers it has in itself, since we in the wind. The direction of travel is now directly to North-East: The 191 makes it hard for us!
Ah, how much I enjoy it, how much I hate that! This duality of sport: the joy of their own suffering. The more it hurts, the more Endor Fine. Incredible or what? Saliva run me out of the mouth. I bite. Force myself. Fucking bridge!
Then she peels off the bridge peel itself from the haze. We did it, ah, sweet victory. We hard bitches, we heroes. We are fighters, warriors of the pinion. The first checkpoint, just 100 kilometers - and I feel like I had just won Olympic gold.
And yet: *** This shit weather, in this brutal Saukälte Fu and the wind! We have made it. Nicole is ready to take pictures, one beckons us to a parking space.
There they stand, 20, 30 brevet rider, around a table resting, eating and drinking plenty of set up. I brake, had no eyes or ears for Nicole. Steven is somewhere behind me in her arms. I'm freezing, shivering, me pelleted from the wheel, it opposed to the concrete monument on the occasion of the bridge after the turn and throw myself on the boxes, in which whole grain bread with cheese and sausage are stacked: Paradise!
breathe two sandwiches at once I literally away: stomach cramps me batting through the abdomen. set was probably not my digestive system so much hard food. Phaelim and his tandem Beipilot standing there to greet us us, wind and cold water drawn. Quiet jokes are made.
sit behind my wheel 4 Cervélo time trial machine at the pillars - the associated triathletes, all around 20, 22 years young - Milchbubigesichter, fall shy of the boxes and eat yogurt again. Is this a road bike trick?
Steve and I feast, a coffee, a second coffee. Ah, this warmth, this mucke celled heat to the fingers. Can I pour a cup of hot coffee just about my Eiszehen?
Nicole says: "You hobble yes!"
I shake my head, trying to grin.
We have 15 minutes. Most are anyway by - two, three are pending. Including a single driver, which we christened the "closet wall": it has legs as thick as the bridge piers of Dömitz and a backpack on his back, which would have relaxed the shoe cupboard my girlfriend found the place. Crazy type. Eyes like an eagle, but to a sympathetic smile, a very likeable. Stands there, not even strapped on his backpack, very cool, drinking coffee and eating his cheese sandwich.
The wall unit wins today definitely the cool prize.
Most break even again. The Cervélo-Boys are gearing up for launch. Rise. Come clean. Nozzles. For us, it is now Time. One of the local organizers me courage to speak (why?): "No thing, the weather is shitty, but you manage it, do not worry!"
Na jut. If you say so.
had not asked though. But
well.
Groaning. Difficult. If I go back on my road bike: Directly above the rump I have a painful vertebral block, which takes me almost breathless when I stretch myself. Hossa na! In racing attitude, I feel nothing, but if I am. First deficits just before half way. That is, I think.
Is that cold? I am much attracted to thin (along with water-permeable), I know. What drafts within cause of 3 hours, I can see now all.
again groaning we make ourselves back on track. 100 km made it - Well, look, runs it! As long as we go in the woods, at least the wind away.
Does not!, I think, as I start just 5 kilometers to Dömitz to feel my knee. It stands directly under the left patella, with each revolution to me an unpleasant pain travels through the leg.
Take Out, Reduce speed, do not connect too hard!
I fall back a bit, Steven notices it immediately and brakes.
"Everything okay?" He asks.
"No." I gasp as I expected back from a squall balance brings. "The knee!" We immediately reduce the speed to take out, I apply myself to deliberately do not put too much pressure on the pedal to want to forgive. To drive in this wind even approximately in the high 20's range, you have to connect halt. Everything else slows down to 20 now, 18 km / h down.
Since the cupboard pulls past us. It hangs loosely on his steel Renner. The kick around, no trace of effort. A pleasant smile, winks at us. "Well, yes we have done the same." He says, grinning and is already 20 meters ahead of us.
"Yeah-ha!" Can we get there only after stilted.
I realize that it can not go on.
But what should I do? Still further reduce the speed? Then we can move the same. Apart from the fact that the aim in Berlin is only open to 22 clock.
alight? Really? ? Abandonment How is this possible - just stop? How do you say something to his teammates? Or should I not push it again? True purely depend - teeth bite together, eye to the core!
But it drives me up the back leg.
Arthrosopie is not mine. If the knee is once ruined, it will never again like before. But the knee is not joking! And yet: The Cyclassics I also had short Knee pain - have been eating them, pushed away. Was that! But these were only 155 kilometers. In 25 degree sunshine. Today, that's a different number: 280 kilometers. And 20 degree wind chill less.
I bite. Pull myself together.
And notice how weak I am. Steven drives off me all the time. He lies there on his triathlon bike comes hard - but some. And me? I can not even hold a 27 km / h-lee ...
I pull next to him. And it has to say: ".. To Wittenberg, Steve's where I get on the train There is not any more!"
Now it is out. All. That's it. Pronounced failure. Sealed. Decided Thing. Dry to make the bitter disappointment in me wide. It is the first race I give up. A blow to the gut. safe for him.
Up Wittenberge yet - 16 kilometers to the slow speed. Then train.
Steve calls immediately Nicole. If she could pick us up. And like magic it's there for only 3 minutes. Was probably right behind us.
I feel like shit. Lenzen. My exit point. Place of failure. Lenzen. That is for me today for a "disgrace". Lenzen, 116th km 42 percent of the route. 42 percent. Not even half done. Not even the Cyclassics distance. Not even the worst of the Münsterland Giro.
but tastes bitter As task. Disgusting. I could cry.
Steve will still continue. meaningless for the championship, he will at least still train a little bit. He starts to move, sure - he will be disappointed infinite. As he moves from there as this, still beckons, I feel dirty. As a traitor. An awful feeling.
Nicole looks after touching: The van is heated like a sauna, have a steaming-hot lemon, there are all sorts of delicacies and licorice, chicken thighs. Seventh heaven. For Loser.
We keep joking us. But every time we get people belonging to the Association, it cuts deep into my heart: the Cervélo-Boys, the wall unit, even the tandem we catch up.
I feel like a mangy dog.
Steven enters at km 160th The GPS track was gone. 500 Webpunkte maximum. For it is the end. At least he fails at just the technique, not of himself but always disappointing.
I sit in the ground, in front of me, tied up the race wheels. There are still 120 miles to Berlin.
astray. I shake my head just yet. Incomprehensible to me. Incredible!
The ride is quiet. Although Nicole and Steven are talking in front, try involve me, my mood at the low point. Much it is to me. to have stopped here today, I can not believe always, 'What started as a project "Shiny end of the season" ends, this time as "disgraceful Jahresendpeinlichkeit.
Now. A few hours later, I meet again Olli, who is now in civilian clothes and I will pick up with the combination on target. Envy is written to me in the face: the envy of all who have made it.
world champion Christian mountain of ash sits and talks shop. Okay, with a 70 km / h fast velomobile, fully dressed ... we had expected of him otherwise. Much more respect I have for the trembling, dry, wet types and women who fought drifting off again. And
would like to be one of them.
nobody. Really no one, not the 16th of this October in ice-cold 5 degrees in the drizzle in the darkness stood at Altengamme dike and trembled, no one who has not got up at 3, 4 clock this free Saturday and waited in the Boers of the North-east wind on the starting number, no one else can even begin to imagine what was the Hamburg-Berlin-time trial in 2010.
nobody. And no one may venture an opinion. On drivers who have not appeared for the start. Concerning drivers, although they appeared, but not started, and not us - namely concerning drivers, who have dropped during the race.
And who still does is nothing more than an idiot who has no idea.
other way around: Chapeau! Hats off and a deep bow to the men and women who fought through fog banks, over muddy, slippery roads, by the cool, pulling drizzle (and later real rain in Berlin) and against the constantly blowing against the wind the 280 miles to the finish have! Hats off - a performance you've done, you can not imagine. Really. And I came around a lot.
I've seen the mud-faces. The trembling like a leaf. Have seen how they come any more, let alone could go. As war veterans, Argus Schiffer, back from the dead. Only game in town - you deserve my respect. And my jealousy: for I had to give up was not strong enough.
And funny: Today, Monday, I feel like I could have done it yet. Look outside - it is klirrekalt, but in a blue sky is a sun that brings warmth to the heart at least. Funny, I think when the time trial would have been discharged only today ...
But that makes no sense. Brevet riders ride in any weather. And in sunshine, no wind, no wonder it did everyone. Yesterday, the, yes, it was time driving weather. Men temperatures. Rain. Squalls. Not for sissies, not for Knirscheknie.
But 2011th
It will be my year!
2011th October. I will arrive in Berlin.
Safe!
hazards: 116.8 km in 4:28 hours with 26.7 km / h Net section
managed 42% of the route.
.
