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11th Trentino Bike Marathon in Riva Del Garda
Day of the marathon, so I have to get up early again and all alone this time. Eric will not put his knee to the strain of all these meters of altitude, but he'll follow the race of course. As we are a team, I can't help it to rattle the pasta pots at this early hour!
Before entering the starting lineup I already did a small warming up. It's not that my ambitions are that high, but the new starting location is in Riva so the first kilometers will be on flat roads to Arco and I expect we'll race like crazy right from the start.
The speaker takes care of the atmosphere and at 8am sharp a shot starts the race. Wheel in wheel with the pro's such as Platt, Heymans, Frischknecht, Sauser, even our Poelvoorde, Tomlinson,... we're racing to Arco at speeds well above 40km/h. I've never raced this fast from Riva to Arco :-)
The climb to Santa Barbara starts with a narrow asphalt road and here you have to fight to defend your position again en fight again to overtake. In this crowd I recognize a familiar voice, it's Luc from team Forza. He follows my advice (use your elbows!) efficiently it seems, because he's climbing just a bit faster than me... but for me as well the speed is high. I reach the 1200m of altitude at least 6 minutes faster than last year.
The following downhill requires a lot of attention. Again some of these guys are flying down without really knowing what they are doing. Halfway down it happened. One of them crashed, is screaming of pain and covered with blood. The red cross people are with him but don't know where to start! I try not to put this in my mind and to keep the speed up... I'm part of a fast group and that can be useful in the next kilometers.
While riding towards Marroche I have to play a little act in the wheel of a guy from Austria. He's killing himself but he won't fool me to take the lead of this pack. While racing to Pietramurata we loose them one by one and only the best survive. As soon as we're on the asphalt again, I take a moment to recuperate because more climbing is coming up: over 500m in 2 steps with especially the first part that has more than 8%. This year I discover an incredible single trail, uphill as well as downhill. Last year the same trail made us suffer terribly.
After the Drena castle while climbing to Brailla, I choose the wheel of a German who is squeezing out all the horsepower (2) he can find in his in mobilhome. He's just about to go backwards, but due to him I miss the picture of the year! Right on that spot, my brother was sitting next to the track with the camera.
Next the track goes to Troiana and further uphill... to Santa Barbara again. Ronda extrema goes up to Santa Barbara twice this year because there is too much snow in Malga Campo and Malga Valestre. So the final climb is on gravel instead of asphalt. The altitude starts to wear me out and finally I do die! Luckily I catch up with Elena... however I don't remember exactly who catched up with who :-) Together we struggle our way to the top. Let me call it damage control. The downhill is too much for her, but as a gentleman I take the lead so that she can follow my track!
Once we're down, something strange happens. Take a dead E2Team biker, put him on a flat road with 5 beaufort headwinds and put the chain to the right. As a miracle things start to rotate! In the last few kilometers to the finish I win at least 10 positions and it feels like I'm racing as fast as this morning... The feeling at least.
Eddy (12-05-04)
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