Ultimately THE highlight of my season, that what I have been training for since my accident last August. Taking last Friday off work in order to optimize final preparations, go over the bike properly and get everything packed up, headed to Hamburg on Saturday, the hottest day on German record, 40.1 degrees.
By end of Saturday a massive thunderstorm brought a bit of relieve, though. Raceday then felt ok, just 30 C but high humidity, you woul sweat even from sitting in the shade...Our's was the main race, starting at 15.00 when temperatures peaked and thunder could already be heard in the distance. The race was held on fully closed circuit with a 1300m climb to be ascended 20times!!!
I had never done any masters racing in Germany before but now can say, this was quite unlike anything I have ever raced before. 100 super fit pro-looking riders, many of them with a glorious past, some of them ex Pros, ex champs, many of them still elite riders. You could feel that during the race as the peloton rode so tightly packed and each individual so skillful that I always had contact to fellow's shoulders and elbows as the default position. Sudden sverving and change of line (not so pro) as well as Kamikaze dive bombing before curves seemed to be another set of unusual default tactics, fearless, reckless, 100% risk, that's how they do their racing. I was shellshocked and hated it from the start. But being German I soon adopted this kind of style and after having had lost a lot of ground in the first 3 laps I stormed to front of the race after about 4 laps. It turned out later that I rode that lap faster than anyone else at any other stage of the race and won the KOM on this circuit on Strava. After 7 laps I could feel the field tiring, no suicidal dive bombing anymore, constant high speed so that there were no surprising attacks attempting any breaks. The peloton had been quite decimated. When I accelerated up the finishing straight in lap 9, nobody followed and I got a bit of a gap. Soon joined by another guy, last year's winner coincidentally, we obviously were meant to be targets but we held the gap for half a lap and got caught on the fast decent on our tenth lap before turning left into the finishing straight again. By that time it had began to drizzle a bit and lots of riders screamed "vorsicht", remanding people to be extra careful, which I was, I promise! I went 5th wheel into the curve, about 40km/h instead of the usual 55km/h. But I had no chance, my front wheel just went, like on ice or....yes right, OIL. It was discovered a few laps later that an oil trace on the road had caused crashes once the road got a little wet. I was unlucky that I rode the curve on the line of the spillage. Whilst I was being treated by the race doctor, another crash happend in the following curve, but with many more down and one rider severely injured. That was also the moment the peloton shattered in pieces and a group of 4 went off the front. Not much to my interest any more as I had sustained quite a lot of roadrash again, most of the skin that had healed already 3 times over the past 3 months had been torn open again, heavy bruising to hip and elbow and possibly damaged ac joint again, can't turn my head to the left and got awfully sore triggerpoints around should and spine. Bike seems ok, shoes damaged though. Family happy I can still limp around. I have never had so many crashes in such short period of time and am seriously contemplating about this..
I had never done any masters racing in Germany before but now can say, this was quite unlike anything I have ever raced before. 100 super fit pro-looking riders, many of them with a glorious past, some of them ex Pros, ex champs, many of them still elite riders. You could feel that during the race as the peloton rode so tightly packed and each individual so skillful that I always had contact to fellow's shoulders and elbows as the default position. Sudden sverving and change of line (not so pro) as well as Kamikaze dive bombing before curves seemed to be another set of unusual default tactics, fearless, reckless, 100% risk, that's how they do their racing. I was shellshocked and hated it from the start. But being German I soon adopted this kind of style and after having had lost a lot of ground in the first 3 laps I stormed to front of the race after about 4 laps. It turned out later that I rode that lap faster than anyone else at any other stage of the race and won the KOM on this circuit on Strava. After 7 laps I could feel the field tiring, no suicidal dive bombing anymore, constant high speed so that there were no surprising attacks attempting any breaks. The peloton had been quite decimated. When I accelerated up the finishing straight in lap 9, nobody followed and I got a bit of a gap. Soon joined by another guy, last year's winner coincidentally, we obviously were meant to be targets but we held the gap for half a lap and got caught on the fast decent on our tenth lap before turning left into the finishing straight again. By that time it had began to drizzle a bit and lots of riders screamed "vorsicht", remanding people to be extra careful, which I was, I promise! I went 5th wheel into the curve, about 40km/h instead of the usual 55km/h. But I had no chance, my front wheel just went, like on ice or....yes right, OIL. It was discovered a few laps later that an oil trace on the road had caused crashes once the road got a little wet. I was unlucky that I rode the curve on the line of the spillage. Whilst I was being treated by the race doctor, another crash happend in the following curve, but with many more down and one rider severely injured. That was also the moment the peloton shattered in pieces and a group of 4 went off the front. Not much to my interest any more as I had sustained quite a lot of roadrash again, most of the skin that had healed already 3 times over the past 3 months had been torn open again, heavy bruising to hip and elbow and possibly damaged ac joint again, can't turn my head to the left and got awfully sore triggerpoints around should and spine. Bike seems ok, shoes damaged though. Family happy I can still limp around. I have never had so many crashes in such short period of time and am seriously contemplating about this..
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