Crazy mad fools, Dan and Dom decided to ride the Transalp, the toughest mountainbike stage race in Europe. Several hundred competitors ride the 8 day race from Mittenwald in Germany to Lake Garda in Italy. This is Dom’s account of Germans who get up too early and can’t ride downhills, Bratwurst, cramp, and all the other forms of suffering you can think of. Click Here for the English version of the official Transalp website. To cut straight to some photos, Click Here.
Prologue
Arrive at Munich airport and enjoy the three-hour wait whilst Dan’s flight gets in. He seems somewhat put out that I haven’t done anything remotely useful in those hours save read my book. Anyway, we make our way into downtown Munich, hefting bikes on the S-bahn and then through the busy market place, cursing their bulk as we go. Check into hotel and then head out for traditional German dinner – essentially large pieces of meat and dumplings. However, given our lack of Deutsch we could be ordering calves brains for all we know, with or without dumplings it’s not a welcome prospect. Next morning we’re up and at ‘em bright and early, again fighting with cumbersome bike bags across town to the S-bahn to the station. Onto the train and happily we’re in a compartment with a bunch of crazed Irishmen so we get some ‘banter’ as the mountains approach. At Mittenwald we bodge the bikes together on the station platform as two scouts head off to find the sign in. Eventually we end up there, only to find that only one of us has any passport photographs or money and that he has managed to forget the confirmation letter required by the organisers (I think I got as far as reading the line ‘Congratulations, you are successfully entered into the 2002 Transalp challenge’ before putting the letter down somewhere). Inevitably this produces much amusement from the Irish, as does our cadging 20E off them later on to pay for lunch, leading to ‘Dan and Dom’ becoming ‘Dumb and Dumber’ in their eyes. Later on after a very sweaty ‘Pasta Party’ (woo – no dumplings) we retire to our luxury accommodation on the floor of an army barracks. We’re rooming with some jet-lagged Americans, Team Elsworth no less, who spend a weary night of 3am reading and other sundry delights.
Transalp Day One: Mittenwald – Imst.
Breakfast is in the army canteen where we try and stuff as much food inside us as possible and then attempt to cram all my belongings into the bag provided. Then off to the start line for the tedious race briefing before those hours of nervous pre-race waiting in the blazing sun. Then it’s 12 o’clock and we’re off, lead through the town by the mayor of Mittenwald (presumably in his natty little 18 century outfit that he was wearing at the previous night’s pasta party) and then we head up the first climb, with the prospect of another 8 days of this in front of us. One of the Irishmen happens to mention that it’s 35 degrees. Oh good. We’re doing alright, spinning along at a reasonable pace, and then somewhere on the first real offroad climb I begin to feel utterly wretched, like I’m going to throw up. Can’t seem to stomach the Maxim in my Camelbak, so I’m not drinking enough and in the meantime sweating buckets. I ditch the energy drink at the bottom of he hill and fill up with water and cross my fingers. We arrive at the first checkpoint and someone mentions that we’re already halfway through the stage. Inevitably these words come back to bite us on the arse. Just before the second checkpoint my legs are cramping badly, I try and stretch it out but to no avail. Halfway up the last 800m climb it all goes wrong – I can barely walk let alone ride. Every 500m I have to stop it’s so bad, so getting to the top takes an age. By the time we get up there it’s definitely stopped being afternoon and has turned to evening, and there’s a helicopter coming in to rescue some poor space-blanket clad individuals sitting miserably at the top.
Hammer down the other side of the hill, with my legs still barely working, and then drag myself across the fields to finish 230th out of 250. I get off the bike and my legs lock solid, I try and stretch one muscle, but doing that just makes the others cramp. I am a jelly-legged, nauseous mess, even the masseurs can’t do anything with me, as soon as they attempt to massage one muscle my calves lock up. It’s great this Transalp lark.
Transalp day Two: Imst – Ischgl.
Turn up at the start line and do our walk of shame to the back of the starting area, a little jaunt that becomes horribly familiar as the week goes on. Roll out of the start and first up is 1000m climb. Take it nice and easy and crawl to the top with no problems. However, throw in another 900m of climbing (and some very sweet singletrack) and by the last 17km of horribly undulating trails and I am absolutely out on my feet with attacks of dry heaves coming thick and fast. Yesterday is taking its toll as I get off and push up a tarmac climb, hoping the end will come. Finally crawl into Ischgl, 8 hours after we set off this morning and feel like I want to die. Try and get some food down but all I want is the skin off the roast chicken in front of me as I crave salt and fat. Head to the camp, inside a tennis hall, and crawl inside my sleeping bag and hope that when I wake up all this will be over. However, I can’t sleep as all my muscles are again cramping – even the muscle underneath my chin goes into spasm whenever I yawn. I really want this to be over now. Later at the oppressively hot pasta party can barely get a thing down me and have to crawl outside to avoid spaying the table with sick. Wander back to the camp wondering if I am able to start tomorrow, but Dan mothers me and I later manage to force junk food down me in the form of chips and a cheese and ham toastie. It’s not complex carbohydrate but it sure tastes good.
Transalp Day Three: Ischgl – Nauders
Feel better in the morning and breakfast is still a struggle, not looking forward to the 1,300m first climb up to the highest point of the race either. Crawl up to the top, feeling as though I can at least ride today but still get overtaken by easily the most impressive rider in the race – Brett Wolfe, who has one less leg than me but is still riding me off the planet. It’s cold and damp too, just to add to our fun. However sweet singletrack on the downhill cheers us up, despite yet more Germans carrying their bikes down the hill; for some reason they just can’t descend. Get to the second checkpoint and are forced into buying Pepperami-type sausage from a vending machine in a bid to quell loathing for Xenofit bars (like Powerbars only less palatable – the Pineapple flavour is particularly indigestible). Of course everyone we’ve just passed on the descent comes tooling past us on the next road section pushing big gears. Catch most of them on the next climb and are soon dropping the final metres to the finish and eating chips and sausage in the sunshine. Skip the pasta party in favour of finding some proper food, well pizza anyway, can’t stomach another night of Nuddlen mit Fleischsauce.
Dom tried desperately to have Fun at the Funpark. Doesn’t look like much of a park to me.
Day Four: Nauders – Naturno
Woken at 5.30 yet again by Germans insistent on having a full two-and-a-half-hours to twiddle their thumbs in before the off. Not helped by some arse turning on the hand dryer in the toilets at 5am. Words fail us. Meet the Irish at the back of the grid, ironically their team doctor has gone sick and can barely ride today, wish him well then spend five minutes talking to some random American about Keith Bontrager and Gary Fisher. Then discover it is Bontrager I’m talking to. Thankfully the starting gun and another burst of the official Transalp song (Stand Up’ by Right Said Fred) hide my embarrassment. Roll out on the easy tarmac start and over the Italian border, get grief from teams behind us for riding two abreast, gosh, day four and already the scrapping for 200th place has begun. Despite this being the longest day there is very little of any interest on it; superfast tarmac and gravel bike paths dropping downhill for about 50km and then a 1000m fireroad climb just to finish the day off. However, there still seem to be a fair few binning it on the tarmac – horrible 30mph slide outs into walls and such like. Nearly get caught out myself drafting a tandem when it brakes suddenly. Cue dramatic fishtail slide as I attempt not to run into the back of them. Really hot today as well, as we’re mostly at low altitude chainganging along through the orchards and vineyards, last 10km or so are particularly roasting into a headwind with the finish never seeming to get any closer.
Day Five: Naturno – Merano
Shortest day today, only 54km, although with a monster of a stage tomorrow, we resolve to try and take it easy. And although shorter than the rest it still packs 2,100m of climbing, including the first beastie of 1,300m, which is a delightful 12% spin. Probably go too fast on it as usual but feeling good so why the hell not. Fantastic downhill the other side too – rocky, with loads of bedrock slabs to leap off and generally hammer down. Suits our freeride set-up down to the ground, lots of fun as we zip past all the closet roadies on semi-slicks who are making faces at the rocks. There’s even a piece of technical singletrack to bring us to the first checkpoint that has us beaming. Typically we spend far too long sitting around chatting whilst everyone else comes in snatches a mouthful of food and then races off. Must remember that we are, nominally at least, in a race. Hey ho. Very fast tarmac descent follows and then comes the sting in the tail – 300m of very steep road climb in the baking heat. Sweat is pouring off me and I’m forced to drop into the emergency gear – 22×34 as we haul ourselves up the road hairpins. Impressively Heather Dawe who’s got food poisoning is still keeping pace with us, which I suspect says more about us than anything else. Another blinding singletrack descent follows with predictable queues of pushing riders, still, nothing the occasional shout of “Achtung Spitfire!” can’t cure as we fight our way by. Seem to lose more and more friends on these descents. The only folk giving us any encouragement are those from the English-speaking parts of the world, bless ‘em. Still our highest finish so far, we seem to have started hauling ourselves up the overall ranking too by some miracle. Sit around for hours at the finish yet again and wonder why all the space in the gymnasium has already been taken by the time we get there. And the hot water for that matter. Tonight’s pasta meal is supplemented by some sort of bean-type dish with entirely predictable results. The mattress camp reverberates for most of the night – either with snores or loud farting. So this is living eh?
Day Six: Merano РMal̩.
This is unmistakably the big one – 3,500m of climbing over about 82km, even our road book warns: “This stage is very demanding both physically and technically, this can be considered the most demanding stage of the Transalp challenge, especially when considering the altitude distance.” Oh good, I remember day two being such a stroll in the park too. Again resolve to chill out on the first climb but almost certainly go harder than we want, the easy climb lulling us into a false sense of security. Cracking singletrack descent again – Dan catches and overtakes one of the motorcyclist rescue teams whilst I’m stuck behind the usual gaggle of wobbling Europeans, bikes in hands. However, that’s our fun over for the next, ooh, three hours or so as it’s climbing time. First up is 15km of steep tarmac purgatory that seems to go on forever, not helped by the fact that 2.2 tyres are just not designed for this sort of shit. Legs feel as though there’s nothing left in the tank and this is just the bottom of the climb. Turn off the road and ride up past a reservoir on gravel for about 5km before it turns back to tarmac for another steep 7km to checkpoint two. As we desperately refuel there are teams sitting all around us looking at their road books with worried faces, it’s only 10km to the top but there’s still about 1,000m of ascent still to go. About half-an-hour later we’re off the bikes and pushing, looking further up the hill there are tiny ant-like figures winding their way all the way up to the skyline ridge. Further on and just as we think we’re there, we realise exactly what the phrase ‘false summit’ means as we see there’s still a few km left of carrying. My legs now feel like lead, I just plod on out of habit, safe in the knowledge that it must, it has to, end soon. I’ve never been this tired, I haven’t blown yet, but the five previous days mean that I have no reserves of physical or mental strength to call on. Finally top out and begin the loose and steep descent down to the stage finish 20km away, excellent fun, but really don’t want to be on my bike anymore today and am hugely glad to see the finish line. Finish in eight hours something, can’t see how the pros have done it in four, just can’t comprehend the speed they must travel at. Also hear back at camp that Helen Jackson managed to break her collarbone at the bottom of the last climb yet still finished the stage. Unreal.
Day Seven: Mal̩ РAndalo
Another ‘easy’ day – 54km and 2,200m of climbing which after yesterday’s horrors will be a frolic in comparison. The day starts well as we turn up for breakfast to find that the town has decided to provide us with a very continental take on that all-important meal of the day – a bowl of coffee and one and a half bread rolls. No meat, cheese or cereal. Not even any butter or jam for the stale rolls. The looks on everyone’s faces as they realise this is it for the morning are a sight to behold – incredulity, hysterical giggles and plain old bemusement are all apparent. My school-boy German tells me that our Teutonic companions are none too happy with this state of affairs and there’s lots of raised voices asking how we are supposed to ride for four hours on these meager rations. “Perhaps it’s all part of the challenge,” says one. We head back to the camp and proceed to throw as many nutrigrain bars down our necks as possible in the hope that this will stave off the hunger for a little while. It’s the same old crowd leaving the camp last as usual; that’s to say, the Brits, Americans and Canadians who for some reason don’t need to sit on the start line for ¾’s of an hour. Unfortunately it’s another day of very little technical riding -all fireroad or tarmac which is a shame, as we seem to make up most of our time where everyone else is pushing. Even so, we hurtle along to a respectable finish in 146th place – we can tell we’re faster than usual as there are a lot of unfamiliar faces at every checkpoint, not to mention people who actually seem to be racing of all things. We have a renaissance on the last climb too, where after clawing our way up a steepish gravel track in reasonable form, we animal our way up the last part in middle-ring stamping frenzy. We catch that Keith Bontrager chappie on the run in to the finish too, which pleases us tremendously until Dan works out that he’s a good 20 years older than us. Crucially we put a huge dent into the time of our main British rivals, Team Fudge, and crawl in front of them for the first time all week, not that we’re racing you understand. Best of all later on at the camp the overall results are posted up and I run up the stairs giggling to tell Dan that we’ve hit our target of breaking into the top 200 by a comfortable margin. Talk to Rob Jebb later on who’s says that he and Ben Bardsley have had an alright day, although somewhat hampered by a huge boil on his arse.
Day Eight: Andalo – Riva del Garda
Man, these 5.30 starts are getting soooo old. Thank god it’s the last time I have to open my eyes of a morning to see a half-naked German smearing Savlon all over his testicles, some sights are just deeply unnecessary. That said, after more than a week I am worried that I’m beginning to consider this normal. Ditto speaking to naked men in the showers and discussing the more intimate parts of your anatomy with relative strangers. I’m also concerned that I will not be entirely ready to return to civilised society without suddenly having the urge to jam my hand down the front of my trousers and slather my cods with antiseptic cream in some sort of Transalp flashback. Today we have what is technically known in the trade as ‘a flyer’. We shoot up the climb, the 1,700m Passo San Giovanni, with relative ease, helped by the final part that is all remarkably British singletrack – greasy, rocky and rooty. Again Joe Continental proves that technical riding is not his forte as we tootle past. Ditto on the superb final downhill – dropping down 600m in 3km on some of the nicest singletrack of the entire week that has us snapping at the heels of some of the leading Women’s teams. Then follows some incredibly rocky doubletrack pounding that again moves us further into uncharted waters with more of the quicker teams. Unfortunately this unusual state of affairs is soon over as the downhill finishes and the flat 25km mainly tarmac run into the finish begins and the quick teams disappear off into the heat haze. This last section is a complete dog, nothing at all to do with mountain biking in our view. It’s all into a headwind under the blazing sun and Dan seems to be suffering for the first time all week as we try and fail to attach ourselves limpet like to one of the road trains that come tanking past. Decide not to attach ourselves to the back of the one with Jersey Mark in as his arse appears to hanging out of his shorts, the result of an over enthusiastic encounter with a tree apparently. By the end I am in my own little world of lactic pain with Dan 100m or so behind, for which I can only apologise. But slowly Riva comes into view and as we turn onto the finish straight I feel a tidal wave of relief break over me as I realise that we have actually made it, have actually finished the sodding Transalp, despite all the pain and suffering. Best of all we’ve come a ridiculous 104th that day our first day under four hours, a completely unheard of placing that drags us up the overall rankings to a world beating 188th in the Men’s category. As one of the Canadians tells us: “Pity it doesn’t go on for another week, you’d be winning it by then.” Manage a quick word with stage winner Jerimiah Bishop later, ask him if they’d moved up in the ratings at all – “Well, we would have,” he replies. “If only we hadn’t hit that car on the way into the finish.”
“We rode up mountains for 8 days and all we got was this lousy certificate (and a load of cheap German wine)”
