The year of experiments !
A last meeting to conclude the checklist and ze can start the final preparations for our next project. Luckily we can count on the help of family and friends so that everything fits together and we can start our journey to South-Germany.
We pick up our race-accomodation in Leonberg. Not that far from the start place and a good price. A brand new, super-handy Dethleffs-mobilhome for 6 persons will be the Reevax home base in this 5-day race. The official parking for mobilhomes is about 2 km from the center of Pforzheim, in the shadow of the 2 gigantic chimneys of the Pforzheimer Heizkraftwerk: a gigantic, central heating system running on coal that foresees a big part of the Goldtown from heat, but has not much to do in this period. The rest of the city breathes the same industrial atmosphere. But at the same time the city is a bit neglected: everywhere full garbage cans, hardly maintained green areas and lots of traffic. The pedestrian area is luckily better and more cosy. The city is crossed by the river Enz, with many bicycle paths along its banks.
In the meantime Dirk Rossignol and teammate plus family have parked next to us and doubled the belgian presence. Despite our roomy accomodation, Kroki sleeps under the clear skies each day. Bad smelling feet maybe?
As the complete team brought its bike this time, we can make some easy tours with the whole bunch , to avoid getting rusty. The last days before the race we keep ourselves busy with eating, sitting on terraces, cycling a little bit, sitting on the terrace, … All things that are extremely tiring, expecially with the scorching heat of more then 30 degrees C. Hopefully we can quickly start the race, so our legs can work. It is time that we are brutally awakened from our laziness-infection.
This evening we registered ourselves and got our starting numbers and sportsbags. With startnumber 31 we go to the Black Forest battle field. A quick photo for our riderspass and then off to the riders briefing for some important details. During the briefing we hear some strange things and have our doubts if everything will go ok during the next week. More details later this week. Tomorrows stage starts with a 27 km neutralization, after which the real start will be given for the the first stage of 99 km en 2650 vertical meters. In total almost 127 km have to be ridden, and with the start only at 10 AM we are wondering how late the last riders will arrive tomorrow. The organisation admits that this is their first mountainbike race, and they organized only roadraces up to now.
We close the day with an additional portion of pasta for the extra 27 km and are looking forward how the first stage will go. This year is clearly the year of experiments for Reevax, and hopefully also this one does not end the wrong way.
