With great anticipation we traveled to the Eifel region last Friday to start the second half of the German Cycling Cup season. Most of us had to work until the afternoon, so our meeting at the Italian restaurant was late. Since this was not our first time at the start of the Nürburgring race course, we knew how much respect one should have for this race. As soon as anyone talked about the tough 150 kilometers, the excitement was palpable.
Nevertheless, the mood was very good, after all, the course is tough for all drivers and, based on experience in recent years, major changes in the overall classification are rare. However, it is a very decisive race for the team classification, especially since the placings of the top four of each team are more decisive than the break-in times. The start was only around noon, so we had the peace and quiet to have breakfast and make the final preparations on the bikes. At this point in time, the weather still left open how it would actually develop. So we made our way to the race track prepared for all eventualities. But as soon as the fog had cleared, the sun peeked out and it became apparent how hot it was going to be.
We welcomed Thomas (last year's team driver) and his wife Marita, who had traveled to the ring especially for our care. Rita, the good soul of the team, was also there again and so the three of them, armed with spare material and drinking bottles, made their way to the last small incline of the loop to take care of us there. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for the helping hands, without you it would not have been possible to survive this heat battle.
Punctually at 12:50 p.m. the starting shot was fired and as soon as we were on our way, the nervousness vanished and gave way to the concentration that was necessary for mastering the fast and steep descents.
In addition to the well-known teams from the GCC, many international drivers also registered for the event this year and, above all, a powerful group of former professionals around the Alpine specialist Bernd Hornetz had it all. Already in the first laps a very high speed was set on the high eight. This was particularly noticeable in the horrendous lap times.
Our Daniel didn't have the best day and so it was up to us to tear the field apart from the fourth lap in order to drive our direct competitors in the fight for the yellow jersey from the front ranks. Ultimately, at the end of the fourth and at the beginning of the fifth, they managed to escape to the front and formed a leading group of about 10 men, which was later reduced to 8 men. In addition to three of the former pros, last year's winner of the race, two drivers from Stressacker and Christian, Stefan and I for merkpur-druck.com were there. So we had created a good starting position and were able to distance ourselves from the boys from Bürstner-Dümo early on in the battle for the team ranking.
The 8 men quickly agreed and so we all worked together until the last time we had the ascent to the Hohe Eight in front of us. As in previous years, the climb was the yardstick of the race that day and the three former pros and Florian Vrecko managed to set such a high pace that first I had to let go and later, shortly before the end of the mountain, my serving teammates had a small gap to the leaders. However, together they worked their way back up the field and caught up with the fourth driver, whom Christian was then able to pass in the sprint to the finish line. We achieved places 4,6,8, 22, XNUMX and with a very strong Till in XNUMXnd place we successfully rounded off the day and team result. Although we were stronger in the top group, Team Stressacker managed to get exactly the same number of points in the fight for the team ranking, and in this case, according to the regulations, the ranking of the best rider counts, which is why we finished third behind Verve Cycling and content the Stressacker team. However, we are very proud of the strong performance of our team in such a demanding race. Thanks to the support of Alex, Christoph and Till, Daniel was also able to successfully defend the yellow jersey and keep the loss of points to Sandro Kümmel and Marek Bosniatzki to a minimum, despite having had a really difficult road behind him. Now it is important to continue this strong team performance in the next three weeks. We are very excited and look forward to reporting from Bochum in a few days.
Until then, I wish you lots of fun on Germany's country roads.
Your Frederick