Team Corratec/ Inside-Blog: After his astonishingly successful start in the first races - MendelRace and Tour of Sardinia - Michael Spögler had big plans for the legendary Gampenpass hill climb: despite or perhaps because of the already great day successes in the team.
At the MendelRace - on April 07.04.2018th, 2 from Eppan to the Mendelpass - Michael Spögler was able to celebrate the great XNUMXnd place, "only" beaten in the sprint by the reigning Italian champion Andrea Zamboni! And after this success, Michael Spögler immediately came up with a plan as to how he could "crack" the sprinting mountain specialist in the next hill climb. And the plan worked, and how!
But before that, briefly the key data of the classic ascent from Lana up to the Gampenpass, the Passo Palade. The pass has a gradient of 17,5-8% over long stretches over a distance of 9 km. A total of 1.204 vertical meters must be completed in one go.
And this is how the new South Tyrolean team corratec driver Michael Spögler experienced another strong race in the still young 2018 season:
“The pace on the first 7 kilometers to Tisens wasn't particularly high due to the fairly strong headwind. In the then steeper part of the climb, I then sat at the front of the field and increased the pace. Together with the reigning Italian champion and winner of the last mountain race on the Mendel Pass - Andrea Zamboni - I was able to pull away. We rode the next 6 kilometers together with changing guides at an evenly high pace - with 400 to 450 watts - and we were able to successfully extend our lead. After the last, flatter section, it was still 5 kilometers to the top of the pass and to the finish: And I had planned and knew that I had to take some risks. I increased my pace with an effort of up to 470 watts. Because if there was a possible sprint to the finish, I would have
(again) lost out. I noticed that Zamboni couldn't hold my rear wheel anymore and tried to keep my possible speed on the remaining 4 kilometers. I managed to do this very well and the lead grew bigger and bigger. When I got to the finish line, I was very relieved.”
Michael Spögler was really looking forward to his first victory in his Uphill specialty: a commanding victory. And Michael Spögler - the new discovery in the Corratec 2018 team - succeeded in doing this - with a time of 50:27 minutes, an average speed of 21 km/h and a 48-second lead over Zamboni.
The corratec team can look forward to the next 6 race weekends with many great challenges, including the team corratec highlights, the Glocknerkönig mountain race and the SuperDolomiti ultra bike marathon.
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