The weekend from August 14 to August 16 was a crazy one... Only two days before that a friend of mine asked me to substitute a rider for their team in the 24h DH MTB race "Race the Night" at the Bikepark Zau[:ber:]g in Semmering/AT. The only thing I could say was "What me? Yes sure!" Actually, I was pretty nervous about the whole thing. But I couldn't miss this chance.
The trip down to Austria already was crazy... We started way to late in the evening, at about 8 o`clock and it was so supposed to be more than 10h ahead of us! Near to dangerous tiredness behind the steering wheel, we arrived in Semmering... Yeah, but where the hell in Semmering was the Bikepark? The GPS didn't have the exact streets in Austria and could only navigate us to some central points in the town. After trying a much to narrow street for the bus, we reached nothing but more confusion where we are. I think it took us about an hour to reach the spot where the race was supposed to be... The bunch of tents, with no soul up yet, and the mass of downhill bikes chained to cars told us we found the right spot. Well, it was 6.30 in the morning, and, hey, we were just there to compete in a 24 hour race only 6 hours later! The humongous 2 hours of sleep before we had to register and try out the track were a great basis to race down a hill for 24h in a team of two without loosing concentration for the track...
After all, the race was a big experience and was awesome. My first DH race ever, 17th out of 28 starting double-teams... I think it is not that bad!
You can see a picture Bastian Meier took of me here: http://ge000127.host.inode.at/photogallery/#gallery/Aktuell/01-24h%20DH%2012.00%20-%2015.00%20Uhr/img/170
Or watch the video where I am the one who is passed near the end after the woods (black/red shirt and yellow/black helmet), next year I will be faster I hope!
It really was a great time, although there were moments where the exhaustion made me regret to participate in this race. But behold, next year I will strike back ;)
On the way home we already thought about our tactics for the upcoming edition of the race...
Thanks to especially to Fabio who invited me to this opportunity, and also Lisa and Matthias for driving/supporting and the MTB rider magazine.
Read more about the race on http://www.mtbrider.de or buy the October Issue of the Magazine ;)
This scenery could be witnessed in the evening a few hours before our arrival back home.
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