Sometimes, things just don’t happen the way that you expect them to. That sometimes means that it doesn’t work out the way that you want and sometimes it does, but not how you planned.
Today, well, I had a random, unexpected day off. I had a thought. Why not go out to the mountains and attempt to do either the C or the D course for the Tegernsee marathon. FYI – my favorite marathon of the year which I’m missing this year because it’s on the same weekend as the European SingleSpeed Championships in Dresden. Well, back to my story….
I got up early so that I could get on the 7:49 train which meant that I’d be there right about 9:00. Lots of time to go ride. I accidentally bought the wrong ticket for myself but the right ticket for my bike. Yes, bicycles require tickets too. Mine wasn’t good until 9:00. The conductor expressed his displeasure in a uniquely German fashion but didn’t throw me off the moving train. He just told me to “watch out” and not do it in the future. Javull, Herr Konductor!
So, I arrived, got my GPS up and running (I need practice and spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon and evening attempting to upload routes) got on and took off. I’ve done this race 3 times now so I know 2 of the courses quite well. It’s also one of Kera and my favorite places to ride. Hence, getting around or knowing where to go isn’t much of a problem. I rolled the 8 km over to the other side of the lake and started up the super steep climb. That out of the way, I entered the rolling skinny doubletrack and then got to the first major fireroad climb. Lots of snow here and there but it seemed like all was good.
After climbing for the 10 or so minutes to the hut just before the sphincter clenching climb that I hate doing each year something strange happened. Before me on the ground was suddenly a huge pile of snow. I mean 3′ tall pile of snow and snow across the road as far as I could see. SHIT! As any dumb-ass like me would do, I started walking my bike across the snowy road. I pushed and I pushed. Every once in awhile looking back to see how far I’d gone. Each time, it didn’t look like I’d gone more than 50 meters. Finally, at the last nasty turn on my least favorite part of this course, the snow ended. Woohoo! I saw a bit more ahead and walked up to investigate. No more in sight.
I hopped back on the bike and continued to climb. That went well for quite awhile until I was just about at the top and the snow across the road returned. This time though, it was probably chest high in the places where I could walk around it on the sides of the road. So, I pushed (literally) on. Essentially, this was about the end of my ride. I’d gone something like 16 km in 1.5 hours and all I could see was snowy roads and no snow in the forest surrounding me. At this point I, being slightly stubborn and very stupid, decided to continue. Probably not the best decision that I’ve ever made, but I had to get down somehow. This direction wasn’t much worse than the other.
From there on till I hit the same hut as going up, was all snow. Varying depths and levels of softness but it was everywhere on the road. I pushed for probably another 45 minutes until I could get back on my bike and ride a bit. It was getting close to noon so I decided to ride back toward the train station, get some lunch and see how I felt afterward. It’s Spargelzeit (Asparagus Time) here in Germany so they had an entire menu full of items with Asparagus in them. My choice, a Schnitzel with Asparagus on the side. Woohoo!
That was way yummy and I felt like doing a few more miles before heading home. So, I rolled off in the direction of Walburg to do a bit of rolling around. That lasted for a bit until I decided that I’d had enough and rode the bike/hiking path next to the stream back toward the Bahnhof (train station).
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Also, Sunday I did the München City Bike marathon again. As with the previous topic, this didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted either. Thankfully, it went quite well until the very end where I started to develop cramps at about the 75 km mark. Then we did a round of the Olympic Park and unbeknownst to me, and others, we were to do a second round. Unfortunately, the sign telling us so, was about 8.5″X11″ and the text was also tiny, maybe 1″ and very vague. I read it to mean to enter that way on your second lap. What it meant was to go that way to go out on my second lap. Before I realized it, it was too late and there was nothing that I could do about it. Therefore, I not only missed the last 8 km or so of the course but I seemingly have been disqualified as well. I think that’s my first ever DQ.
Some photos of the event here. If this years photos are as good as last years, I’ll buy ‘em again.
So, ran the 90 km (well, almost) on my Black Sheep singlespeed. I was running 32X17 and wished that’d I had done 32X16 or 34X16. As I hit the park, I started passing a lot of people. Had I been running the bigger gear, I probably could have stayed with the pack more easily instead of riding the race mostly on my own. About the only time I wasn’t alone was when some occational goobers decided that I, riding singlespeed, would be good to draft off of for miles. Oy!
I’m now, good sore, but sore and looking forward to the 24 Hours of Finale in late May as my next race.
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10 Years since we started this
Digging around I came across my old homies at Hearland Race Promotions website. On same, they mention that they’re celebrating 10 years. Even though most of them have conveniently forgotten, I remember our first brainstorming meeting that Capstack and I called with Mark, Craig, Paul and Quinten. Strange that it was 10 years ago. It’s now been 5 since I’d had enough and wanted to start racing again instead of promoting. I think that I tired of feeling like I spent too much time doing race stuff and not enough time on riding. I miss promoting a bit, the people, the woods, the fun. I never made money from it at all. Seemingly, the other guys always got something out of it, never did figure out how, but I didn’t get much except quite a few good memories. Sadly, in the end, our friendships were pretty much at an end. I had little to say to them or them to me. I guess the good part was, for me, that it wasn’t because of the business but many other factors. I wish all the guys well even though I never speak to any of them anymore.
What I really miss most from that was working on trail. I even tried to set up a business doing it a couple of times. Also, tried to be part of the IMBA Trail Care Crew and came within a hairs bredth until a crises arose that changed a lot of things. Anyway, in Germany, almost all the land is private and some of the only IMBA work being done is being doing by my buddy Phaty over on the SiS course.
At least I had many, many good years at Western Missouri IMBA representative and also great work with Jackson County (even got an award for service) on trails. Oh well… that’s the past.
