TRANSALP REPORT DAY 1

At the start in Sonthofen, meeting Heinz Obermayer, co-founder of Lightweight Wheels and namesake of the "Obermayer" model:


The 2008 and 2009 uniforms on display:


Balancing the bikes while getting a pre-race espresso:

Jerome reaches the top of the second minor climb of the day:

One half of the "orange bullet train" descends into Imst.

Transalp Camp - Imst, Austria.
We sleep on the floor of what must be a warehouse, on camping mattresses. Correction -- not a warehouse. Indoor tennis courts.

We just had dinner for 1000 people - pasta, lasagne, roll, minestrone, salad, sacher torte, beer (extra charge). I could not eat the torte - too sweet and I just ate a big snack at 4pm. We sat out on the lawn to avoid the crowd.



First stage -10am start.

David J and Juliane P - 59 out of 90 mixed teams, 5 hrs 17 minutes (that Spanish training trip paid off).

David L and Jerome B - 163 out of 177 masters teams (age 40 to 50). As I predicted, happy/lucky to get out of the bottom 5%, barely. [Correction, there were something like 185+ Masters teams, but only 177 were listed when the printed the preliminary results.]

We started at the very back of the race. In theory that does not matter, since we are racing a clock. In practice it means we have no idea how the stronger teams do. We did pass a lot of people and were riding well until the last climb. Jerome and I would have been probably 20-25 teams further up the rankings if the race ended at that point. The last climb was long and quite steep, with both of us suffering, barely able to turn over the cranks. Jerome ended up ahead of me 3 minutes on the top. The descent -- was just like video of the Tour de France. Easy to go 75 km+ ... Then hairpin turns.
Hopefully we will do better tomorrow as we recover from jet lag. There were 4-5 teams in our class within 5 minutes ahead of us. Scenery was spectacular.all day -- mountains everywhere, plenty of snow visible higher up. Happy cows in steep grassy fields with cow bells ringing. Dry all day, mostly cloudy, so ideal riding weather but not ideal for photos of the high peaks.