Hochreichart - Hirschkarlgrat - Geierhaupt

Plabutsch-butsch-butsch

KOTL King of the lake

TCRNo11 - CP2 to CP3

TCRNo11 - CP1 to CP2

A short chat with the race officials and a Magnum ice-cream later, I was on the bike again. Climbing the Durmitor must be one of the greatest things to do on the bike – if you are able to watch it. In the dark I just saw these rough tunnels in the steep stone cliffs of the Durmitor massive. Luckily ascending Durmitor was not very tough from a physical point of view, but descending was super exhausting from a mental point of view: No lines on the small road, no posts with reflectives on the shoulder of the road – the downhill was just very difficult to take, orientation was not easy, and I had to fight some inner demons of tiredness and was afraid of getting lost. 

Riding downhill while being very tired is one of the worst things you can experience in ultracycling: “Do it slow, stay safe and avoid crashing” I told myself. Luckily I had the very bright “Supernova M99 Dy Pro” lamp, which made it possible to ride on safely. 

For the 4th time in the race I had done a booking in the next city. Quite at the end of the parcours in Zabljak, a small room with a shower was waiting for me. But it was quite tricky, because booking.com did not offer the address, just a description of how to get there. It was a bit complicated, but I managed to find it finally. 

After getting up I had to find a bancomat to get some cash, since they do not accept cards there. Riding back, putting some banknotes on the table and grabbing some chocolate sweeties from the reception desk woke me up, before I could finally continue from Montenegro towards Serbia.
The whole day in Serbia was fast. I rode strong without any issues, but so did the leaders too. Adam and Ulrich were there in the front, and I could not really come closer. I (again) realized, how damned strong they are, and that they will not let me come closer. I had to catch them by an extra effort, not by waiting for them to slow down. 
In the evening, when we reached the shores of river Danube to follow a beautiful road along the valley, we could already see Romania on the other side of the river. My tactics now was, to reduce sleep to make another step towards the front of the race: While I enrolled my sleeping bad in the grass next to the water, I put the alarm for 2 hours of sleep. But because of a little (lucky) failure, the alarm woke me up after 1 hour. Reason was, that my phone was connected to Romanian phone signal, and there is another time zone with 1 hour difference. I did not realize that, jumped up, hopped onto my bike and was on full gas immediately. 

When I looked onto the GPS tracker I was very happy: I just overtook Ulrich, who came out from his break just behind me, and Adam was only a few minutes before me.
After crossing the Iron-Gate-Bridge to Romania and nearly getting slapped by an angry woman in a small café, I finally catched Adam. The café story was, that I had shaking hands when applying 5 packs of sugar in the espresso, and some crumbs of sugar fell outside of my cup. The lady was beginning to shout at me in Bulgarian language and showing with her arms, that I sould just leave before she cracks my helmet. Man, this was scary! But gave me some Adrenaline to catch Adam. 

Again, I was astonished by Adam and Ulrich: I expected them, to have mental problems when the Strasser-Express rolled over them from behind. But the opposite happened: they held my wheel and were just a few minutes behind. I could not shake them off and got mental problems myself, because I was pushing as hard as possible and was not able to gain an advantage.

When I stopped in Novaci, a small town just at the bottom of the Transalpina climb to fill up my bottles and get some food, Ulrich came by. His bottles already full and his pockets filled with food, we decided to share a moment together to say hello and have a can of coke together. It was the first time we met in the race and wanted to celebrate this with sportmanship, before we began climbing that tough ascent. Luckily, I knew it from training in June, and could really deliver a high wattage. Ulrich, who had to ride with heavy knee pain and saddle sores, was a bit slower and Adam also could not keep up with me. 

But at this time I was not thinking about the rankings any more: My goal was to reach CP4 as soon as possible, so that I could enter the devilish offroad section in daylight before sunset. And then of course there is already some stress when I looked one day ahead: It was very important to catch one of the last ferries tomorrow, and this would only be possible, if the parcours was done without problems followed by a short sleep.


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Hochreichart - Hirschkarlgrat - Geierhaupt

Plabutsch-butsch-butsch

KOTL King of the lake

TCRNo11 - CP2 to CP3

TCRNo11 - CP1 to CP2

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