Überherrn
29. April 2012
Yeah! I’m really happy today - or I should better say tonight. I’m proud to announce my first season victory and also an important one for me. The race today showed me, that I’m abe to learn from my mistakes and start to think about race processes. – What happens if I do this, what if this rider does that, how can I win without being the best in the final sprint and without being able to drop everybody at the climb because they know it’s the place where I will attack.
But starting at the beginning. After three days really hard training in nasty weather conditions, I decided to bridge the day untill the Friuli travel on monday with a race.
Überherrn is one of the few „Straßenrennen“ left in the german calender. With a lap of 14k’s it shows us the nice places of this part of Germany. Two climbs, one of them in the middle of the lap with a length of three kilometers and another one through the finishline, steep and 800meters long, make the race really selective.
About 80 riders were motivated for a nice sunday evening spectacel. Among them, 4 riders from the german Continental Team Eddy Merckx Indeland, 7 racing students, the Marco Polo Coninental Team and several other good riders.
The race started out at an unexpectedly high rhythm for a regional race. But I knew it wont end like this. The 110k’s with 2000 meters of altitude will suck the power out of everybodys legs. One rider I’ve never seen before – I guess he felt responsible for the race – caught everybody who wanted to attack and was also going at a really high rhythm at the long climb. I like him :)
So the situation in the middle of the race was a complete peloton with maybe some weak riders getting dropped at the back of the peloton. I wanted a pre-decision. I attacked in the beginning of the climb, got caught back, waited some seconds and attacked again. Got caught back again and placed myself behind the line of riders who were able to follow me. About 12 with the others behind them trying to close the gap. At the end of the climb a windy passage followed. The riders at the front were still going fast because they didnt want the others behind us to close again. - It was not clearly a group yet though!
In a small hill, two riders attacked again, one followed and than I knew I had to go too! We formed group of 8 riders having 4 laps to go. Three or even four of the riders in the group are really good sprinters so I shouldn’t be going to the fnishline with them. We went at a rather easy rhythm after some two laps in company of the Under 19 peloton...
It was two laps to go when Stefan Ganser from Eddy Merckx attacked. We let him go because we knew it is not possible even for the strongest rider to go the last twenty k’s alone. The wind is just to strong! Last weekend showed me that I have to attack before I actually want to... I have to attack were really nobody expects it. So I talked to the strongest sprinter, who luckily still owned me a favor, and he said he and his teammate would let me go at the climb. But obviously everybody knew I have to go at the climb when I want to win. Ganser was still some hundred meters in front of us and the flat/hilly parcour came. A small descent with a technical corner combination and a short ascent followed. Just enough for me to launch my attack. Nobody expected it right here and nobody was able to follow immediately because of the line they had to go through the technical passage. Because of the right corner, everybody was forced to the outside where I had just passed the first rider who than blocked the others behind him, not even on purpose.
I closed the gap to Ganser and rode at the maximum in the following last three kilometers of climb. Already when I closed the gap to him he asked to just bring him to the two K mark and I’ll therfore get the victory. Well, he didn’t have power anyway so I went with him on my wheel. For being sure, I forced the speed again at two k’s to go and see, he was dropped.
A great race and a really happy winner!