Rothaus Bike Giro

From France we travelled straight to Germany for the next race... Rothaus Bike Giro Hochschwarzwald. 

In the past this race was called Trans Schwarzwald, because it's in the beautiful German Schwarzwald. The concept of stages in line changed a few years ago, we also skipped some editions, but last year we had a great time at the Feldberg so we returned.

I think it is fair to say that I highly respect the event organiser Sauser events. Due to the COVID-19 situation cancellations were flying around our ears. But they delivered... So thumbs up!

 

Back to the race...

Stage 1 & stage 2: Todtnau/Notschrei

The first race was rather short (21,8KM - 560AM). Not very much mountainbike parcour, so it became an extremely fast race with AVG speeds around 25KM/H... Too fast for me especially returning from a much more technical race in France with AVG speeds around 12KM/H.

The second stage existed out of 2 rounds of circa 32KM what made it a total of 65KM with 2050AM. Another super fast race and my legs felt dead... Not just bad, no I didn't manage to put any power on the pedals, I suffered from start to finish. At the end of the first round Peter caught me and gave me his bottles. He would stop at the finish due to back problems and no fun… Honestly I considered to step out of the race too, but it’s very much against my nature. 

So I pushed through hoping I would find my legs back, but I didn't... Starting the last climb I even had to get off the bike for a minute... My legs felt horrible and it was so hard to motivate myself. There were hardly offroad trails, heum no offroad trails. It was a true sufferfest for me 

Stage 3 & 4: Grafenhaus/ Rothaus

But it ain't over until the fat lady sings right? 

If I remembered correctly from last year we would take it offroad from now on! Stage 3 was the so called queen stage (75KM - 1950AM). Usually I do good during the longer stages and we are day three so the fatigue for some riders will start to wear. 

My start is rather good and I find a good solid pace. All day long I can overtake other riders and I really enjoy the harder parts of the track. I enjoyed the trails and the more technical sections and finished with a good result, but even more important a happy feeling.

During the 4th and last stage (66KM -1390AM) we would pass some of the same sections as stage 3. My GC result was gone after my pain game during the first two stages so this last ride was all about having fun, fun, fun.

In the end I just have to conclude that my heart is in the trails and exciting downhills. I probably have to skip this kind of races and go for the real deal.