The problems for this race began with the preparation....
Sam Baeten was ordered to join the Belgian Nationial Team
that weekend... our replacement "Fish Pit" (acting
Northern German Champion in his time trial age division) was
suddenly struck down by a cold...
Quickly Captain Ubi Blutsventje was called and we had our
replacement:Alex Bauer.
Alex fit into the team wonderfully! We were ready to go.
We were competing to teach the world the meaning of the word
fear... and things continued to go super, our first rider
Alex arrived at the biker camp with a flat tire... puke.
the time it cost us had to be caught up, but, after all, 24
hours are a lot of time!
At the top you can see "Jenno" from the team "Pirate
+ X"
here Robert messes with the Hirschen... who, funnily enough,
came in 2nd in the end.
in this pic: Hirschen discussing their awesome lap times....
here Alex is about to attack the Pink-Lady....
...and then it was nighttime.
...and yet man and machine were in the best of moods.
everything was running smoothly...
until Miss Kruse didn't show up for the exchange for the second
time (he was still on the shitter) and Niels Nielsen ran through
the biker camp yelling and screaming to pick him up personally...
Let sleeping dogs lie!!
The guys from the Pirate-Fuerte team were definitely doped!?!?
or from another planet???
and luckily the sun came up again and we could wear our
sunglasses again.
weirdly enough man-machine Niels was still riding the same
lap times after almost 24 hours...
...and "Malloca Paule" got faster and faster!?!?!
cool rides over steel grating...
Some other cool Pirates were there too:
In the end we did make it onto the podium.... not in 1st,
unfortunately, but at least we came in in 3rd.... we'll be
back (in Munich)
Ron
P.s. The negative aspects of the event were probably created
by the economic strategies of the organizers....
1.
The worst aspect was the use of transponders, which the organizers
obviously received as a free loan from the Slovenian long
distance ski club... the transponder had to be held to a certain
spot on a board until you heard it beep and you were free...
if you didn't hear it on the ride through, you had to drop
anchor to give the transponder to one of the waiting helpers,
who had to run back with it .... see
the film
2. The second worst aspect would have to be the breakfast...
which you could only get if you ordered it earlier on the
internet and paid the € 5.- the day before.... What you
got was hearty meal of greasy pieces of sausage a strange
tasting egg and ONE cup of coffee.
Yup, ONE cup of coffee... neither money nor kind words could
procure another! UNBELIEVABLE!!!
3. Just one person was responsible for the handing out of
starter numbers (supposedly there wasn't room for another
person...)
4. Toilets... at first I though: hey finally a couple of clean
toilets, but after the event began it quickly became apparent
that there weren't enough of them... continuous lines and
no toilet paper/paper towels....gross...etc.
5. Track marshals: some just weren't there and those that
were, were hardly or not at all qualified and on duty for
24 hours straight, abandoned by the organizers. One of the
marshals complained that his 2 litres of coffee (that he had
to bring himself) were empty and the organizers refused to
give him anymore when he asked.
The marshals were unable to master the simplest situations!
It was a miracle that there weren't many more crashes during
the night, since dangerous points and turns weren't illuminated
accordingly.
I
hope they get their act together next year!!!
Here are a few extra movies:
Robby.K
Volker
Timmie
Alex