Due to the travel time of a little more than half an hour and a start scheduled at 11:30am, most participants seemed to be unusually relaxed upon arrival.

Blazing sunshine, a wonderfully medieval town and firewater being passed around, all seemed to relax the riders even more while they lined up in the starter grid. The picture below shows an aged sailor and Rich wearing the costume of the Cookie Monster.

Except for a few seasoned competitors, nobody heard the announcer's warning about the demands that would follow on the trail. A few fools were still laughing on their way up the hill after the first of the three laps.

Others decided to put a quick and painful end to the agonies. Here we see Phil as he goes for his best result to date: 4th in his age division and 17th overall on the short distance! He loves his rides short and hard.

A few fools were even laughing as they were climbing up that damn hill to the finish for the third time. Here we see the old sailor again, who had literally laughed himself into 4th position of his age division and 17th overall (and after that just barely escaped the men with the straightjacket).

Some words about the track: Although it was not as hard as an Alpine race, it was still a rather demanding course hidden in the depths of the Taunus. The fastest rider on the long distance managed to come up with a 21 average. I suppose some of you can imagine what that means. If some of you should decide to do the long distance, you should perhaps consider not to punch it too hard right from the beginning. Otherwise you might be surprised by Rumpelstiltskin.
Phil and I are now painfully looking forward to Neustadt.

Thanks a million, Pepe, for the photos!

Alex