.First of all, the plan for Saturday night was the initial level of exposure with "Princess" Tanja Wittig from the Maestro Team Wein: her former world championship title in trick cycling was evident, four girls on one bike and I just stood there with dirty feet.....

On Sunday morning, I grabbed Dani Maag from the FXX-CUBE Hotels Mountain Cycling Team right out of the hands of her team captain Florian Dobner, in order to conduct a first interview at the VIP starting position.

We were interrupted by a loud bang from the starter gun, which sent us and 554 other participants of the "Give it a go Challenge" on our way (30m/48km and 4363.5 vertical ft/1330hm).
On the track, I was easily able to take some pictures of the "traffic-less" race (the Rocky Mountain Bike-Marathon at Lake Garda 2007 had a wait of up to 45min in the woods) and at the second ascent I was tensely ripping my chain out of the spokes of my back wheel.
After four minutes and with fingers as black as the Black Forest, I could forget placing in the top three of my age division…. I came in 5th!

The devil (Tour de France-legend Didi Senft) at the awards ceremony with "Princess" Tanja Wittig: 3rd place in her age division at "The Classic Challenge" (39m/63km and 6036 vertical ft/1840hm).

Lukas Kubis, Best-Bike-Parts / Chemobau team and Max Friedrich, Voitl team will be starting together at the Craft Bike Trans Germany on June 9th in St. Wendel. Special thanks to the organization team of the Worldclass Marathon Challenge, headed up by Jörg Scheiderbauer and Anna Baylis-Scheiderbauer, who managed a perfect event in the Black Forest… I'm looking forward to next weekend when I will be starting at the UCI MTB-Worldcup-Circus in Offenburg.

Ubi Blutsventje, the racing reporter

Pics by FXX-CUBE Hotels Mountain Cycling Team: VIP Starting Position Start "Give it a go Challenge"