Hello Folks,

before I´m getting started to report you from the race, I´ll like to stay quiet for a while to remember the relatives of the 38year old MTB-guy from Austria, who had a deadly accident during the trophy-race. He tried to pass another rider on the right hand side on a very small passage, the other rider already rode far right, so they hit each other and the rider from Austria lost control of his bike, and fell into a 80m deep canyon and died because of the crash. The rider fell also, but he got hold of a perch after falling for 15m. For more information: www.im-salkammergut.at. But now the race. I made my way there on Saturday the 17th of july 2010 at 4:45o´clock in the morning from Nandlstadt to Bad Goisern/ Austria. I wanted to start on the D-course with 54km and 1539m of altitude. When I arrived there finally at 7:45o´clock, I remarked that the party already was going on. What they all had there signal post, party-tent, start and home straight and much more, it was a feeling like riding the “ Tour de France”. Altogether there were 4200 starters out of 30 nation on 6 different distances on the start. The start was at 11:00o´clock. I twas really hot now and just after the start we had to go uphill. The first 7km you had to ride on bitumen and it went quite good for me. After all I have to say that the course were really ambitious. The downhill parts have no equal, even not in Tegernsee. We hd lots of root trails, followed by gravel, single-trails and passages were you had to push your bike uphill. I soon recognized that it won´t be an eays day for m. So, I fighted real hard and sometimes, it even made fun. Everywhere on the course you had some viewers and supporters and the 4 food supplies were really good. Most of the 1400m of altitude we had passed after 35km. Having said this, you can see how difficult the second acsent have been, but this time I had more problems riding down than up. Coming to the home straight in Bad Goisern was really awesome, shortly before the middle of the town you had to ride a right turn, than up a small hill, thru narrow streets and finally a sharp left turn on the home straight. What an atmossphere, really FANTASTIC!!! At the end I had a time of 4:09h, I wasn´t really satisfied with it, but how ever, I finished even withouta puncture or crash. I finished 178th from 307 in my age-group and 653th of 1035 overall. I think I´ll particpate next year again,even the flair all around is worth travelling there. Having said this… Your Mike Bike-Doc.de Team PIRATE

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