Easter Monday "around Cologne" 1st race of the German Cycling Cup 2011

Moin Moin Piratas, who already been in Cologne knows, that travelling there is the first adventure or the first race experience. But finally I found a parking lot near the Severins-bridge and made my way to the starting area. A funny thing was, that lots of pedestrian asked“ Where come all the cyclist from? “ Even the whole town was taped with the posters of the race around Cologne…the carnival reveler… The start was in the Rheinau-harbour, right in the middle of the city. Theire were 5 starting groups, starting in 5minutes intermittently on the course. But before that happened I saw two Pirates from Hamburg ( greetings to Berjan Seifert and Benjamin Thockok), they also started on the 68km course. I didn´t expected the 68km course to become that hard, especially the ascent to the castle in Bensberg ( coble stone pavement). Cologne is the first wild race for everyone ( 3500starters) of the season, and more if you got good weather. There were lots of crashes, sometimes you thought, you would receive here very high prize money. Shortly after the start in the tunnel, laid the first on the grounds, I could hardly avoid the trash hive of carbon. I also thought that some of the riders, aren´t able to ride such expensive carbon machines, even while they were warming up, it came to outlandish situations. The just fell off their bikes while waiting for the green signal at the traffic lights, because, they didn´t come out of their pedals fast enough, and getting your bike damaged by this, it´s like an art… The organizer can´t do anything against or for these bustling riders, but for the lack of food and beverages in the finish area and the bad logistics, the organizers can´t cover themselves with glory. Actually I wanted to wait for the other Pirates coming in, I saw Reiner and Maren on their tandem coming in, but after I get rid of my transponder, I decided myself to bail as fast as I can from Cologne ( traffic jam, for 2hours) My time: 1:48:33, AG 205/757, Overall 501/2500. After the bustling ride, I was really happy about reaching the finish healthy! We´ll see us at the Nordpark-duathlon in Mönchengladbach...   Greetings Tom

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