The Craft Bike Transalp follows a highly traditional route from southern Germany to Riva del Garda in Italy. Although the Stage 6 town of Crespano di Grappa was the 45th Stage Town in the races history, the differences each year are primarily between an easterly route like this year through the Dolomites, or westerly through the Alps.
Either way you go there is a growing Italian influence day by day.
At dinner, this is great. A basic pasta party gains al dente pasta, tasty sauces, and dessert. Breakfast may lose cereal or useful bread.
Look, salad!
The climate changes and temperatures improve. Warnings of snow or frozen rain on the high peaks are replaced with forecasts of high temperatures at the finish.
Crowds in towns, on the passes and on the side of the trail cheer passionately – with a emphatic ‘bravo’ or ‘bravi’ helping find extra strength in your pedal stroke, and volume in your lungs.
But as the race approaches Riva, it’s easy for the other side of Italy to become more prevalent. Things start to take a little longer, and an erratic element takes over.
On Stage 7 today, various elements didn’t work out for Imogen Smith and I. Firstly, the previous town of Crespano di Grappa couldn’t accommodate everyone so there were a lot of shuttles and taxis – so not much time with your feet up. And then the first 20km were a slight downhill through towns, ‘neutral’! If you can imagine the amount of traffic pulled off the side of the road, round a bouts, traffic islands, road work, one train crossing (with train) and add in over 1000 MTBers (almost all amateurs) and it was very messy. I only saw one guy land on his face.
That was a big stressor though and had us chasing hard once the climb began, and in a direct race with the team we had 13seconds on for GC. We were dropped “about 800 times” by Imogen’s approximation, and finally couldn’t chase back on.
The Italian waiting game
Whilst very tired on the descent, we enjoyed it as home was at the end! But of course, again it’s a bit Italian. You could only get one bottle of water at the finish. The rests ere under guard. The hotel was a long way away, and rooms weren’t ready until 4pm… but all in all it’s the beauty of Transalp, watching the scenery change, racers abilities change, and of course the changing customs. We came in 5th in the Mixed category, after being annihilated by Team Top Road and R2Bike.com MTB Racing. And others. We have a slim 2.55min gap on 4th. A tough call with a hard and fast stage tomorrow.
The transfer is always longer than you think.
Team Bulls 1 had a turn of fortune, winning the stage today. A misinterpretation of the stage profile pinned to their handlebars forced later on stage winners to launch their attack earlier than planned. “The profile is so small. I thought we were in the last climb but actually were in the one before. We went for it but quickly noticed that another ascent is following. So we kept on going and secured the win – which is quite a nice redemption for the bad performance a few days ago – due to our downhill skills,” explained seven-time Transalp winner Karl Platt after his most unreal stage win (#37) in 13 years of Transalp racing.
One minute after Team Bulls 1, reigning Marathon World Champion Christoph Sauser (SUI) and Max Knox (RSA) of Specialized Racing came in (4:37:06.4). The third rank went to overall leaders Markus Kaufmann (GER) and Jochen Kaess (GER) of Centurion-Vaude 1 (4:38:24.8) who thus were able to defend the Yellow Jerseys in a very controlled manner.
“That was our goal”, said German Marathon Champion Kaufmann in the finish area. “We lost Team Bulls in the technical section but didn’t want to risk too much. We just made sure to make it to the finish without any technical defects or crashes.” As a result, Kaufmann and Kaess are now, with only 38.55 km and 1,269 metres in elevation gain from Rovereto to Riva del Garda to go, close to their career’s first Transalp title.
Especially as today’s fourth ranked Alban Lakata (AUT) and Robert Mennen (GER) of Topeak Ergon Racing (4:40:28.9) lost another 2:24 minutes on the leading team. As a consequence, the runner-ups in the overall standings, of whom the European Champion Lakata was the unlucky person today with two technical problems (flat, blocked chain), are now already nine minutes behind and thus have to shelve their dream of keeping hold to the title.
Of course, full updates are on Datasport.