The O-Tour
The O-Tour takes place from a village called Alpnach, a little way outside Lucerne in German-speaking Switzerland. It’s a pretty straightforward-looking course profile – big climb, descent, bit of flat, another climb, into the finish. And there is no messing about at the start – the climb ramps up pretty much straight out of the village, looking out across a beautiful valley. First on tarmac, then eventually on stony singletrack, before the traditional schotter descent. The second climb then heads out of the other side of the valley, before a finish alongside the river in the village.
The village of Alpnach before the start in 2012
The full marathon is 86km, but there is also a 45km half-marathon and even a 37km Easymarathon (surely a contradiction? Never mind…).
Last year’s men’s winner Lukas Buchli will have a stern test this time round in the shape of world marathon champion Christoph Sauser. The women’s event last year was won by Jane Nuessli.
2012 men’s podium – Lukas Buchli the winner
As well as being part of the international UCI marathon series, the O-Tour is also part of the IXS Swiss Bike Classic, the six-race national marathon series.
More information here – http://www.o-tour.ch/cont/eng/
The MarathonMTB.com view
As a team, we’ve been to a number of the UCI marathon series events. This one is a bit different to some of them. For one thing the whole event is a bit smaller; I’m sure it has ambitions to grow, but at more like a thousand participants, it has a bit of a different feel to something like the http://marathonm.wpengine.com/2012/07/09/stu-spies-blog-rebuild/, with its many thousands of riders. I found last year that that resulted in a rather more friendly feel – it felt as if the post-race pasta party included a large proportion of the people at the event, which I liked.
Nothing quite like a good pasta party!
And there’s also a family feel – lots of kids, with their own events as well.
http://marathonm.wpengine.com/2012/09/10/buchli-and-nuessli-take-the-o-tour/ didn’t quite go according to plan for us, so there’s unfinished business to attend to. Stay tuned!
All smiles after the finish in 2012