Erstellt am: 26. 6. 2009 - 19:12 Uhr

What A Difference A Day Makes

In and out of the doldrums

A good mountain bike ride can bring on a welcome bout of amnesia. I was speeding down a slick and zigzagging single-trail through the meadows of Oberwiesenthal.

The mud track led from the highest point of the race – the Fichtelberg – down over flower-strewn meadows, past ski lifts and in front on a huge ski jumping arena where Jens Weißflog learned his trade, before curving tightly round into the finish arena of stage 6. The murderous, lung-bursting climb to the top was already forgotten.

Exactly 5 hours after leaving Schöneck in Vogtland I had reached my best finishing place yet 262nd out of 301 starters (immerhin). I felt like a million dollars.

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The forests of Saxony

We’d ridden hard through the spruce forests of Saxony, close to the Czech border. Early on the forest had been cloaked in a thick fog, and the long line of riders ahead would gradually disappear into the mist. Then we briefly popped out of the forest and, caught by the rare sun, swung over a centuries old stone-wall dam. It was a beautiful ride. I felt strong and I had something to prove - if only to myself.

27 hours earlier I had been sitting all on my own eating chocolate chip cookies in an empty sports hall, our camp for the night, feeling as low as I can remember feeling. I was tasting the bitter loneliness of defeat.

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Losing the peleton in the rain

200 metres out of the start out of Bad Steben, in the pouring rain, I had lost the clip of my brand new shoe. It had broken and got stuck in the pedal. There is a man on a quad bike who sweeps up the field. He and I struggled to prise the clip out of the pedal and screw it somehow back onto the shoe. By the time we had managed it I must have been 15 to 20 minutes behind the fast moving peleton.

I put my head down and pedalled like hell to try to catch them. But the race marshals must have thought everyone had already passed and somewhere I missed a turning. I found myself utterly lost on a main road. I powered on – hoping against hope for a sign I was on the right route. When I got to a junction with an autobahn, hope finally ran out.

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Mountain biking offers highs and lows

I got out the route card as the lorries swept by and the rain came down. I couldn’t make head or tail of what the card was trying to tell me. I thought about turning round, going back to the beginning and retracing the race. But I would be an hour behind the last man and, more importantly, behind the rescue bikes. I had a vision of myself lying alone and forgotten in the dirt and the rain. My brain kicked in. When a support vehicle came I got in with my bike. In a couple of hours I was in Schöneck - the very first biker to arrive.

It’s hard to describe the desolation I felt in that empty cold sports hall in the former East Germany.

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How I felt

I thought of all fighting I’d done to keep pace in the first 4 days. I thought of the long weeks of training – getting up at dawn for a ride before work. I thought of the five nights on the floor in smelly halls, washing my clothes by hand. I thought of the saga of getting the clippy-cloppy shoes. In the end I just felt numb and empty. And I felt that I’d let down everyone who had been willing me back home. And it was all because I hadn’t screwed a tiny piece of metal tightly enough into my shoe - a 'typical' beginners mistake I'm told.

I’m not telling you this because I want pity. A week ago, I could never have imagined that I would care in the slightest. Even now you have to imagine that I was 6th last of the men under 40 - the little team I have formed is entirely made up of women and men over 40. In any sensible terms, my exit from the standings hardly made a difference.

chris cummins

But there is something about a race like this that drags you in. All I had been thinking about was pedalling and eating. I had arrived with my I-pod, thinking I would need some distraction during 6 hours on the bike. As it is, I have been always totally absorbed by just following the wheel in front. I was absolutely determined to finish every kilometre.

My riding mate Sissi said she woke up in the night trying to pedal in bed. I think we are all going a bit bonkers. I’ve always thought that endurance athletes were a fascinating but strange species. Now I think I know what makes them tick.

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All we think about is pedalling and eating

I have to mention too that I wouldn’t have got past the first stage without the support of the team of mechanics from Scott who have been supporting me. This tour has taken its toll on my body, but it’s the bike that’s doing half the work.

To manage a 7-day off-road race, down hard, rocky single-trails and up steep hills, you need a bike that finds some compromise between the strength of a downhill bike and the lightness of a road-racer. I was going to take the hard-tail bike that I ride around the Wienerwald. I doubt it would have made it through stage 1.

Instead I have a team of mechanics who have lent me a light full-suspension bike for the week and who every night, after I have done my best to ruin it during the day, set it up perfectly for me the next day. To be in a race like this you need to be either an expert mechanic yourself, or have a team behind you.

Since it takes me a good 20 minutes to repair a puncture and I failed to screw in my clips tightly enough – you can imagine why I am so grateful.

There are a whole bunch of technical teams on route at this event, from Scott, Rocky Mountain, Cube and Specialized. They are working 12 hour days driving between to towns and setting up their bases – repairing the bikes, cleaning the bikes and offering good advice to novices like me (and comfort when it goes wrong). I came here to learn and they have been a fountain of knowledge. They are the unsung heroes of this tour and I salute them.

So there is just one day to go until we reach the end of the race in Seiffen. I can’t wait to reach the line. After my disaster of stage 5, it will be a strange feeling finishing but not having really finished. It will be like when I celebrate Christmas with my family in England shortly before or after the actual date. Fun - but you can't really persuade yourself that it's real.

Anyway, to cheer myself up yesterday I went to the local thermal baths and had a jacuzzi – Schöneck was a holiday resort. I thought about Roger Federer and his tears of misery in Melbourne and tears of joy in Paris. It’s not getting knocked down that makes you a loser, they say, it is not getting up again.

I had the best and strongest ride of the week today. Tomorrow I am going to race my lungs out.