When we checked the weather forecast yesterday… misery. We were lucky this winter season, we could ride outside almost each weekend, MTB/Cross or even road-bike. But for this Sunday… rain. But then the idea … why not go once again to the cycle track in Öschelbronn? As we got that idea only late Saturday evening, only a short WhatsApp info got out and Ralf, Jörg and I went there, as there is open training for everybody, Sundays 10:00-12:00am.
It’s almost a year since I was there the last time… I thought I would need more time, but I felt home almost immediately. 2 rounds to warm up and then get into the first group. Today there were a lot of strong cyclists on the track. So there was always 1 fast and 1 super-fast group 🙂 . Twice I joined a super-fast group for several rounds, first in the back of the group in the wind-shade but with the regular changes, I also got my turn in the front with 5 fast rounds. Wow, what great fun!
And I have to say, 1 1/2 hours of cycling track, going fast at times, is quite tiring, I can feel my legs… But this is so much fun, I guess we will repeat this again in the near future.
One of the guys from the club RSV Öschelbronn recently put a video with impressions on YouTube:
My new kitchen tool. A very useful cutting board, with metal frames, where standardized containers can be “plugged in”. Thereby it is possible to put the cut vegetables (or other things) directly into the containers, keep them apart from trash (put into dedicated trash container). Very nice tools and high quality, I could really recommend this for people who like to cook regularly.
For me the bike reason goes from October 1st to September 30th. So last Saturday was my last day in Season 2015, and yesterday started the season 2016. So it’s time to summarize the Season 2015.
The winter season started quite well. We continues to do tours Saturday and Sunday regularly in the Schönbuch forest nearby. This brought quite some kilometres and conserved the form. Unfortunately I had an accident early December which caused a almost 5 week break, until I could restart in January to do further tours. During bad-weather weekends, we went a few times to the bike stadion in Öschelbronn, which was a lot of fun, and also I used my Tacx trainer to cycle at home in some evening and rainy weekends.
Al in all, that was a good base for the training camp on Mallorca in April. That was again a lot of fun, with a great groups. We did a lot of training tours there, long ones and also a bit faster than previous year. That was a very good base for the season. Unfortunately I had a cold, had to pause for one day and another day just do a short easy ride. This trend continued also in May, I was sick for two weekends, but could do nice runs on the other two weekends. All in all, a good spring start.
Road-bike:
7802 km in total, 86 tours, on average 90,7km per Tour; in comparison to last year, a few years more, but especially we went really fast, more than 1 km/h faster average speed compared to last year
Total 291 hours of riding time; 27,27km/h total average speed
Really bad luck that Dave Grohl broke his leg during a gig a few days, before the concert in St. Gallen was planned, where I had a ticket. So I have to wait some more time until I can see FF again.
Looks like the FooFighters haven’t been to Italy before. And what these guys and girls do to change that… is great. And I think their dream will become true… soon 🙂
Our training tours continued informally during the winter, nice but cold. Therefore we already looked forward to tours dressed in “short-short” and we planned great things. We always go after the Easter holidays and due to other private appointments, this years camp ended up being April 18th to May 2nd. Mid April is high-season in Mallorca for bikers … it was quite full. On most smaller roads, that is not a problem, the island is big enough. But some of the “nice places”, obviously are visited by almost everyone, e.g. Randa, Sant Salvador, Orient and the passes in the mountains, Sierra Tramuntana. But we are ourselves part of the biking tourism, i.e. nothing to complain about. And having your cake and cafe con leche in Petra on the central plaza is kind of very nice with 200 other bikers there 😉
Central plaza in Petra, from left: Brigitte, Hartmut, Ralf, Jürgen, Herbert
The weather was very similar for basically the full two weeks, between 19 and 22°C, sometimes only little, sometimes a bit more wind, but never too strong… ideal for a training camp. We started well, and quite fast. The first two days a bit more flat and high average speed, 82km / 750Hm (Hm=>Meters altitude) / 27,8kmh and 117km / 950Hm / 28,1kmh. On the third day, a bit more intensity with more altitude. I think that worked well, it allows the body to get accustomed, and everybody was able to follow and no muscle aches, all could recover for the next day.
Tour-Start … von links: Wolfgang, Brigitte, Jürgen, Ralf und Hartmut
With an exception … I was hit with a cold, starting Monday evening with coughing. On Tuesday morning I felt so bad, that I had to pause for a day. Wednesday was a planned pause-day, which everyone used to recover and I did as well, with a small 45km tour. That went well, on Thursday I was back in game and was not much more impacted for the rest of the training. However I obviously “gave” my cold also to others, Hartmut and Jürgen got sick and Brigitte a little bit during the next days.
On Thursday we continued fully motivated. Already the last three years we wanted to take a bus to Andratx in order to check out the western part and the beginning of the Sierra Tramuntana and the “coastal classic ride”. Never managed to do it … but this year. So we took the organized ride by Hürzeler, which departs at 9am. A small disadvantage for us, because we first have to cycle from Can Picafort to Paya de Muro, and be there at 8:30. So we had only a very rapid and short breakfast and packed some bread for the bus. But in the end, nothing to be nervous about, all went very well. It was not just one bus, they filled two large buses with two large trailers for bikes.
Port Andratx, Arrival of the buses, unloading the bikes
It would have been too early to do the coastal classics already in the first week, so we took the part to Valldemossa and then took the downhill to Palmanyola and continued through the central part of Mallorca. The bus ride has one disadvantage, you lose a lot of time of the day, we could only start at about 10:45 in Andratx, but this is the only way to get there in a sensible manner (riding there is 60-70km…). The route was really nice, so it is definitely worth the trip: the tour: 121km / 1800Hm / 25,1kmh.
In the past years, we did not go to Cap Formentor, because of the bad road condition and the tunnel without any light, just not appealing. But this year: the road is freshly paved and there are reflectors in the tunnel … I was prepared and brought a portable lighting for my bike. So nothing to keep us away, except for some quite steep climbs … but we are here for the training, right? Well, definitely this is one of the nicest little tours and well worth the effort!
Jürgen at the lighthouse Cap Formentor
As the main tour (“queens stage”) we did in the last years Soller – Ferry – Sa Calobra. This year another variant: we went to Soller, but then took the long climb to Puig Mayor and return via Monastery Lluc. The climb to the Puig is not as spectacular as Calobra (calobra is one of THE best climbs in the world), but quite strenuous and the ride through the mountains via the water reservoirs is really nice.
Resting after the climb, before the tunnel, direction Soller – Jürgen, Ralf und Hartmut
For those that are good enough, the crossing to Calobra is on the way, and Ralf actually took it, he went down to Calobra and rode up the Calobra pass! Fantastic!!! My legs were definitely not good enough for that. Our tour: 148,2km / 2.100Hm / 24,5kmh. For Ralf, you have to add about 20km and 900Hm altitude.
As resume: A great Training Camp!!! I’m already looking forward to next year 🙂
The totals will be slightly different for the participants, for I missed the Randa tour, Ralf did the extra Calobra pass … but all in all I think this was a very good result:
![„Frans Hals - Portret van René Descartes“ von nach Frans Hals (1582/1583–1666) - André Hatala [e.a.] (1997) De eeuw van Rembrandt, Bruxelles: Crédit communal de Belgique, ISBN 2-908388-32-4.. Lizenziert unter Gemeinfrei über Wikimedia Commons.](http://www.neugebauer.name/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Frans_Hals_-_Portret_van_René_Descartes.jpg)
