Today was THE day of the bike year:

RTF/Radmarathon V Pfeil Magstadt e.V..

For me, rather “mixed” result: originally I had planned the Marathon distance this year again, but already weeks ago it got clear, that I’m not fit enough for that. So planned the “Tour A”.

Today in the morning at 7:00am I started with the Bike form home, another approx. 20km to start/finish in Magstadt extra (was that a good idea?); then started at 8:15am in small group of like-minded … until the first stop in Bad Teinach more or less together, then three of us did Tour A and the others diverted to the shorter Tour B. Like I expected, I was the slowest uphill and the other two had to wait a little each time. But all in all it went pretty well. Until the uphill section from Unterreichenbach to Hohenwart… the extreme heat today of ~35-38°C made this really tough for me. Well, I managed until the next stop for water-refill. But on the next uphill section out of the valley of Würm to Tiefenbronn I told my friends not to stop anymore for me, but continue and I would do my pace. Which went on “OK”… until shortly after Perouse. Just about 15km to finish, the bowden cable for the gearshift ripped. Great 🙁  That of course can’t be reparied on the spot, so I had to call home to be get a ride back home in the car.

Result: 162km and 2210 m altitude done. But not a “real” Finisher.

And I admit: this was really hard, I’m dead tired now. Together with the Marathon 2009, this was the hardest bike-tour I ever did.