Here is the Relive-Video as overview on the tour:

Relive ‘Nagold Tal 6’

Here is our tour into the black forest form May 6th:

Relive ‘Nordschwarzwald Tour RSG’

This year the training camp was as early as never before (for me). Due to the Easter vacation in Germany and other appointments of my friends, we already went in the beginning of March from Fr. 2nd to Sun 18th of March. A good 2 weeks during which I did 16 tours. Almond-cake is one of my favourites on Mallorca, but so far we could only eat it. This time we were early enough to see almond blossom, which is usually during February, until early March.

The weather was really nice. It was clear that so early we would not get real summer temperatures. But we reached 15°C minimum during the days and on the warmest day even about 20°C (a little less with about 10-14°C starting in the morning). So we had to wear long shirts or at least leg and arm warmers and always a wind-proof jacket with us. We didn’t have a rain day, there were two or three days with rain during night or early morning, but it went away so that we could start around mid-day latest.

The tours were mean to train the base fitness. So we did relatively slower tours, which was also good for me. Although I had done a number of tours on my gravel bike over winter, some home-training and several rides on the track in Öschelbronn, all those trips were short. In Mallorca we did almost always more than 4 hours. This year I didn’t make that mistake from last year to not doing a pause day. I paused on 2 days with “active regeneration”, i.e. going only 30km very, very slowly. That paid off.

Although we did not do anything really extreme, we did one quite long and flat tour to Cala Figuera (picture below), where I haven’t been in the last 2 years… that’s a very nice place to go to. And of course the obligatory tours to Randa and Orient.

Towards end of second week, we did two “top tours” in the mountains. The first was via Caimari to the Col dels Reis down towards Sa Calobra runter (but finally not to Calobra but the neighbour gay Cala Tuent) … and then back via monastery Lluc and Pollenca – 130km and aprox. 2300Hm. Then one shorter day to recover (aprox. 80km), and then another big one: via Bunyola to Soller and then over the Puig Mayor and back again via monastery Lluc and Pollenca – 142,5km and aprox. 2000Hm.

Statistics:

• ~1550km, with 16 individual tours (the two breaks included)
• About 18.000 m of accumulated altitude (GPS measured, in reality might be some 10% less)
• Total riding time (excl. breaks): about 63 hours
• Total average speed across all tours: 23,8 km/h

This year I didn’t create manual tour entries on GSPies. As I have a GPS watch since last year, I recorded all tours and uploaded to Strava… yes, modern technology.

The first big tour: Cala Tuent (Calobra) on Strava.
The second big tour via Puig Mayor on Strava.

Nevertheless, please don’t do this at home… this is crazy dangerous!

It’s time for a summary of this past season…

• The winter-season started pretty well. Saturdays and Sundays we did regularly tours on the mountain bike in the Schönbuch. In January I got my new All-Road bike, a Ridley XTrail, which is quite fun to ride. With this I got to do quite a number of kilometers and conserve some of the good summer form. A few weekends with bad weather I used my Tacx Trainer or went to the cycle-track in Öschelbronn.
• This formed a good base for the training camp on Mallorca. Unfortunately I got a cold shortly before travelling to Mallorca, but recovered in time. Mallorca was great, we did a lot long tours with low to medium speed in order to train the base endurance. Returning from Mallorca, the Spring time was going very well. In July I went to the Allgäu (Nesselwang) for a long week and did another 1000km there… From that point onwards it looked like I could do a record season.
• Road bike:
  • 8788,6 km total, 96 tours, average of 91,5km per tour;
    several more compared to last years.
  • In total 334 hours of cycling time; 26,85km/h average speed
  • 80.793 m altitude
  • 62 toures< 100km (Ø 66,3 km; avg 517m, 27,32 km/h)
  • 34 tours > 100km (Ø 137,6 km; avg 1433HM, 26,00 km/h)
• Mountainbike / Cross:
  • 25 tours
  • 1385km total
  • 13.690 m altitude
  • ca. 64 cycling time
  • 22,0 km/h average speed over all
• Tacx Traininer
  • 34 Trainings
  • 1.387 km
  • 48 hours training time
• All in all I would call this the record year, with:
  • 8.788 km road bike
  • 10.173 km “outside”, Road bike and MTB/Cross
  • 11.561 km total

Now starts again the winter-season. This year I will have a long break form December to January for a hiding vacation in South America… lets see how the next season will go

Link to my biking page

• ~130km
• ~1900m altitude
• 7 “hillies”

Well, simple … you look for a hill (mountain), and then you ride it up (and inbetween down) until you accumulate 8848m altutude.

Ouch…  and respect!

On Saturday one of my favourite “short” tours, via  Aidlingen, 7-Tannen, downhill via Holzbronn into the Nagold valley, up the hill at Seitzental … wow, what colors, deep green grass, deep blue sky and yellow/red leaves… still have goose-bumps…. and then the side-way towards the traditional “Wildberg-View”:

With the way back via Sulz, Kuppingen and Gärtringen we went in total 80km.

On Sunday we did another tour: via Herrenberg, Öschelbronn, Bondorf and Ergenzingen into the Eyach valley and then to Haigerloch. From there on some side roads that I remembered in most parts from an RTF earlier this year towards Rottenburg and continues to Tübingen. On a 8th of November with best possible weather, sitting with cakes and coffee in the sun… how could this ever be any better

With the short return via Bebenhausen to Holzgerlingen the total tour was 102km.

We’ll continue to ride with the Mountainbike, but we’ll see if the weather will bring us another “year-end roadbike tour”…

• 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
  • 74.970 meters altitude
  • 58 Tours < 100km (Ø 68,3 km; with 554m alt., 27,71 km/h)
  • 28 Tours > 100km (Ø 137,1 km; with 1531m alt., 26,36 km/h)
• Mountainbike:
  • 15 Tours
  • 949km total
  • 10.030m altitude
  • ~43 hours riding time
  • 22,4 km/h average speed
• Tacx Ergometer
  • 23 Trainings
  • 1.020 km
  • 33:45 hours training time
• All in all, this was the “best year” ever during my cicling career
  • 7.800km road-bike
  • 8.751km “outside” i.e. Road-bike and MTB
  • 9.771km total. The 10km mark just missed

Already looking forward to the next season and a “golden autumn”, the first Saturday yesterday was nice, but today we have rain.

Link to my biking-page