Bikester Magazine EN Summer 2021

For Lukas, however, this is where the fun
began. Being a sports scientist, he had
meticulously planned his nutrition for
the ride and had already consumed twelve
energy gels by the time the group reached
Lake Constance. This obviously hadn’t done
him any harm: “I felt a bit guilty because I
suddenly got a burst of energy and wanted
to talk to everyone! I was doing far too well
for someone who’d already ridden nearly 300
kilometres.” The plan to reach the Stelvio
Pass summit at sunset was shattered on the
first real mountain: the Flüela Pass. The
descent had been delayed – everyone was
riding uphill at their own pace, and in a group,
rest stops take longer than when riding solo.
This wasn’t a problem, as the motto of the
tour was “experience over results”. And so,
the climb up of the Stelvio Pass started with
the last rays of sunshine. Raphael let Lukas
entertain him at the beginning of the climb,
with anecdotes from the world of pro cycling
before having to let him go on ahead. Marion
and Maren, on the other hand, were running
low on optimism. Maren struggled with the
altitude: it was a far cry from her typical
training terrain in super-flat Brandenburg.
As she puts it: “I thought to myself: Why the
hell are you doing this? Why aren’t you doing
yoga like your friends?” And then there was
the constant threat of the support vehicle,
an ever-present temptation to throw in the
towel. It had helped keep morale high all
day with refreshments but became a test for
everyone during that moonlit climb. In the
end, no one gave in to temptation, and after
a good 20 hours, the group stood in complete
darkness at the top of one of the most famous
passes in cycling. Pure goosebumps! The
numbers might look overwhelming, but tours
of this kind are by no means the preserve of
exceptional athletes. Of course, you need to
be fit, but you don’t need decades of training
or a support vehicle. In the end, a lot of it
comes down to sheer mental resolve. Maren
sums it up perfectly: “You have to be a bit
nuts do something like this.” Would you be
crazy enough?
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