15. August 2019

Snow Bike Festival – Gstaad

The first competitions of the season 2019 are already over. Last week the Snow Bike Festival took place in Gstaad. This event is worldwide the first UCI stage race in the snow.

It started on Thursday with the prologue. That is a time trial race, which takes 30 – 40 minutes. Unfortunately, the last few weeks I had to recover from a flu. Due to that, I was not able to train as hard as I wanted to. During this short and very intense prologue, I felt my lungs burning and my heart beating. I was at the limit. The next day, we started early in the morning. We went up on the Rinderberg hill by a cable car. Where the first stage started with a 1’000m downhill. The fastest athlete had an incredible average speed of 64 km/h and was within 5:38min down in the village of Zweisimmen. The second and longest stage started with a hard climb. During 7km we climbed up 590hm from Saanen until Eggli on top of the mountain. That was hard! Unfortunately, I had to run for a certain time because of the soft snow. Due to that, I lost some time. But then the downhill on the toboggan run was great. Drifting through the curves. The third and final stage was also the most beautiful one for me. After an intensive ascent through the Turbachtal, over the Wasserngrat the track leads to Lauenen. The nature around the Lake of Lauenen is just breathtaking. For a short moment I was able to enjoy the landscape, the snow-covered fir-trees and the silence out there. Gradually, I had a lack of energy. My legs became tired and heavy. However, I am happy to be on 6th spot overall women and I am already looking forward to next year! Many thanks to the crew and organizers of the Snow Bike Festival for this great event.

 

Results :
6. place prologue (13.3km, 467hm)
5. place stage 1 (37.3km, 1’084hm)
6. place stage 2 (42km, 1’363hm)
8. place stage 3 (35.4km, 1118hm)
6. place overall women