Bochum: Schadenbegrenzung

BOCHUM - Last year, when I came back from a holiday down under, friends and cyclist acquaintances fed me accounts of horrible crashes, painful injuries and broken bikes that summed up a 58 km circuit-race in a Western German town called Bochum. An event to avoid in other words, and I set my eyes on the Chiba Alpencup cyclo in Landeck for the first weekend of August. But then I ended up fourth in the German Cycling Cup ranking, leading my age category even, so what else was I supposed to do but erase my memory of Erlangen and forget the Bochum stories of doom.

Luckily, things weren't as awful as feared. Not at all, in fact. Bochum breathed cycling from Saturday afternoon till Sunday evening, with races taking place continously, live music and loads of festive and promotional stands. Everything was perfectly organised, and the race circuit wasn't that dangerous if riders behaved properly. Unfortunately, crashes did happen again, but it seems to be unavoidable with over 2000 people participating in a nervous race, with a few tricky corners and fast descents. In my view, the biggest issue remains that the majority of participants in the German jedermann races is not used to riding in a group. Not a lot an event organiser can do about that of course.

Rebecca and I lined up at the starting line pretty early, soon accompanied by other Agapedia riders Britta, Holm and Ingo. I had been training properly again for merely 2 weeks and I was in no mood to start a chase from the gun to ride to the front of the group. My shape of the moment was too questionable for that. Joerg pointed out that I should be careful because of the netto time-rule (only the first 15 across the finish line are ranked accordingly, as of place 16 the race result is based on each rider's individual transponder time), but I decided to gamble. As such, I had a relatively relaxed start of the race, also because Holm Barkmann, my team mate, immediately showed his excellent form by attacking after 1 kilometre already!

Each lap had 2 climbs in them. Not very long but quite steep in parts. When we hit the first climb I shifted from the 53 to the 39 a bit too drastically, I guess, and my chain rolled off. Almost a copy of what happened when we hit the first mountain during the Berchtesgadener Landmarathon. With the whole pack still tightly grouped together it was not so straightforward to get off and put the chain back on. I was in the middle of the road with everyone zooming past left and right. As soon as I got back on the bike I sprinted up the two hills and caught up with my teammate Elmar as we began the descent back to the start and finish area. Thanks to him we managed to keep the first group within sight and when steam train Alexander Nikolopoulos, who had started all the way at the back of block 1, took his lead we bridged the gap to the leading group about a kilometre into the second lap of the race.

That was actually the most exciting part of my race. From then on I was happy to follow the pace and save my energy for a potential move on the climbs during the final lap. Meanwhile, Holm, Ingo and Michel Rademacher from Team Siemens put in solid attacks but nobody got away - as usual. Last time on the climbs, I accelerated but got blocked twice by slower riders who were being lapped. Alexander then went all-or-nothing in the long and straight descent to the finish and actually looked like he could make it! Unfortunately, he got caught some 800 metres before the finish. I kept out of the sprint, which wasn't too clean but at least for once crash-free. Nico Wernicke took top honours and becomes a major threat for Michael McManus' lead in the German Cycling Cup ranking. Wernicke is a fast and fearless sprinter, who won in Muenster last year and grabbed second place in Nuernberg, two out of three remaining events for the Cup... Christian Schroth finished second and Holm took a brilliant third podium place.

I crossed the line in about 25th place, right behind my main competitor in the Altersklasse at the moment, Andreas Bollessen. Due to the netto time I got ranked 39th, however.

Rebecca also enjoyed a good weekend and a fine performance with 24th place out of 78 women.

As regards the overall ranking of the GCC, I retained fourth place, but Holm (fifth) and a few top sprinters with one event less like Schroth and Thomas Kapuste are gradually moving up as well. The next stop is the Nurburgring on Saturday, 23 August. The toughest race on the German Cycling Cup calendar, with 140 km and about 3500 Hm...

Sparkassen Giro Bochum

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