Ebringen

The race Sunday was in Ebringen, Germany. It was an easy two hour drive from Zurich, where I spent the night before. I was very disappointed when we went over the border and I didn’t even get a passport stamp L. The race wound through a vineyard, a neighborhood, and a sports center.Sunday we got in around 30 minutes or so of riding around- on the course and around the area before the race which was good for me.

The course was pretty hilly and technical. There was a steep hill every lap maybe 75m long, and then you turned right and had a lesser grade hill that hurt even worse for another 75m, then downhill with two turns, then another 100m of a false flat, a steep downhill, right-hand turn, good decent until a right turn back up the steep hill. Not quite the flat kriterium Shannon and I expected. I don’t even know what you’d call the thing, except maybe an American crit. We did 24, 2-kilometer laps and there was just the sprint at the end and no other points.

We raced with junior boys and I started in the back where ~3 people missed their pedals in front of me so I was dodging and of course the boys were full throttle up the climb (started halfway up the steep part) and it was all out. I was sorta hanging on to the back or just off the back for the first few laps until I just couldn’t but kept going at the same intensity. I kept going and went by person after person. I caught teammate Stephanie and another girl and we worked together (Stephanie and I did, the other girl only tried to attack-she was a local favorite). Stephanie and I closed the gap between Shannon/Sereina and I from two to less than a minute from doing that. Stephanie popped off pretty bad so that girl attacked and I just sat there for the next maybe 5 laps and waited. Once I saw Shannon ahead and alone, I attacked the girl on the steep part of the climb where she was struggling the most and caught Shannon with two juniors and pretty much tried to keep the pace as high as I could the last two laps since that girl was close behind and if she caught us, I wouldn’t be able to do anything and I didn’t think Shannon was feeling so hot. Shannon just sprinted the boys at the end and I just went as hard as a could to the finish. Sereina was able to stay ahead alone for the win, Shannon was second, and I was third. I think Stephanie was fifth.

It was a good race, all-in-all, although a very hard one with the very painful course.