Leonie and I had another before-5am start, and drove out to Hohenems in preparation for the Rund um Vorarlberg cycling race.
The weather forecast was completely wrong which was very good. Instead of the predicted rain it was hot and sunny. This was a very good thing as after the Arlberg Giro I didn’t feel like another cold wet race.
We left Hohenems at 7 am and headed into the Bödele climb. I felt a bit flat but seemed to manage it ok. Left knee was hurting a little. I had a nice descent from Boedele and chased onto a bunch and stayed with them until the Hochtannberg Pass. I rode at my own pace up the hill and unlike last week I held my place fairly well. I had a fantastic descent to Lech behind some speedy guys. The descent is really nice along a small winding road. Didn’t manage to die too much on the climb to Flexenpass and although I lost some speedy people I ended at the top with a good bunch.
The next section was neutralised because the Arlberg Tunnel is closed. This was a bit annoying as we didn’t know how fast we were allowed to ride. We got stuck behind a very slow campervan on the descent but after some time I managed to get past. Then we had an awesome descent the rest of the way. It’s always an enjoyable descent there and it feels like it goes on forever. We had a big bunch by the bottom of the descent. There was a woman who had perhaps six guys working for her and they set a really strong pace along the flat into, at times, a feisty head wind.
I sat on as much as possible and later managed to ride off the front with a few guys on a small hill. I rode with a smaller bunch until close to the the finish where we caught up to another bunch with the second woman in it. I kept looking at my speedo and thinking we had 15 km to go but suddenly the finish line was in front of us. I wasn’t in the best place for a sprint but managed to get past a few guys before the line. Overall a much nicer race than the Arlberg Giro this year and the fact that most of the climbing occurs in the first 75 km suited me well. I was happy not to ride the extra 1600 vertical metres like last year on the Highlander. Very good weather and a nice course.
My only gripe was that the results do not show gun time and the race was ridden on transponder time. This allowed me to win the Grape Ride in 2009 but this time it cost me up to 20 places. Annoyingly after sprinting at the finish and being the third across the line in my bunch (which was apparently the second bunch) many people in the bunch and people we had dropped had a better time than I did. Looking at the results, this must have been much more annoying for Anna Bachmann who we caught up to near-ish the finish line after dropping Anna Obmann, who had her team, about 20 minutes earlier. I crossed the line before Anna Bachmann and had a similar transponder time to her. Anna Obmann crossed the line some time after us but had a better transponder time meaning she took 3rd place away from Anna B. who crossed the line well before her. Very annoying I imagine. I guess my transponder time meant I effectively lost approximately 2 minutes or something like 13 places.
Above: Before the race started.
Rund um Vorarlberg 2015 – 145(?) km/2400 m 4:57:22,3 transponder time Place 63/440 overall