On Saturday, July 2nd, we packed our MTBs, left Klosterneuburg and headed to Nassfeld. We parked our camper directly at the Italian border, the "Passo Pramollo" and visited the bike route of the "Pramollo HERO" the next day, a mountain bike marathon over 62km and 2500hm. There was a lot of altitude to overcome on forest roads, but one or the other single trail was also part of the race track. After a good look at the race, there was Italian pizza in the evening. We fell asleep looking at the lake.
The next day, Sunday July 3rd, we started the race at 10 am. Due to the fact that the race is relatively young, there weren't that many starters this year, but the front runners really stepped on the gas. The 1st was able to pull away clearly on the first climb, but I was not far behind in the chasing group again. Together with 3 other athletes we went into the first downhill. I'm not very comfortable on deep gravel, but the others felt the same way, so I overtook them and led the group. I was leading up to the long climb, then a rider in my group passed me and launched an attack. Since we were only 10km into the race, I decided not to push the pace too much and was in 3rd position for a long time.
After 750 meters of altitude difference, it was on to the long single trail, it was really cool and made you want more. At the bottom I changed my drinking bottle in the Labe and started the 2nd long climb. After a short time, I realized that I was driving a little beyond my strength and slowed down a bit. However, the 2 other drivers had different opinions and so I was in 5th place. Almost 3.5 hours, 4 bottles and several meters of altitude difference, I crossed the finish line in 5th place. Unfortunately, I drove the 2nd part of the race entirely alone. Super happy with the "test race" for the Salzkammergut Trophy in 2 weeks, I now know what to look out for and I'm looking forward to being back at the starting line soon. With my strong teammates Marco, Helmut and Paul on positions 7, 12 and 24, we were able to win the team classification for Nora Racing Team.
Foto: Event-Gucker
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