Jul 14, 2025
Race Around Poland 2025 (2) Race Day: Disaster started before the race. Besides the lights and power banks I was planning to carry a charger for Europe and charging unit for the SRAM AXS batteries. And … somehow at hotel I lost some of the AXS batteries and the charging unit. Why Disaster? Very simple: Ideal was to keep charging derailleur batteries at every time station for a few minutes. My issue is the riding technique that makes me shift a lot specifically on rear cassette. Since I had a limited number of batteries, I had to shift much less than I normally would to keep enough batterie power for the climbing in the mountains in Southern Poland. That slowed me down a lot and limited me shifting in the mountains. But … I thought this is a good challenge and I just must stay focused. My strategy went from a good result to simply stay focused and use the race as a training race so I learn the layout and challenges for possibly 2026 race again. Went on the first short 5-6 mile to the official race start location. Bike felt good and weather was great. Once started I enjoyed the first section going to TS1. It was a cool ride and start getting a good feeling specifically with limited shifting. Kept an eye on battery levels of the shifter batteries. TS1 I did not take too long for stopping. Nothing to be charged and since I am vegan I had to eat my own supply of food. So, all cool and moved on after 10 minutes. Second section was a bit more challenging. The first part of it was like the first section but towards the end the climbing started. Now I thought I would get a good feel of how the climbing would be. But … this was an easy part only .Finished the second TS as scheduled with some initial climbs in my legs. The stop was short again … kept moving on for TS3. A bit more climbing at third section. I start feeling that this is going to be a tough ride in the mountains. I start having a bit of a power nap at TS3. This helped a lot and moved on to TS4. TS4 section was split on the racetrack into TS4-1 and TS4-2. I got tuned in ok and was happy with the ride. However about 11 miles before TS4-1 a real disaster struck me. The road was great and new. However, no bike lane or shoulder. A truck was not patient behind me. The driver tried to pass me and when next to me he had incoming traffic running out of space and … kicked me off the road. He moved right into me and pushed me onto the sidewalk. I believe I was a bit over 20 mph at that time. Sliding on the road for a bit and nope … none of the cars behind the truck nor the truck stopped to help. It took me a bit, and I decided to keep going. Had issues with knee, hip, elbow and shoulder as well as my right hand. I was able to manage the pain and had to make it to TS4-2 so I could get some bandage to cover the wounds enough to avoid any infection. Had great help at every time station for that and admittedly very happy with the support of the volunteers at that race. … More in next part of the report
Jul 14, 2025
Race Around Poland 2025 (1) Just a bit of a race report of the Race Around Poland. What a race. I decided to participate in Self-Supported Race Around Poland 2025. Interesting experience and I was not sure if I get if all planned right or not. Why did I do the race? First of all, I wanted to use it as vacation schedule to also see my parents in Germany. Have not been able to see them ion person for about 2 years and that was a great excuse to stop at the place where I was born and grew up for about 2 decades. Had a great chance to ride with my parents (both 8 years old) before going to Warsaw. What a trip to Europe. I packed everything like when I went to Hawaii … unfortunate the weight limit was different now, so I ran into issues from start of my adventure. Had to buy another bag to make sure I could move stuff from Bike case to reach the max weight limit. As that would not be enough … I did drive from Florida to Atlanta to avoid connection flights. Had the flight to Munich, Germany and from there a one-way rental car to my parent’s place. Plan was to assemble bike and leave the bulky bags and travel by train. Unfortunately, no ticket available to go to Warsaw with bicycle. So repacked the bike in the large case and put what’s needed in the same case for train travel since that funny as is was OK. Travelled to Warsaw 2 days before the race. And assembled everything plus had a bit of riding to get a feeling for the beginning of the route and for traffic in Poland. It felt OK overall.Package pickup went perfectly fine. Picked up the bags for the time stations drop offs and went to hotel to get everything prepared for dropping off the stuff and to go to the race meeting on Friday. Unfortunate or fortunate. Heavy rain made me to use Uber taxi to go to the race meeting. Dropped all bags off that I wanted to get shipped to the time stations. I had head lights, tail lights as well as power banks for charging my phone and Garmin bike computer. Added to certain time stations.
Jun 16, 2025
Solid endurance training this weekend. Was pushing for a 300+ miles for the weekend. Had 155 on Saturday and 152 on Sunday. Did not go for faster speed. It was simply mental preparation and saddle time. Funny some may wonder why … I could answer because I can but reality is even I sometimes struggle on long rides. It was crazy this morning after 40 miles I debated myself if I may call it a day after 100 miles or if I shall try to get about 145 miles in (to get a total of 300). Today around mile 75 I joined a local group doing the ‘Easy Sunday Morning’ ride. And even I did my share of pulling after the ride and me being at mile 115 I decided to add a decent loop to get over 140 miles. Happy I was able to get it over 150. It was a mindset fight more than physical fight … glad I pushed for it. At the end I decided to add a few miles going into headwind only to see how I do. Overall a good solid weekend of endurance training. Glad I did stick to it.
Jun 16, 2025
I would not have imagined to be in the lead for first half year. It's going to change next month due to at least 2 extremely strong racers much younger. in addition whats cool for me ... I have done racing completely self-supported only so far and will continue to not use a support crew for the next races. Support crew get the racer much better and continues supply of nutrition and drinking supply plus at night provides protection and much more visibility due to the lights. Difference in average speed is more than many might imagine (I have done both options now). The cool thing ... I am not using coaching help and no crew mans I run the race season 2025 on extremely tight budget. So it's possible to be successful even with limited funding available. 🙂 Getting ready for my next race as my biggest challenge in 2025.
May 20, 2025
What a cool race and training weekend. We are in May and … i try to have at least a special event every month. 🤣😂🤪. Ok maybe not every month. For May it was the 12 hour Calvins Challenge National Championship Race. Its my first time on that and … weather was a bit tough. Extreme wind plus I admit I am racing without support crew. So far all races self-supported only. Downside in that race. So we got informed to ride the long lap as long as we can finish it and than switch to the short lap. With crew support besides getting food handed I would have been told its ok switching after second lap due to the insane wind. So I was one of the very few who did 3 of the long laps. That did cost me easy well over 10 miles after analyzing my data. But no complaints since I was focusing only on myself. I treated the race as a training race for my big race. That extreme headwind is equivalent to a 10% climb. So I was not unhappy. First stop after 100 miles and second stop after 150 miles. The lost time in lap 3 made me push hard on short loop to not miss the 200 mile marker. So I finished 1st in my age group and 5th overall. Also … I was one of the very few so named self-supported racers. So am am ok with the result since 12 hour races is not my specialty. Sunday I relocated to Helen GA so I can do a week of climbing’s. Normally after such tough race I would take it easy … ended up with a bit over 40 miles and over 5000 ft of elevation gain. Admittedly … I am tired now. Some may state thats a foolish idea to do such training after the race. No argument on may end … current focus is fun on riding not a overly tight training schedule … and I love climbibg. Overall it was cool even I am exhausted.
