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Race Report: Kraftwerk Trophy 24h

The Kraftwerk Trophy is just about the sexiest 24 hour road race I’ve ever heard of. I had signed up for it last year, but the event had to be cancelled due to (slightly absurd) problems with the local powers… but it was immediately clear that no matter what, if there was to be a KT08, I’d be there.

Life changes, people change, and events change. The Kraftwerk Trophy 2008 was announced with a radically new location, and in the meantime I had finished my thesis and moved to Konstanz, Germany. So when the time came to pack my gear and get ready for the race, it wasn’t a simple matter of throwing everything that may be useful into the car and drive 40km to Donnerskirchen; instead I had to carefully consider every item I would put into my backpack, and haul everything by train to Vienna. Since my choice of train connections was quite limited, I also couldn’t bring my road bike and had to make do with what I had left at Alexandra’s apartment in Vienna: my singlespeed cyclocross bike.

Not with knobbies, of course – I changed those out to slicks. But I would be 24hx48x16, one gear for the entire course, and although I knew that 48×16 was a fairly stiff ratio I didn’t have the time to change that. So the plan for the race was also clear from the beginning: don’t over do it, play it safe and see what happens. I’d be happy about 400km, and 500km would be great, but no real goals.

Alex was nice enough to drive to Donnerskirchen, but it was clear that I wouldn’t ask her to hang out and watch me go around in circles for 24 hours; not if she had better plans (she did) and I didn’t have any serious goals for the race (I didn’t).

I was lucky enough that the FIXEDGEAR.AT guys had plenty of room in their tent (which was located in the support area), so I could set up my stuff very close to the race course instead of having everything up at the regular camp ground. That was even easier because I actually hadn’t brought that much stuff. A little extra food, and my secret weapon: home made chicken broth, which would become the nectar of gods later on. Otherwise my plans were to pretty much just make do with what was available.

The start was pretty much standard as 24hr races go: going out way too fast, too hyped to finally get going to be rasonable about the speed. I stuck with the lead group for the first few laps, but it was immediately clear that I would be able to keep up with them for any reasonable amount of time. The climbs were okay, but what killed me were the accelerations coming out of corners (gear ratio too long to get up to speed quickly enough), and the fast descents (gear ratio too short to pedal at reasonable cadences). So after having fun playing with the big boys for a few laps, I dialed back to my own pace, keeping up with packs on the climbs and not minding if they pulled away on the descents.

Riding alone had its benefits, especially with a singlespeeder, because I wasn’t compelled to pedal at 160rpm just to keep up with a group on the downhills. It also meant that I could just stick with my own rhythm for refilling my bottle. I’d pull out every 10-15 laps to refill the bottle, maybe grab a bite to eat and go back out onto the course.

The race had started at 10am, and it turned out to be a fairly hot and humid day. Not my preferred weather for racing. I like hot (and dry), cold, even cold and wet can have a certain (unreasonable) appeal. But hot and humid? Nah. I had some trouble finding my rhythm on the course, found a thousand excuses why the race wasn’t going so well. The heat, saddle position wrong, inappropriate gear, not enough sleep.. a thousand negative thoughts.

But as the day went on, the heat subsided a bit, and (stupid as this may sound at first) I was yearning for the night. Cooler air, less wind, and the additional variety of the Dark 12 riders (the 12-hour race was from 9pm to 9am). I turned into the feed zone for a longer break a bit after 8pm, to eat a little more than just another energy bar, and also get ready for the night – lights and more clothing. That break ended up being a bit longer than originally planned, because I decided to wait for the start of the 12hr race so I wouldn’t be caught up in their high-speed frenzy.

From time to time, Alexandra also kept me amused with short text messages to my mobile phone, and I did my best replying to them during the occasional breaks.

The night itself went by surprisingly quickly… I began to feel better (which is also reflected by the lap times), and actually had a lot of fun blasting through the turns, especially a sharp right turn after a slight downhill, where the ideal line was aiming for – and just missing – the corner of a house on the inside. Great stuff. Sometimes I’d take it easy for a while and chat with fellow riders, but I mostly kept to myself and the tiny universe that my headlight carved out of the night.

Lap after lap after lap, refilling bottles every now and then, losing count how many times I’d repeated that procedure. My stomach would complain about the sticky stuff I was eating on the course, so at every break I’d drink some of the salty chicken broth I had brought. And it was still hot! That stuff really worked wonders, putting my stomach back in order almost immediately.

At some time in the morning (maybe around 3am) it was clear that I would easily reach my goal of 500km, and I decided to make another longer break, and maybe catch a little sleep. Set my alarm for one hour and cuddled up in my sleeping bag.

About 20 minutes later I was wide awake, feeling energetic and ready to go – so I got back on my bike. My left knee started to complain about forcing pedals around in circles several thousand times, and even the slight uphills became surprisingly difficult.

Still, as the new day awoke, my motivation soared and my lap times continued to improve, to the point that I rode several laps with the lead pack before they also started to pick up speed for the final few hours. The Dark 12 riders left us as quickly as they had come, and the 24 hour riders were once again alone for the last hour of their journey.

Just as if the clouds had waited for the moment, I felt a few raindrops mere minutes after the 12 hour race had ended… damn. Surprisingly slippery corners and 23 hours of riding don’t mix very well. Luckily the few drops were all that was to it, and the clouds dispersed again. I started to count how many laps I’d be able to pull off before the final bell, and when we passed the finish line with less than 9 minutes to go I realized that I didn’t really know how long the 3.9km lap would take me at this point, since I’d been riding without a heart rate meter or bike computer. So I decided to go nuts and lay down a fast lap, and see what happens. This turned out to be one of the fastest laps I’d ridden at well below 7 minutes, so I reached my goal of “one more lap” with relative ease.

And then it was all over.

I changed back into more reasonable clothing and raided the buffet. Amazingly enough, they still had everything. One of the few races that actually provide enough food, even for a post-race feeding frenzy. Since I didn’t have a car or too much gear, packing my stuff back together was a surprisingly simple matter, and I spent most of the time until the awards ceremony chilling, chatting with others and pretty much just getting in the way of the guys cleaning up the finish area before I walked over to a nearby restaurant for lunch and the awards ceremony.

There hadn’t been an official 24 hours singlespeed class, since even the hardcore singlespeed guys had opted for the 12 hour ssp race instead, so I was quite surprised when they announced me as the sole – and therefore fastest – 24hr singlespeed rider. Yes, I scored hardware at the legendary Kraftwerk Trophy!

Overall, I ended up 12th with a total of 148 laps / 574km; the last time I had checked the intermediary results I had been 14th, so that also was quite surprising.

Links:

• Kraftwerk Trophy homepage
• M3GA photo story
• Behind the scenes photo story
• Official results