Original ride report as sent to Tandem@Hobbes, the international email list for tandem enthusiasts, on Sept. 20, 1999:

"We survived! Sabine and I rode the Alpirsbach road bike marathon on our tandem yesterday. This is an annual long-distance ride through the Black Forest, part of the German bike federation's "Supercup" long-distance series. The rides are not held as races (i.e. not timed) and they are open to anyone feeling fit enough to make it through. The "Supercup" rides are all around 250 km long, and while some are flat, many are not.

It would be impossible to design a flat route through the Black Forest, and the Alpirsbach course reflects this. It is 242 km long (150 miles) and includes 4000m of climbing more than 13,100 ft. The longest climb comes at the beginning of the second half: The Kandel (near Freiburg) is a 13 km climb with almost 1000 m of elevation gain. I had been told before that the biggest challange, however, is the beer offered at the last rest stop! (The ride is sponsored by an Alpirsbach brewery). We chose to stay with the regular sports drinks...

The Alpirsbach ride costs DM 55 (plus DM 15 late fee for registration on the day of the event), and it is a great way to see the Black Forest by bike. 85% of the tour are on small roads with little traffic, the food at the five rest stops is good and plentiful, and the riders around us were very kind (and most of them experienced cyclists). The ride is always held towards the end of September.

The start was open between 7 and 8 a.m., with the bulk of riders (everyone who was at the line at 7) leaving in groups. We didn't get to Alpirsbach until a bit later, so we were almost by ourselves when we left at 7.30. A short look at the course profile, and off we went. Even though we are experienced cyclists, neither of us had ever ridden this far in one day. I had participated in the ride around Lake Constance (220 km) a while back, and I had also done a couple of training rides of around 110 miles this season, but aside from that, most of my rides had been closer to 50 miles. Sabine had never ridden more that 90 miles, and this showed in the amount of hours of saddle time she can stand.

We had done some last minute-adjustments to the road tandem the night before to make it more comfortable for her. The most important was to deactivate the suspension post (by cranking up the preload). She had tracked some of her seating problems to the fact that she could not easily take some pressure off of the saddle during the ride because the sag of the seat post meant that the post would follow her butt upward. Its not the bumps that make her uncomfortable (against which the suspension would help), but the constant pressure. This problem is made greater on the tandem as she cannot move around as much as on the single. For me, we had added a pair of Tranz-X handlebar extension (similar to Cinelli Spinacci or 3t Tiramisu) to help me cheat the wind. See here for more on our bike and a picture of us during the ride.

We figured that our only chance would be to pace ourselves really well if we wanted to have any chance of getting through at all. Thus I tried to climb at or only slightly above 160 bpm. Still, we were able to catch another tandem (a couple on a Trek tandem) before the first rest stop. The rest area was still full of many riders making up for the too-early breakfast time before the start, so we were surrounded by riders when we left. At the climb up the Kandel we knew that our legs would propel us the whole distance. We know the climb well as it is a regular part of many training rides, and we were not much slower than we normally are. I was still able to stay within the same rate rate as at the beginning. Due to Sabine saddle-soreness, we tried to stand us much as possible. Luckily, we have become a lot better at standing together since we first started tandeming.

At the top of the Kandel, we were greeted by several members of the university's cycling group who had ridden up from Freiburg. We had still not caught the first tandem, but we had passed quite a number of singles by that time. That turned out to be good as the next section was into a strong headwind, making us very thankful for the many riders around us to share the work with. After the last rest stop we knew that it would all be over soon, so I decided to really show the riders around us what a tandem can do. In true time-trialing fashion we hammered over the last few rollers and along the straightaways. We were too fast for the singles we passed to get onto our wheel, but a few were able to get behind us after intersections. Most of the downhills in the Black Forest are rather narrow and with lots of switchbacks, so we did not drp them all on the way down into Alpirsbach, but it must have been a great sight to see a tandem with a long row of singles racing into town. Needless to say this was the most fun part of the trip!

We completed the ride in 9 hours and 11 minutes riding time, but our rest times added up to almost 2 hours to give Sabine's behind time to recover. We were very happy when we finally saw the finish line, but we had enjoyed every minute of the ride until then."