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1998 Black Forest Ultra MTB Marathon at Kirchzarten
The first competitive event on my tandem

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Original ride report as sent to Tandem@Hobbes, the international email list for tandem enthusiasts, on June 29, 1998:

"Tandems can't climb? Read this! We did the "Black Forest Ultra Mountain Bike Marathon" in Kirchzarten (site of the MTB worlds 1995) just east of Freiburg/Germany on our tandem last Sunday. That's 116 km off-road (about 72 miles) and 3500 vertical meters (about 11.500 ft of climbing)!

I had originally planned on doing the ride with Dorothee, known to T@Hers as the world's most fearless stoker (can you say triple digit speeds (metric) on two-lane roads?), but she and her boyfriend decided to take advantage of the lower off-season prices and started their vacation early. So I started training with Achim, an old high-school friend. Achim is light and tough, just what you'd need for such a long day on the bike. And after a recent trip down the original 1995 downhill worlds course from the Rappeneck farm down to Kirchzarten to escape the oncoming, rain I knew that he'd not be asking me to slow down on the downhill parts of the course. But Achim became sick shortly before the end of last week. Three days before the race and no stoker in sight.

Luckily I know quite a few cyclists form my job as the coach of the University of Freiburg cycling group, but who would be crazy enough to ride
a tandem? Off road? For 116 km? So Thrusday night, I called Evelyn, who had joined the cycling group last fall. I knew she was an excellent cyclist both on and off-road, smooth pedaling style, but she had never ridden a tandem before! No problem I said, we'll take Dorothee's (road) tandem to ride with the group Friday afternoon, and maybe we can find some time on Saturday so I can show you what off-roading on a tandem feels like...

So that's what we did. I was well aware that I was asking a lot of this unsupecting woman. Several experienced stokers had declined the offer to
ride the Ultra with me, and now I was going to do it with a novice? A few short instructions as she adjusted her seat on Friday, and off we went on a relaxed group-ride with the beginners. On the way back we even tried hammering up a longish climb just to see how it would go. PERFECT! I didn't
feel any wiggle at all from the back - just pure power, delivered efficiently. We even tried standing up, and even that worked. The boys who were out front said they felt like a fast train was passing them as we went past them.

On Saturday, we went on a short ride in the "Sternwald" on the off-road tandem. One of the nice things about Freiburg is that the woods are only about a ten-minute ride from any point in town. I took Evelyn on some gravel-covered logging-roads, we practiced tight turns, climbing, and braking before we moved on to single track and faster descents. Never a whimper from the back, she did say that she was still "getting used to feeling", but she never felt unsafe, so why not do it?

When I picked up our race package in Kirchzarten I talked to the Cannondale rep who said that he knew of at least one more tandem, a 'dale that had been converted to full-suspension by its owners. At the starting line I learned of two more teams, one of them German Moehren's shop "German's Mountain Bikes" in Heidelberg (Germany's first MTB-only shop when it opened) where I used to work a few years back. German has been building some of the most beautiful performance off-road tandems for almost ten years now.

So Sunday came. We rode the ten miles out to Kirchzarten, a nice warm-up which is neccessary for this course since it starts with a 3.000 ft climb
from Kirchzarten up to the Hinterwaldkopfsattel to break up the pack. Seeing 2.500 cyclists on 2.492 singles and 4 tandems in a small town is always a spectacular sight. Just like last year (when I rode on my single), the streets were lined with spectators. The announcer interviewed some of the pros who were at the line, people set the limits on the heart rate monitors, took a last sip from their bottle, nervously adjusted their tire pressure one last time, and BOOM off we went at the soundof starting cannon - yes, not just an odinary gun.

The 2.500 cyclists, half of whom were in Kirchzarten to do the shorter couse (78 km, 2.200 meters of climbing), were divided up into 16 groups, which left at two-minute intervalls starting at 7:30. Since I had ridden the race on my single before, we were in the second block, right behind the licensed racers. We let us fall to the end of the pack on the five flat kilometers leading up to the first climb because we thought we would be among the slower riders. I had decided to obey my heart rate monitor's warnings and not go above 180 (I have a rather high heart rate; I can climb or time trial at 190-195, but not for six hours, of course). I had overdone it last year, trying to stay with the lead group "just to see how long I could hang on". I had made it up the first climb on Mike Kluge's wheel, but had to drop back after about 30 km and seriously considered abandoning another 15 km later... This year would be all different, we were only here for fun and to show the others that tandems could master such a demanding off-road course.

As we got to the first climb we realized that we would not be among the slowest, though. Evelyn didn't say a word, she just silently helped pedal
our rig to the top. We were quite surprised to find that we stayed with the pack all the way to the top. A quick stop to put on our wind breakers
(something we later did without stopping), and we started down towards Hinterzarten, a beautiful little village resort known for its ski jump
competitions. Just like last year, there were spectators in every village, and many people had even ridden or hiked into the woods to greet the
cyclists. As in all the villages, we were welcomed by an incredible roar as soon as the announcer realized that the first tandem was approaching. We didn't stop at the first food stop, only sharing an energy bar from my jersey pocket. The nice lake resort Titisee was the next town, from where we rode up to Bärental, the village with Germany's highest train station.

Back down to Altglashuetten, and then came the grueling climb up towards Menzenschwand via Farnwitte. I had remembered the section from last year, because it was the first part that showed starting a long mountain bike ride with only a 13-26 cassette in the back was a bad idea! We rode past quite a few riders pushing their bikes until we dismounted and joined them.

Downhill to Menzenschwand, another of the rest stops, and then one more hill to cross to get to Todtnau. Todtnau has become another focus point of mountain biking in Germany. They opened a downhill park just last year. I remembered that Todtnau was the town with the best spectators in 1997, and they were no different this year. By the time we got there, we were more than an hour behind eventual winner Mike Kluge (two-time Cyclocross World Champion, Mountain Bike World Cup winner), but the crowd still cheered for every rider. Again, they went really wild as soon as our tandem was announced. We stopped for some quick food and drinks and continued on to the worst part of the course.

We had completed about 80 km (2/3 of the entire course), but Todtnau is at the bottom of another 2500ft-climb. We did feel good, though, passing many riders on the way out of town. By that time, most of the riders around us were already used to the creaking noises that announced us - it seems that the XTR-cassettes spiderarm is to weak for the forces a tandem team can put out. During the first art, we had often heard riders exclaim "Wow, a tandem" when we passed them, now it was more "Not you again" or "Are you still with us?".

There is only the Schauinsland-mountain (literally "View over the land") between Todtnau and the Kirchzarten/Freiburg-region, but the did not allow
us to pedal right home. Up and down, up and down for 35 more kilometers. We had been on the bike for five hours now, every muscle hurt, but we were still enjoying ourselves. For me, pacing myself really paid off compared to last year. Evelyn, who had never been on a mountain bike for this long before (and who until days ago had never been on a tandem) could only be called wonderwoman. Every time I asked how she felt, she said "fine", and she could even still smile at me when I had the time to look back. We had gotton better at descending throughout the race. While we had lost time on the flats and downhills during the first part, the others seemed to have to slow down due to fatigue.

The last downhill section to Kirchzarten was rough, many rain rutts crossing the course and no suspension to make up for them. Knowing that the finish line was within reach, we decided not to risk too much and just bring it home safe. The streets of Kirchzarten were lined with people, still cheering for every single rider and especially the tandem team. One half lap around the stadium, and it was over.

We finished in just under 6 hours and 20 minutes, about an hour and 40 minutes behind Mike Kluge. That meant 315th out of 1030 starters, 39 of whom DNF'd (among them former Team Stuttgart/Team Telekom-professional Hartmut Boelts). The time would have gained Evelyn a 5th place spot among the 41 women in the field! We were the first of the four tandems, the second coming in twenty minutes behind us.

What a great day!"