Deutsch
| Français Off-road tandem stage race
across
the Alps! July 21 - July 29, 2001
Attention:
The organizers accept no more applications. There is already a considerable
waiting list for the event!
Only 350 teams will be able to participate!
See
you again in 2002. Contact: Michael Veith Marketing
GmbH, Tel. +49 - 89 / 65129930,
e-mail info@veith-marketing.de
Do you ride tandems? Do you ride off-road? Have you raced your tandem off-road before?
How about going for the total tandem experience:
MTB-tours across the Alps have become
THE thing to do for European off-road cyclists in recent years. For several
years, the German bike mag "BIKE"
has sponsored an eight-day stage race for teams of two, the "Adidas BIKE
Transalp Challenge". In the past they did not allow tandems, but I got
an email from the race organizers saying that they would allow tandems
for 2001! Anybody interested?
About 6-12 hours of race-level cycling
for a whole week! Expect plenty of looooong uphills and technical single-track
descents. There will certainly be some sections where even single bikers
will have to carry their bikes, but most of the course should be rideable.
It will not be a course designed for tandems, however!
Framebuilder
Florian Wiesmann, former Swiss Junior DH-champ, did the race this summer,
and he told me that there were three one-hour sections where tandems would
have had to be carried, but everything else should have been rideable for
an experienced tandem team.
See the
official website for details on this year's event (all in German, sorry!).
This
page has press releases in English and might give you an even better
impression. Email me
if you are seriously interested, or email the organizers
directly. I will try to keep track of all tandem teams entering. Hurry
up: Only 350 teams will be allowed to enter.
This
year's course covered 600 km in eight days, including 20,000 meters
(66,000 ft) of climbing! Take a look at the
course profiles or at some
pictures. Do remember, however, that next year's event may be completely
different.
The colors in the course
profiles are coded as follows:
blue
= paved
green
= gravel / double track dirt road
orange
= hiking trail wider than single track
red
= path / single track
black = push or carry the
bike
Cost for 2000 was DM 790 (currently
US $ 360) per person excluding lodging. Sleeping arrangements: Each stage
finishes in a town, so you can sleep in a regular hotel room. The website
also mentions the possibility to sleep in some sort of camp (comfort level
of a refugee camp in a gym, probably) for DM 25 per night including breakfast.
The race will go from North to South.
This year's start was in Mittenwald in the German Alps, and the course
then ran through Austria to Riva at the Lake Garda in Italy. The official
flyers won't be out until mid-December.
To be honest: This is not going
to be a tandem race. It is a two-person MTB team event with male, female
and mixed categories. They will allow tandem teams to participate, but
as of now have no intention to post a "tandem" category. I hope we will
have a significant number of tandem teams participating. So far I have
received emails from several teams in the U.S., the U.K. and Germany. I
will hand out tandem certificates to the top three tandem teams!
Technical requirements: To enter the race as a tandem team,
you obviously need a bike that seats two people. I would recommend at least
a very good tandem suspension fork, preferably a full-suspension tandem.
Caution:
Only very few suspension forks are approved for tandem use! If you do not
have a full-suspension tandem I would definitely recommend to get a parallelogram
suspension seatpost like the one from Moxey/Syntace
or the Cane Creek Thudbuster for
your stoker. Good full-suspension tandems are currently only offered by
Ventana
and Tandem
Technology.
You MUST prepare your bike's brakes
for this event. Do not consider entering the event
without either tandem approved disk brakes (Hope DH 04 or Magura Gustav
M) with the largest rotors you can find, or an Arai
drum brake backing up the rim brakes.
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