BIKE Festival Willingen 2018 – Rocky Mountain BIKE Marathon and Warsteiner Sauerland-Giro

Although it’s already been six weeks since BIKE Festival Willingen took place, I really wanted to write about it. I had such a great time there – above all because I participated in the Rocky Mountain BIKE Marathon, something completely new to me that I’d wanted to do for a while. It also scared me a bit, though, because I didn’t really know what to expect. In winter and spring, I’d spent a lot more time riding off-road than riding on roads, and at some point I really felt like doing Read more

Off-road debut – MTB/cross race in Hürth-Kendenich

When someone asked me a couple of months ago if I ever planned on taking part in a mountain bike race, my answer was a definite no. A couple of weeks ago, I thought it would actually be cool to enter a race next year, just to have a goal to prepare for. And not much later I thought, why wait so long? So I signed up for my first off-road race – Raiba Rad Cross, which took place in Hürth-Kendenich on 12 November. Primarily, it is a typical cyclo-cross event, but they also offer a race for mountain Read more

Germany, Austria and Italy by camper van, mountain bike and road bike

(part 1 of probably 3 😉 ) Just like last year, Niels and I rented a camper van and went to the Alps again this summer. Lesson no. 1 after two weeks and eight different stopovers (one of those in the Black Forest and one in the Sauerland, a hilly region close to where I live) : Mountains are awesome. Lesson no. 2: Unfortunately, heaps of people think so. It’s definitely not the smartest idea to go on holiday when all of Europe is on summer holiday, too. On the upside, though, the weather was Read more

Road rash and mash

On 25 May, I crashed on my road bike, which came as an unpleasant surprise because I had always felt so safe riding it. After a great ride with lots of climbing we were almost at home when I must have hit a pothole on the last descent and my rear wheel went up. I flew over the handlebars and landed on my chin. People driving past immediately stopped, took care of me and called an ambulance. I’d been riding with my boyfriend Niels, so he was with me the whole time as well and didn’t only support Read more

Training for this year’s races: Rund um Köln and Rad am Ring

On 11 June 2017, I'm going to take part in Rund um Köln, a 68-kilometre road bike race in Cologne, on 29 July 2017 I’m going to enter Rad am Ring, a 75-kilometre road bike race around the famous Nürburgring race track. If you have also signed up for one of these races or a similar event for the first time, you might be asking yourselves how to prepare for them. There certainly isn't a one-size-fits-all approach to the right preparation – which kind of preparation makes sense always depends Read more

Cycling – an individual sport you can (best) practise as a team

Is cycling an individual or a team sport? Looking at race results, the answer to this question would be that it’s an individual sport – except for team time trials. As everyone knows, though, even the best riders don’t stand a chance without their team. A good thing about cycling as a hobby is that you can easily practise it by yourself. You don’t necessarily need to know people with the same interest or stick to training schedules, as is the case with classic team sports. Even if you Read more

The Ponale Road – from Lago di Garda to Lago di Ledro

My biggest mountain biking highlight was following the Ponale Road from Torbole on the shore of Lake Garda to Lake Ledro – a real classic, as I know now. During the same holiday that my boyfriend and I climbed the Passo dello Stelvio on our road bikes, we rented mountain bikes in Torbole on Lake Garda a couple of days later. Due to lack of space, we had had to decide whether we would take our road bikes or our mountain bikes with us and had opted for the road bikes because we thought we would Read more