Written by Heather Holmes
Wow! What an amazing and wonderful trip! I finally made it home from my trip to Austria for the Marathon World Championships - it was a long trip home requiring five flights and a night in the airport. I typically don’t race marathon mountain bike races, but after the US Nationals race in July I received a nomination form USA Cycling and decided to attend the World Championships in Graz, Austria. Since I was already racing the Kenda Cup ProXCT race in Windham, New York, it was easy to get a flight from Albany to Graz, Austria Monday after the last race. Plus, I looked at the course information online before committing and it was similar in length and elevation gain to the Nationals course, but with less singletrack and lower altitude.
So, the Monday after the Windham race I was in a van heading to the Albany airport with my Kenda-Tomac-Hayes teammates. Some of them thought I was nuts traveling to race without support in a foreign country, but I was excited for the trip. I wasn’t sure what to expect when I got to Austria, Harlan Price (the male representing the US) emailed me a few weeks prior about staying in international student housing and I arranged for an airport pick up from the manager of the housing, Andreas. I was surprised when I landed in Graz to see both Andreas and Harlan waiting for me, with a sign so I would recognize them. This was my first time meeting Harlan and I knew instantly that he was going to be fun to hang out with! Both of them made me feel so comfortable and Andreas wanted to do everything he could to make all of the racers staying at his place feel welcome. I spent the rest of my first day sleeping, walking around to find gluten free treats and building my bike.
The view down to the valley floor from half way up the last climb of the race.
The next day, Wednesday, Harlan invited me to join him to ride part of the course. Since it was one big loop, 53 miles for the women, the preriding had to be done in sections. Also, since neither one of us rented a car we rode our bikes from our accommodations to the course. Riding to the course ended up being a good thing because less than 10 minutes from the start line there was a steep road climb, with 28% grade at the steepest section. Harlan and I rode the first part of the course, since he had already done the last part of the loop he was used to the course markings and familiar with the area so he showed me around. The cool thing about having one big loop to race was that preriding was like getting a free tour of the countryside! We rode through a few small towns, the grounds of a monastery founded in 1129, a school playground, cow pastures, farmer’s back yards and up a mountain with restaurants and a gondola at the top.
On Thursday, I planned on riding the second half of the course and as I started my ride I noticed my rear wheel seemed loose. Actually, I kind of noticed something funky going on with my wheel for a few days and I finally put together that the bearings in my hub seemed to be going bad. I was a bit stressed out, but luckily I traveled to Austria with two sets of wheels so I knew I would be able to get something worked out. I chilled out about the mechanical problem and finished riding the second half of the course. This section had the most climbing and the longest descent on the course. The climb finished at the top of the mountain with the gondola, it was neat to see so many people hiking and riding all over the mountain and kids playing on toys at the top. I was out of water when I got to the top so I tried to get water and a sprite at the bar; I ended up with one sprite, water and two glasses of wine and water mixed. It was kind of a funny situation, and luckily a customer came in that spoke English and helped us sort out the miscommunication, then he told me I needed to work on my German. I finished my preride with almost an hour of descending and rewarded myself with an espresso at the café near the start/finish area.
After I got back to our room Harlan was nice enough to take apart my hub and scope out the situation for me, turns out the bearings were bad and I would have to race my other wheel. I was worried about my second wheel because it was the setup I flatted at Windham the weekend before. Once again Harlan came to the rescue and helped me get my second wheel to hold air. This ended up being a good thing because I was going to race Kenda Small Block 8 tires, but it rained the day before the race and I had Karma tires setup on my backup wheels. Good thing too because even though there wasn’t much singletrack on the course the trail that was there was fairly hard, similar to the riding I had done on the east coast for the past two weeks. I knew the rain would make the trails very slippery and the tread on the Karma would be perfect!
Harlan in his TeamUSA kit in front of the Clock Tower, the cyclist in the photo asked to have his photo taken with Harlan.
I took a rest day on Friday so we scoped out the town and rode up to the clock tower near the center of Graz. Even though the hill seemed small, the views from the top were amazing! Later in the day Harlan went to a café to wait for his friend Rick to come into town. I decided that I would catch a bus to the opening ceremonies for the event, and try to meet up with them later. As I was heading down the street to catch the bus I noticed a guy wandering down the street with a cast on. Luckily, Harlan told me Rick had a broken arm so I walked up to him and asked if he was looking for Harlan. Sure enough he was, so we found Harlan jumped in the car and drove to the opening ceremonies in Stattegg. It was so cute, there were about 40 kids carrying in flags for each country and saying welcome in the language of the country.
Finally, it was the day before the race, Saturday. I wanted to get my ride in early so I could spend the rest of the day relaxing. There was one section of the course that I hadn’t ridden yet so I was going to try to get that in, but I decided it would be too long of a ride. Instead, I rode up to the course and went up the crazy steep start hill one last time. Then I headed back to my room, set up my nutrition supplies for the race and spent the rest of the day relaxing.
Steps leading up to the Clock Tower, luckily there is a road on the back side that is less steep!
The weather Sunday morning was beautiful, no rain and not too hot, perfect for bike racing. I made plans earlier in the week to meet up with my support crew the morning of the race. Once again, I had no idea what to expect. Through the awesome network of cyclists in Salt Lake City, a couple living in Austria planned to meet up with me to take care of my water bottles and technical support during the race. I strolled out of my room at 8 AM and was greeted by the friendliest couple imaginable. I was so impressed, they had printed out all of the maps to feeds zones, highlighted the important times they needed to be there and told me it would be no problem to carry around my extra wheels, tools and water bottles. I chatted with them for a bit, then I went back to my room feeling so excited because awesome people were doing my support. I was extremely grateful because I knew it was going to be a lot of work for them to be my support crew. Since the course was one big loop and the five feed zones were scattered all over the place, it was going to be stressful and time consuming to drive to each feed station. Not only that, but I found out that they lived two hours away so they had to wake up at 5 AM to come to my rescue, incredible!
Now it was time to get on the bike and start thinking about racing! Harlan and I rode to the start of the race as part of our warm up and once we got there we were glad we had, the traffic was jam-packed. We even arrived before Andreas and Rick, both had left in their vehicles the same time we departed on bikes. I rode around in the neighborhood near the start for my warm-up, I wanted to make sure my legs wouldn’t be dead when we hit the road climb early in the race. I could hear the announcer calling up the men, as they started 15 minutes before the women. I knew our race would be starting soon, I was more comfortable than I expected during the call up and at the start. Once the gun went off the women stayed together as we rolled up the gradual road climb to the base of the steep climb. I knew once we hit the steep climb the race would break up, sure enough no one really attacked, but the field started to break apart. Once we got to the top we headed into the woods on a trail, I tried to pass some people here so I could get a good position for the technical riding. I continued to pass people throughout the single track and before I knew it we were working our way through the flats to the first feed zone. I rolled through, got two bottles from my wonderful support crew and continued on my way.
Although it was hard, the rest of the race was a lot of fun. There were awesome spectators everywhere, kids on the playground wanting to get high fives, people cheering us on as we rode through a beer garden and at every aid station my wonderful support crew. I couldn’t help but smile during a lot of the race, the views were beautiful and when there weren’t people around the cows had cowbells on so it was like they were cheering for us! I continued to work my way up in the field, and after about three hours I decided my goal was to finish in five hours. I passed a couple of girls at the top of the gondola climb and tried to pick off more people on the descent. I was closing in on two or three, but I took a hard fall about half way down on a gravel road. Apparently, 4 ½ hours of racing affects my judgment on how fast to take a corner! I still managed to catch one girl, but she stayed on my wheel and came around me at the finish. I was seven minutes over my goal of five hours, but I was extremely happy with myself for riding hard during the last two hours of the race. At the finish my support crew was well prepared and handed me a large bottle of water and a lot of chocolate. Overall I had a great experience and for my second marathon race ever I didn’t do too shabby!
My race wouldn’t have been possible or nearly as much fun without my support crew - Renate and Rudy, Harlan for fixing my mechanical issues, the clothing sale from TheChurchOfTheBigRing.com, donations from wonderful people and the words of encouragement sent my way, thank you everyone! Also, I would like to thank all of my wonderful sponsors for the great equipment this year - Kenda Tires, Tomac Mountain Bikes, Hayes Brakes, Manitou, Voler Clothing, KMC chains, Hammer Nutrition, Specialized shoes and helmets, WickWerks chainrings, Kinesys sunscreen, Crankbrothers pedals, Hydrapak, Finish Line lubricants, Ergon grips and Genuine Innovations CO2 inflators. Big thanks also to Bootworks Cycle Center in Park City, Utah for helping me get my bikes up and running this year!
We had to ride through this pasture with the cows, luckily on the day of the race people were around to keep the cows away from us.
The view down to Graz from the Clock Tower, we were staying in the building behind the tree on the lower left of the photo.
MurIsland – A steel structure built in the middle of the Mur River, it’s like a bridge with a coffee shop and bar inside!
