❓Why
I did this race as a pair and with the aim of enjoying as much as possible the course and finishing within time.
The race starts when the deadens are informed and you start to draw your route, you might plan to ride all in the asphalt, introduce some hike a bike or going for a full blond mountaineering experience over some alpine pass.
The adventure scores in all the important aspects that drives me; social fitness, physical fitness and mental fitness.
👥 Social fitness
The day before you will pick up your bibs (or 🧦) at the cake office and you probably will see some other riders. People is open to talk and in the evening you might find riders all around St. Gallen.
The variety of riders mades a good atmosphere. Starting that might be one of the only races in the world that presents a 50/50 ratio of woman/man, it is as well a mix of people who are experienced ultra-cyclist and people who is new into those kind of events. All together it makes it perfect for good exchanges.
During the race, people design their routes with a deadends in different order and most likely with slightly different routes… so you will stumble with other riders every now and then and in the low hours they will look for conversation to try to avoid thinking how tough if being keep pedaling in the bike.
Volunteers at the aid stations are very friendly, usually close friend from the organizer that just make the event even better. You might get some ukulele 🎸 song plaid by the volunteers.
If you decide to enjoy the time-span given for the race you will spend a couple of nights in some town in Switzerland where most likely you have a chance to find other riders in the restaurants.To finalize, once you are back to the finish line 🏁 after some 500 kms and 9000m elevation, you will have a nice barbecue 🔥 , salad 🥗 , cakes 🧁 and drinks 🍺 .
💪 Physical fitness
The race brings you to spectacular valleys that require certain effort to achieve, while connections happen more in flatter terrain, the end of the valley usually raises up quite high… usually between 1600 and 2400m.
Despite you can do it all by road… you have the option to make connections that will save you distance, but terrain might be more challenging.
You will most likely wish for good weather ☀️, but alpine is uncertain… and you can go from sever heat 🌡️ in the valley at mid-day hours to freezing temperatures at the deadends in the night. So, your physical fitness will be challenged in more than one dimension.
🧠 Mental fitness
Landscape is different in every dead end… and once you leave the main valleys you will experience time of loneliness, wild nature and silence.
You might find huts at the end of the deadends where you could by something or take the cake and sit on a rock and just enjoy the rewarding views of the exhausting effort that you just made.
For some days… ride, eat, sleep repeat is going to be the basics you need, your mind will be reseted from our daily worries.