XC Racer Blog Post

Swiss Epic - Stage three - Today. We towed. We won!

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BY: Mark Spratt

Published: 17th September, 2015


Mel and I have competed in the mixed category several times in stage races and a common cause of contention for us is that of towing. Whilst entirely within the rules I feel it favours big strong men with much smaller women (whilst I’ve seen pairs where the woman was the stronger partner I’ve yet to see one pulling a man) and can potentially be dangerous (imagine a retractable dog leash crossing the trail between a towing pair). As a result Mel and I tend not to tow and for the first 2 days here we didn’t, essentially riding at the maximum pace Mel could maintain. And we were in the race. But with some long climbs on yesterday’s stage the pocket-pulling pairs eased ahead of us and we were unable to make the time back on the descents, so decided to employ the same tactics today and see where that took us.



The stage started with a couple of short climbs, though not enough to split the groups up significantly. What did affect the result in the mixed category were punctures early on for both the Giant Team Obwalden and Scott-Sports teams we’ve been battling with, each pair puncturing 3 times during the stage. Whilst the Subaru MarathonMTB pair of Mike and Imogen were some way ahead, this left us battling with the strong climbing 3SaM Racing team, but knowing we were better on the descents Mel and I put in an effort to enter the first significant descent ahead of them. And what a descent it was! Switchback after switchback, some rocky, some sandy and some loamy, it was fast, loose and as much fun as you can have in lycra.

We exited the descent onto the valley floor where we were faced with a 15km flat section into a headwind before we hit the next climb. At this point Mel latched onto my jersey pocket and I towed her across to a group of 6 riders up ahead. Being a bit of a lump in mountain biking terms sitting on the front of a group is something of a speciality of mine, and together with a strong effort from one of a German pair we made good time across to the day’s first big climb.

Due to a bad weather forecast this climb had been changed from off-road to mostly tarmac but we still knew at least an hour’s climbing lay ahead of us. Mel was climbing strongly but any time she started to drop back I’d swing across to her and pocket-pull until she’d recovered. Once the tarmac ended the climb continued, steeper and looser with walking for some. The trail merged into fun, exposed singletrack before leading into the second big descent of the day, and this one was even better than the first. Merging with the Flow riders, this was a trail that suited big-bikes, and seeing how some of the Flow teams were riding was pretty humbling. Our 100mm hardtails were pushed hard, but with dropper posts fitted we were able to make a good showing of ourselves and about a third of the way down were surprised to catch and pass the leading mixed pair, which only spurred us on to ride harder and faster. We knew that from the bottom of this descent it was mostly climbing to the finish and that our best chances of opening a time gap on our competition was on this descent. Whilst at the start of the week I was descending much faster than Mel she’s now close on my wheel and following my lines (or at least the good ones!).

A few lumps lay ahead of us before the final climb, once more on tarmac and once more insufferably long. I kept looking over my shoulder expecting to see Mike and Imogen rapidly gaining on us, but their bright red leaders’ jerseys didn’t appear and with some more pocket pulling Mel and I rolled into Grachen in 6 hours 1 minute in first place on the day. Only 5 minutes 52 later the 3Sam Racing team of Andrea and Sven Meier finished, followed by the Danish pairing of Lisette Rosenbeck and Winther Olsen of Team WeBike, both pairs getting their first podium finish.

So does towing work? Well we had our best result of the week today, but our main competitors all suffered mishaps, so I think the jury’s still out. Tomorrow though we start in the red leaders’ jerseys and we’ll do all we can to hold on to them, and that includes towing.

In the UCI Men’s race Mathias Fluckiger and Lukas Buchli of BiXS Stockli again took the win from Jochen Kass and Daniel Geismayr of Centurion Vaude with Alban Lakata and Kristian Hynek of Topeak Ergon Racing Team in third. Centurion Vaude now lead the race by 63 seconds over BiXS Stockli with Topeak Ergon a further 56 seconds back. Clearly everything still to play for amongst these 3 teams.



Amongst the women Sally Bigham and Adelheid Morath of Topeak Ergon Racing Team were again victorious, 4 minutes 29 ahead of Specialized RECM’s Annika Langvad and Ariane Kleinhans with Hielke Elferink and Anne Terpstra of Rent a Plant – Habitat in third. This is also how the Women’s overall standings lies right now, with Sally and Adelheid having an 8 minute 50 lead over Annika and Ariane, significant but not unassailable.




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