Rheinfelden tri-berg-athlon

This blog was supposed to be mostly rad-sport, but over the past year its been almost totally rad-sport, so here's a glimpse of some triathletes doing that bit you have to do before getting on the bike in the Rheinfelden middle distance and Olympic distance triathlon. Until yesterday, it was unknown if the swim in the Rhine would go ahead as the water has been too cold. It has to be over 14 degrees. Plan-B was a swim in the pool, or duathlon. But due to the last 3 warm days, the water temperature had risen to a legal 14.4 degrees, just enough for the full swim to take place.
After a quick breakfast I had little time so had to pedal fast the short distance up the Rhine to Rheinfelden for the 8:15am start of the race.
I have to say this brought back memories of the plunge into Loch Tay for my Aberfeldy mid distance event, which was 13 degrees, and painfully cold. It didn't inspire me to plan for next years race. If it happened to be a month or two later, the water will be up to 23 degrees, so why not wait? I guess they have the slot booked in the triathlon calendar now.
However, the start was as impressive as any open water triathlon when all the competitors splash into the water and power away from the shore. Most likely many will take part in next months Swiss 70.3 in the lake of Zurich, at least that should be a few degrees warmer. Now I could be tempted by that next year...

After all the swimmers were little yellow dots in the flow of the Rhine I crossed the river and cycled north to Maulberg, Neuenweg up then down to Munstertal. The aim of this ride was to climb up to Schauinsland for the first time, its a long way out and a big climb so it needed good weather to be worth attempting. Did I say roads in the Black Forest were gentle? Not this one, its a real monster - there is a distinct warning sign at the start of the climb, which is immediately from the junction which would take you up to Wiedenereck. 18% and 5km, of course the steepest parts were on the bends but in general I was locked in bottom gear for the whole of this section and wishing I had more gears. A real test, its incredibly steep for the first 3km up to a small collection of buildings around a sharp hairpin bend. After that it levels off to a steeper than normal climb for the final 2km of this section. To get to the top its several km more either taking a direct route up or as I had decided to go with my original plan to follow the road downhill a short amount to the main road up from Freiburg and ascend to the top at a less painful gradient. On this road I passed below the cablecar that whisks visitors up to the top of Schauinsland.
At the top, there is a small ridge for 2 or 3km at altitude with good open views, but then one massive descent down to Todtnau and beyond. That was really good fun. After Todtnau, the familiar climb up from Präg, down to Todtmoos and down the fantastic gorge south towards Wehr.

I managed to get back to Rheinfelden in time to see some of the triathletes finishing their event, I wonder who spent the most calories in the past 6 hours?