Black Forest Ultra MTB Marathon, Kirchzarten

Birgit, icon of the Black Forest brewery on my number plate

Its been a few years since my last mountain bike marathon, in the Lake District 2010, so I was looking forward to getting back on the trails with fat tyres and the full suspension after all the adventures on asphalt. My main memories of the lakes and Yorkshire events were of bike/hike across unrideable boggy moors, often very long sections of hiking which did not allow for continuous effort. (Selkirk not in this category)
Here, the course is mostly fast firetrack which would be comfortable for cross bikes, apart from several short sections of fast descent where the suspension was a clear bonus. A few cross bikes were spotted on the course, one rider said he wouldn't do that again on the ultra circuit but the marathon route is smoother. Only one super steep section which I was forced to dismount, after making it almost to the top.
The event was great, well over 5000 riders on the day taking part in various distances from short 43km. speed 52km, power 77km, marathon 89km to ultra 117km distance, as well as a childrens event.
What made this a fun event was the number of spectators around the course, ringing cowbells and giving general encouragement. Often marshalls in the middle of the forest would have their stereos playing, or just cheering us on. The highlight would be the "Alpe de Fidlebrugg", a steep road out of the village of Aftersteg, just beyond Todtnau. The road was colourfully painted with names, encouragement and lined on both sides with noisy spectators, so loud with cowbells and horns, it was like cycling up between the crowds on a Tour de France mountain stage!

Initially I had the worry that my single bottle cage would not be enough, but with cool conditions and 7 feed stations there was never any danger of dehydration today. It would even be possible to start this event with no water bottles, as they were handing out new water bottles at the feed stations, which would save weight on the first climb if you really wanted to. At some of the stations, it wasn't necessary to stop, as the helpful volunteers would feed you as cycled slowly along, very helpful.
Several of the stations had bike repair facilities as well, which I had to make use of midway as I found a section of teeth on my large chainring had almost given up, and caused a severe wobble in the chain. Easy to explain the problem and the mechanic just used the pliers to bend the wheel back into shape, and apply a generous amount of lube to the chain, the bike was smoother than when I started.


So many photographers as well on this course, on the early descents there were many professional setups with automatic flashlights in the forest, so at least one of them had to be decent!

Official time 6hr 8min 5sec, 291st out of 925 finishers, average speed 18,9kph


!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately, this was the last Kirchzarten Ultra Bike Marathon! It no longer has the support of the local community, and the organiser is moving away from the area. Sehr schade!

http://www.swr.de/landesschau-bw/-/id=122182/did=11671966/pv=video/nid=122182/1ravox5/index.html

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!