July 18, 2009 (Mittenwald, Germany) – Dr. Cathryn Zeglinski (Canada) and Dr. Lisa Pleyer (Austria), full time physicians, have teamed up to compete at the 2009 Jeantex Bike TransAlp Powered by Nissan – 6,34.71km, 22,117m, 17 passes – an 8-day stage race which starts in Mittenwald, Germany, traverses the Austrian alps, and ends in Riva del Garda (Italy). They’ll be sending reports as they’re able to for the duration of the race, covering all of action from the perspective of unsupported non-professional racers, who race strictly for the love of the biking.

The start of Stage One has been delayed from Saturday, July 18 until 11 am on Sunday, July 19 (instead of 9am) as organizers hope by then the snow will melt. We can see the snow line from our hotel room. Organizers said it was impossible to hold the stage due to snow given concerns of hypothermia and possible death (which occurred in Tirol last year during a marathon running race in similar conditions).

Cathy’s View: Part 1
Traveling thousands of miles with a new Santa Cruz Blur XC carbon bike worth more than my car, to a country where I can’t speak the language, always brings it’s share of challenges. Riding up one way streets almost ending up on the Autobahn, then circling the town of Innsbruck and visiting my third consecutive bike shop and not successfully communicating, I decided to wait until my team mate Lisa arrived to provide her German translation. She was working and doing night calls and tending to patients, having only one day off work before the race.

As one of only seven Canadians at this race, I feel privileged to have gained an entry through Lisa’s local connections. Racing as the Northlands Medical Clinic Team with our bikes covered in Canadian flags we plan to do Canda proud. Lisa is also a Canadian citizen despite having lived in Austria most of her life. Despite starting to bike race only a year ago she discovered her real talent and won the mixed team event at the Transalps road event two weeks ago with Stefan Stadler’ (Roadbike-holidays KTM).

Lisa’s View: Part 1
Cathy and I met at a roundabout (a highway junction) in Innsbruck on July 17/09. We hadn’t seen each other since November 2009 at La Ruta de los Conquistadores in Costa Rica, where we were room mates. Cathy was jet-lagged and I was still recouperating from my last night shift at the hospital. There was no time for socializing as we had to organize several things for tomorrow’s race. We set off promptly to the closest bike shop. With Cathy’s good looks and charm, and both of us stylish in our new matching PINK team outfits, we persuaded the mechanics at the bike store to drop all of their regular work and shorten her new carbon handle bars. After that Cathy smiled at the guys and charmed them into adjusting the brakes. The poor guys had to put up with us for two hours but we kept them smiling.

The next day we drove to registration – the easiest part of the race or so we thought. Meticulously we followed the signs that read accreditation but ended up doing a tour of Mittenwald – 3 times no less on one way streets. At this time point we decided to continue our search on foot, and thanks to the help of two guys from Wales, we eventually found the place – a large motorhome was blocking the entrance and the sign!

The next morning we left Innsbruck at 6am, following a somewhat uneasy night intermittently waking up to the sound of buckets of rain pouring down and a sense of foreboding with flashes of lightning and claps of thunder. We knew that the first day of the race would be cold and very wet. After having hyped ourselves into actually looking forward to racing in the rain, you can imagine our extreme disappointment, that Stage One was CANCELLED due to snowfall (15-20cm) which was sufficient enough to allow the race organizers to build a snowman on the first pass we were supposed to climb.

We were assigned to take a bus, leaving seven hours later, and my heart plumeted at the thought of freezing in the rain for that amount of time. Out of nowhere, our knights in shining armor from Team NATO appeared. In gentlemanly fashion they offered us not only a ride in their motorhome to Reith im Alpbachtal, but also lent us warm clothes and provided us with hot drinks.

We’re looking forward to keeping you up to date with this daily blog, if we don’t curl up and die after having dragged our tongues on the pavement and exploded our hearts…just as Cathy’s coach advised us (Hi Tony).