July 20, 2009 (Mayrhofen, Germany) – Well the race finally started after a rest day of listening to torrential rain all day and all night. We awoke with trepidation as it was foggy and cold with a peak-a-boo view of snow just at horizon level on the local hills. At the start line for Stage 1 we saw many shoe covers and layers of tights, arm warmers, head coverings – something you don’t usually see at Whistler MTB races – there much road racing influence in evidence.

The Euros were dressed for snow but it turned out to be a gorgeous sunny day and is predicted to reach a high of 37 Celcius by this coming Thursday. Is global warming in evidence as it’s unheard of to have 17cm of snow at 1,500m in July according to locals?

Soon after the start our warm outer layers were thrown into our new friends the German Bike Magazine photographer’s capable hands. This first stage was shortened to 47km as last major hill was impassable due to snow.

We also had a later start beginning at 11am as organizers had to relocate the finish 30km away from the planned finish in Mayrhofen. We had a frantic start as Lisa’s front brake pin broke in transit as all bikes were transported in big trucks the day before. Thanks to mechanics at Shimano all was fixed and we owe them a huge thanks. Being unsupported i.e. no mechanics, no water bottles at the side of the road, no transport from stages, means that we have had to be resourceful, smile a lot and make new friends, which has been already an amazing experience in the best of human nature.

Thanks to everyone – we were very pleased with our opening day a first for both of us to race as a women’s team and the second ever stage mountain bike stage race for us both. We placed 6th overall thanks to Lisa’s strong legs in the uphill and my hanging on to her jersey pocket when necessary keep a fast pace.

Only 12 minutes separates the top seven women’s teams – a strong field of mainly professional women’s teams, not professional workers like us. It’s somewhat daunting to see the big team vans painted with sponsors logos, with many team members and support crew milling around assisting each other.

With heavy legs and feeling exhausted we couldn’t bear the thought of riding another 30km to the true finish town as we knew none of our competitors would need to take this trek. My Polish heritage came in handy as I sweet-talked the Polish team to let us hitch a ride in their camper van and now we have another crew of new friends.

We arrived in time to spa, massage and relax in our beautiful hotel. Have I mentioned that we seem to be having the best luck as the gods have been smiling on us – we’ve been upgraded in both hotels to the luxury suites, which seem to be the honeymoon suite in both hotels but at the budget rate.

Tomorrow the real race begins as this was just a teaser… Auf Wiedersehen.

Cathy