July 16, 2010 (Fussen, Germany) – Stuart and Cathy James of ACS Distributing, are sport level racers based out of Ontario, and they have decided to take on the Transalp MTB stage race, an eight-day European epic that starts on Saturday and runs from July 17-24. The duo, who are tackling the race as a team, both celebrate their 50th birthdays this year and figured “better sooner than later.” The course covers 600km of roads and trails and over 19,500 metres of vertical. They will be riding 18lb KHS hardtails and will provide daily reports for pedalmag.com, starting with Day Zero, when they arrived in Innsbruck, Austria. The starting pistol sounds July 17 at 9:30 a.m. in Füssen, Germany, sending off 550 teams on this epic adventure.

Day Zero – Arrive in Innsbruck

We flew Air Canada from Toronto to Frankfurt, and then Air Austria to Innsbruck. Flights were great and on time and the weather was 36C in Innsbruck on Wednesday but today (Thursday) it’s a comfortable temp in the 20s.

We organized a taxi van to drive up approximately one hour to Fussen. The town is everything you would think a small German town would be. There are plenty of outdoor restaurants and accordion players on many corners with the mountains in the back ground.

We chose to sign up Thursday afternoon to avoid the Friday rush. It was quick and efficient. I have to put the bikes back together and we’ll go for a ride on Friday. We have a pasta dinner and briefing for the first day’s stage which starts at 9:30am on Saturday. All other days are 9am….