Thanks Francois

Oetztaler was really strange because I was lucky and
unlucky at several points in the race. First of all I
gained from being caught in some kind of competition
between Italian teams. It was one of the funniest
things I ever experienced in a cyclo. During the
downhill section of the first climb (Kuthai) I
suddenly heard a women yell “Vai, vai vai” A couple
of seconds later the Cinelli train rushed by. The
train consisted of 4 men and one women trying to catch
up with the previous group (featuring first woman in
the race Anna Corona). This allowed me probably for
the first time in my life not to loose time in a
downhill.

Next I had a flat tire during the climb of the
Brenner. As I am still using tubulars (Vittoria open
Pro). I thought this was game over but the end of the
Brenner climb is also the point in the oetztaler where
lots of people are waiting and organise an additional
food stop. I managed to loose only seconds on the
group I was in, switched the front wheel from Hyperon
to ksyrium and continued. Because I was able to catch
up with the cinelli train on the final 100 meters of
the brenner climb I limited the loss of time. I was
very surprised to find out I finished 29. I expected
to be somewhere around 50 to 80. All in all Oetztaler
is still my favourite, starting Jaufen and TimmelsJoch
after about 140 km makes it probably the hardest mass
event.

Weather was again very bad, a lot of rain in the first
120 km. As I spent the week before oetztaler in
Switzerland and the north of Italy you can imagine I
did not really have a good holiday from a weather
point of view. In Switzerland the long distance for
the alpen challenge (one week before oetztaler) was
cancelled.

Congratulations to Oege for his win in les Ballons
Vosgiens. The fact that he attacked after only 60 km
and did the remainder on his own makes it even more
impressive.

Regards

Olivier


--- François Siohan <francois.siohan@...> wrote:

> Since the site is at a standstill I thought I would
> inform you that
> Oege Hiddema won "Les Ballons Vosgiens" the previous
> week-end.
> He has nice pictures on his website
> http://home.hccnet.nl/oege.hiddema/
>
> I also noticed that Olivier Huts did a fantastic
> Oetztaler, finishing
> in 8 h 05mn.
> What was it like Olivier? weather? etc.
> I wish I could have done it, it was to be the
> highlight of my biking
> season, but I had to cancel due to other
> commitments.
>
> As for myself I went down to "Les routes du Ventoux"
> yesterday as I
> needed to take revenge for a miserable experience on
> that terrible
> mountain last June.
> I climbed it much better this time ( but from
> Malaucène instead of Bédoin).
> Cheers
> François
>
>
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