Eurobike is an annual bicycle industry tradeshow held in Friedrichshafen, Germany where next season’s products are introduced to the market. This year’s event started on the 31st August with the OutDoor Demo held in Argenbühl with the Eurobike Tradeshow ending on 3rd September 2010. Our friends at Lightweight (www.lightweight.info) had invited us to a group ride at the end of the second day of Eurobike. What we did not know at the time of accepting the invitation was that the ride included an 8.2 km uphill time trial race at the “Stoppomat Challenge” (www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoppomat). The TT involves a set of very innovative and environmentally friendly timing machines installed at the base of Höchsten Hill and at the top of the 3-4% ascent to Höchsten Hill. The concept is pretty simple, each rider takes a post card from the solar powered timing machine and inserts it into the digital timer which prints the exact time of the day and start of the TT. At the top of the hill you do the same to record your finishing time in order to work out your total elapse time for the ascent of Höchsten Hill.
By around 6:30pm some 20 riders had gathered at the entrance of the show venue and since the event was sponsored by Lightweight, almost all the bikes were equipped with their wheels, including a set, which they had kindly lent me for the occasion. With my Neilpryde Diablo now tipping the scales at less than 6 kilograms there were no excuses for not posting a good time on the TT. Everybody was under pressure to record some fast times as we were accompanied by some very fast looking local club cyclists and there were a number of Neilpryde bikes being ridden by former professionals Jörg Ludewig and Roger Tanner who were both very keen to put their Diablos through the rigours of the TT course.
One by one, riders entered the Stoppomat machine at the start in order to record their start times and set off for the top of the hill. I chose to start early in order to ensure I reached the top before sunset and by the 4 km mark both Jörg and Roger had past most of the other riders. At the end, I was pretty satisfied with both the bike and the result. With a combination of a very stiff and light ride, I achieved a respectable time of 22:38 (average 21.69 km/h), with Roger at 19:50 and Jörg stopping the clock at a very fast 17:20, with an average speed of 28:35 km/h.
With the sun setting as the last riders reached the top, Sigma (www.sigmasport.com) had kindly organized lights for everybody in order that the fast descent and ride back to Friedrichshafen in the dark could be done safely. The concept of being able to do a professionally timed TT at various Stoppomats in Germany, Switzerland and Austria is very unique and allows riders to pit themselves against local club riders and professionals alike and I will definitely have them on my future travel plans.
