Posted by Ron Prinzlau on July23, 20140 Comment
Translated by Bjørn Henschke
At the 21/22.06.14 took part the annually 24h race in the Olympic park of Munich. Before the race a lot of riders changed their mind, and cancelled the race. But at least we were able to build up two mix-teams of 4.
The Team Pirate 4 Speed consisted out of Stephan Luedke, Nele Tödter, Florian Kratz and Alexander Strößenreuther.
The Pirate 4 Friends Team consisted out of Michael Heins, Lothar Stoiber, Claudia Neuhofer and a colleague, who does not want to be named.
I arrived early on Friday before the others and started to built up the paddock of our booked place. Later Alex arrived and he got some banks and tables. Than one by one arrived and brought more and more stuff to make our place a home. The weather was all right. Flo arrived and so my possibility to sleep.
Everything started good I thought and took on the BBQ and maybe the first beer. Than late in the evening, it was almost twelve, Nele and Stephan from Hamburg arrived. Earlier than expected, I just had laid me down, so I stand up again, helped building up their tent, drank maybe another beer and finally at 1:30o´clock, we all went asleep. The last ones arrived on Saturday morning and the time for the start at 12:00o´clock drew nearer.
Finally time of waiting was all over. At 12:00o´clock was the starting signal and Stephan and I were the first riders for our teams to start on the very ambitious 7,2km long course or round. In the afternoon more and more viewers, spectators and supporters arrived, and the park became crowded. Maybe even because of the World Championship game of Germany against Ghana.
The teams rode their rounds and the mood was awesome. Everything worked. Team 4 Speed was lying on the 12th place and Team 4 Friends on the 18th and never gave it away until the end. Not bad for 18th of 24 teams.
Further on during the race, you sometimes saw or heard the ambulance. Right in front of me a girl broke her both wrist while she was kissing dust. It doesn’t looked very good, and the ambulance took it´s time until they arrived there. When it would be worse, I think you would have lost….
Nightfall. The bikes were being fixed for the dark. Thank you by the way, for all your support, Iris. Thank you.
During the night, an incident at Team Pirate 4 Speed, Flo became ill and wasn’t be able to ride on. Nele had to take a longer break too. She also had to drive back to Hamburg, the very next day. So, the Team became a team of 2, but Alex and Stephan did a great job. Respect.
The Team 4 Friends rolled on. We changed our transition are to theour paddock. You lost some minutes, but the waiting riders could rest a little bit more. Anyway, our paddock, was just 150m away from the transition area.
At the end, it was a wonderful event with 2 teams, that perfectly matched together. It was fun. At the end we ended up on the 16th place (Team 4 Speed) with riding 66rounds and on the 18th place ( Team 4 Friends) with 65 rounds.
Next year we want topartivipate again. Next year the race will be at the end of August. Maybe we manageto have some more teams participating. And Munich is always worth travelling
Having said this… Under Jolly Roger
Michael Heins
Pirate Picasso
