Sounds like a crazy idea: 51 pupils from the seventh grade want to ride from Lake Constance to southern Italy on racing bikes - including daily stages of up to 170 kilometres, poisonous Alpine passes and busy Italian roads. And all 13-year-old boys and girls who have only been on a racing bike for a few weeks. Can that go well?
Kai Telle is sure that it will go well. The cycling-mad sports teacher is not only the initiator, but also the organiser and driving force behind the project at the Freie Waldorfschule in Überlingen. For months, he has been organising material
for months, inspecting routes, booking accommodation, talking to supervisors and, above all, training the pupils. Now he stands in the schoolyard and looks at the chaos: one pupil is looking for the key to his bike lock, another realises that his brakes are rubbing, the next has misplaced his rucksack. Carers load the accompanying vehicles and pale children stand next to even paler parents. Dangerous descents, falls in the group, heavy traffic and exhausting daily stages - the conceivable dangers are great. "It's like starting into a black hole," says one pupil, describing his uncertainty.
But that's no wonder. After all, 1,300 kilometres and 10,000 metres of altitude await the students - a distance of a magnitude that is still unimaginable for most of them on the start day. "Three weeks ago, they were already complaining after 40 kilometres, and three of them fell over at the traffic lights during training because they weren't used to the clipless pedals," says coach Heiner Winter.
You can read the full report by TOUR editor Kristian Bauer in TOUR 8/2012. You can download the magazine here. order online
