Rad am Ring - Alone in hell
There is something unexpectedly meditative about standing exhausted behind the metal grid at the end of the start and finish straight and looking towards the bend behind which the empty grandstands of the Grand Prix race track rise up. It is 1.37 a.m. on the penultimate Sunday in July; people are lying on beanbags, in camping chairs and on plank beds in tents at the side of the track, wrapped up and protecting themselves from the cold of the Eifel. Where pounding beats have just fuelled the summer feeling, only muted Spanish music sounds into the windy night.
Katrin Blüm-Beck should be arriving soon. But perhaps it will take even longer and you will continue to wait, the sense of time increasingly disappearing. Your gaze lingers on the black tarmac, over which the white lights sweep, accompanied by the whirring of chains, the rattling of freewheels, the clicking of gears and the occasional groan. At some point, Katrin arrives. She is looking forward to a potato.
Katrin Blüm-Beck is taking part in one of the most unusual challenges for amateur cyclists in Germany: the 56-year-old has been taking part in the 24-hour cycle race on the Nürburgring since 12.56 pm on Saturday. However, the architect from Aachen is taking the endurance test to the extreme: she is in the race as an individual starter and cannot take turns with team-mates. Blüm-Beck completes the race in the "Green Hell" on her own.
Rad am Ring - trailer park and rock festival ambience
This makes her one of 633 participants to complete the all-day solo stage at the 20th edition of Rad am Ring. Katrin Blüm-Beck will get back into her car on Sunday with 15 laps in her muscles, 391.5 kilometres and well over 8,000 metres of altitude. She will take home sorrow, grief, a lot of tiredness, overcoming and also the feeling of having had fun.
In the morning before the start, nervousness can be seen everywhere on the race track. The teams had already set up in their plots along the Grand Prix course on Friday evening, but now thousands of starters are still arriving, carrying bikes, assembly stands and iso rations to their positions and installing complex supply chains.
It's a mixture of trailer park and rock festival ambience that develops on this sunny Saturday morning; it seems as if some teams are going to be arriving for weeks. Queues form in front of the participant information centre, in front of the toilets and later at the entrance to the start zone. People are excited, rock and disco music is blaring through the speakers, time flies as boxes are unloaded and equipment is checked.
Start in the "green hell"
Perhaps it's not such a bad thing that Per-Ole Wendt had a rather restless night. The 26-year-old slept in a tent at the Nürburgring, at six degrees centigrade. "I wasn't prepared for that at all. My sleeping bag is not suitable for these temperatures and my watch now shows that my body has 50 per cent energy left," says the marketing manager from a property company. Wendt comes from Hanover, is a debutant at Rad am Ring and three months ago replaced a pregnant participant as an individual starter.
Wendt was already awake early in the morning, he had his bike checked again, he went to the rider briefing, because he has "respect" for the climbs, but also for the descents and the gusts of wind that are forecast. He speaks calmly and cautiously, smiling cautiously. If he reaches ten laps tomorrow, then that will be his real goal, says the blonde man in the red and white tracksuit.
The range of individual starters is wide. At Rad am Ring, there are the experienced riders who have planned their one-day race in advance and ride to the start on perfect equipment. But there are also folding bike riders and people who are crazy enough to start in the "Green Hell" on normal city bikes.
Per-Ole Wendt is fascinated by this diversity, and it also reassures him a little, because at around 90 kilograms, he is not exactly a climber himself. Then there are people like Helge Jasch, once a speed skating squad athlete, now a trainer at the Federal Police Sports Promotion Centre, an athlete through and through and always up for a new challenge.
Rad am Ring - start at 12.56 pm
The 59-year-old slept very well next to his wife Antje in the camper, ten hours at a time. He is completely relaxed. "The second twelve hours are crucial," explains the graduate of the German Sport University, "you have to go through the first twelve calmly, otherwise it gets more difficult at the end." Doesn't sound like someone who feels overwhelmed.
Around midday, thousands of cyclists stream onto the start-finish straight in front of the main grandstand, many hundreds of supporters stand on the sidelines, the starting blocks for the parallel amateur races are full, behind them the field for the 24-hour trial is moving up. "Quite a lot of racing cyclists, hopefully they'll all be able to ride," says a team rider from Cologne. Even though a real long-distance effort is about to begin, the start is just as hectic as at any big amateur race.
On the far right, relatively far in front, Leila Künzel has positioned herself alone, close to the fence where her boyfriend Sven is standing and filming her. Künzel won her entry to the race, including her bike and all her equipment, in a competition in TOUR, and the ambitious triathlete has prepared meticulously, recently fine-tuning her training in the Erzgebirge. Her goal: "I definitely want to complete the Everesting," she says - i.e. 8848 metres in altitude.
A few minutes before the start, she no longer talks about it: "I'm thinking about whether I should move further back because there are all the team riders here, but I can't get through anyway." Künzel wants to tackle the race at her own speed, she definitely doesn't want to keep up with the crazy pace of the two, four and eight-man teams at the start. She has respect for the hectic starting lap, which begins at 12.56 pm.
Rad am Ring - plan and reality
It is 5.18 pm when Katrin Blüm-Beck stops at her team stand. She smiles, albeit pained, sun cream is smeared on her arms and legs, she grabs bottles from a prepared basket on the fence. "I set off too quickly, there were so many people, I wanted to keep going," she says, "I actually wanted to eat solid food at the start, but I was travelling too fast for that. Now I have to slowly find my way into endurance mode," she says and rolls onto her fifth lap.
It is the sign of a crisis that Katrin will have to fight through for some time to come. Last year was the first time she had dared to compete individually, and everything went smoothly and better than expected. This year, as she optimistically travelled to the ring, she set herself a goal: "I was always itching to complete the 18 laps." One lap more than last year, with a better plan - that should be achievable. But as the evening approaches, it becomes clear that plans and reality are often not in harmony.
A few hundred metres up the course, there is no sign of a crisis: Antje, Helge Jasch's wife, is standing at the side of the course. She has just picked up the bottles that her husband has thrown to the side - and handed him two new ones, one with water and one with carbohydrates. Antje has been standing here since the start and will continue to do so until the end of the race tomorrow.
Few red tail lights
She accompanies her husband because she wants to make sure that he and the motorhome arrive safely back in Bad Endorf in Bavaria on Sunday evening. She does nothing else that day but look after her husband. That's what you do in a partnership, says Antje Jasch, herself an experienced sportswoman. Meanwhile, her husband tirelessly runs his laps.
As Sunday dawns and the narrow new moon can be seen just above the tops of the dark Nordschleife, Antje is still waiting at the edge of the track, now wearing a yellow high-visibility waistcoat. All around, the festival crowd has retreated into tents and cars. Only a few awake people can still be seen on the site, only a few participants are still getting ready for changes in the pits, only a few red tail lights of the cars ahead can still be seen on the Nordschleife - manoeuvring sometimes becomes challenging despite the wide track.
After six laps, Per-Ole Wendt has decided to take a break. With cramps in his legs, he would rather sleep for three hours first; he wants to get back on the track at dawn. When he stands in front of his team's buffet at 4.38 a.m., he talks about recovery. "I slept much better than yesterday, the cramps are gone," he says, "now I'll see if I can do the ten laps again. The low from the night is gone."
Meanwhile, Katrin Blüm-Beck has driven herself further into the depths. At one point she comes to her stand, struggles to eat, finds a potato wrapped in aluminium, which she eats in slices, with ketchup. It seems laborious. Then she lies down for a few minutes. A few hours later she is lying on the massage bench, for the second time in this race, and can barely stand up afterwards. Her smile is still there, but she can't say much.
Rad am Ring - The sense of time is shifting
Early in the morning, Leila Künzel is standing with her people at the motorhome in Leipzig. She has just eaten broth and her boyfriend Sven has kept a tally of everything that has disappeared into Leila's mouth. Her friend Katja encourages her not to let up now, she says, because Leila has not only achieved her goal of "Everesting", but is also in second place in her age group. With a smile, she rolls back onto the course and joins the slipstream of some of the team riders, looking surprisingly relaxed. A sleep break in the motorhome could be the reason, says her boyfriend.
The sense of time shifts. The weather gets rougher. The wind, which has been blowing on the site all night, now sends gusts of wind, a tent flies around, fences fall down, the attendants secure and stow away anything that is not heavy or lashed down. By nine o'clock, the mood is already set to leave, but many riders continue to do their laps. Not Per-Ole Wendt, who prefers to do nine laps instead of the ten he'd planned because of the weather. But Katrin Blüm-Beck, who stopped doing the maths at some point in the morning. "Just have fun," she said to herself.
When the race was cancelled at 10.45 a.m. due to an accident (see below), Katrin is in the flow. She completes 15 laps. Under plan, but happy enough to mention the start in 2024. And to report what she felt at the end. "When I no longer had a plan, I realised that I was once again experiencing the things I cycle for," says the architect, "the peace and quiet, the sound of the wind, the music on the sidelines - it was all meditative."
Rad am Ring - Race cancellation
It was a "downer", as Rad-am-Ring organiser Hanns-Martin Fraas put it on Sunday. The 24-hour race ended a good two hours earlier than planned due to a serious accident on the Nordschleife. The rescue helicopter stationed at the Nürburgring needed a clear path to transport a driver who had suffered a serious accident between Kallenhardt and Wehrseifen. The man was flown to Bonn University Hospital.
Three days later, Fraas reported that the cyclist was doing well under the circumstances and that no permanent damage was to be expected. Overall, the 20th edition with almost 10,000 participants was accident-free and the organisation counted eight incidents. "You can tell that the community is very cautious, shows consideration even off the route and is incredibly disciplined," summarised Fraas.
