Team MotionBased

Today’s stage was with out a doubt one of the toughest of the 2006 TransAlp Challenge. With two monster climbs and 3427m of total climbing there was no where to hide. This first climb to Naturnser Alm was ~17km long and quite steady. The descent was too short as the climbing began gradually within 10km and got steeper and steeper until the summit of the Rabbijoch after 65km. Reaching the summit of this Col was easier said than done as the final 4km was nearly all pushing on steep, loose and rocky terrain. More annoying was some Italian (non-racer) who calmly spun by obviously doing some kind of climbing intervals. At the top, we literally went down the side of the mountain. In many places there was no line and the water bars were so blown out that they were more like hurdles sticking a foot out of the ground. There were few trees or other vegetation to arrest a fall, so we just slid down to the bottom--luckily in one piece! A more gradual descent on a mix of gravel, trail and pavement brought us into to the village of Male. In the end we finished well in the top 15 and moved up on GC to 13th overall. Check out the Garmin / MotionBased file: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/episode/view.mb?episodePk.pkValue=1096575