Riding the Orbit360 Baden-Württemberg
On Friday the 17th of July I set out to ride the Baden-Württemberg route from the Orbit 360 Gravel series.
It is a course of 250 km and 4000 m of climbing. The longest ride I had done so far was 170 km in the flats and the most comparable 162 km with 2300 m of climbing. So I was really excited and interested in seeing how I would fare. This year I was also lagging behind in training and I think this was the cause of something I will talk about later in this article.
The Gear
I chose the Bombtrack Hook EXT as my bike to complete the ride on, so the day prior I prepared all the needed gear and food.
As shown above I used a partial frame bag, toptube bag and a feed bag. The bike looked packed but as this is a selfsupported race and I wanted to stop as little as possible I needed some storage space.
In the Framebag I stored tools and parts to fix mechanicals as well as some food. The toptube bag contained all the electronics like a powerbank and GoPro. Into the feed bag I stuffed 12 bars and a bag of some kind of turkey meatballs as well as 2 gels with caffeine for emergencies.
For navigation I used the Komoot App on my phone, which I mounted on the handlebars using a “hacked” GoPro mount.
To carry Water I decided to put three Bottles on the frame, using the one on the bottom to fill up the others since it would get quite dirty.
The Ride
I slept at a friends place to have a early morning start close to the route. Got up at 4 am and was out on the route to start at 5:30 am. The weather forecast in the evening said it would stop raining at 5 in the morning, but that changed. It wasn’t quite raining when I started, though it became clear that it would be a rainy morning. I just hoped that it wasn’t gonna rain all day.
It didn’t. I only rode the first 4 hours in the rain and then enjoied the benefit of cooled down temperatures instead of blazing heat. The Clouds also made for some more interesting and impressive pictures.
One section of the route goes through Stuttgart and I did not like riding through the city in the rain at 6:30 am. My bike slid away on wet cobblestones as if on ice and it was no fun at all. I guess it’s made this way to be more accessible by public transport.
After that I left the city behind on some nice gravel roads through the woods and some fast paced cycling paths that got me going. I really started to enjoy the ride unbothered by the ever falling rain. The speakers of my phone (which is water sealed) became more and more quiet until you couldn’t hear any of the navigation instructions. I had to rely more on the screen being on which drained the battery more.
If you are worried about resupply points along the way, there are plenty. The route frequently passes Supermarkets, Water fountains and Cemeteries (free tap water).
As it stopped raining I was getting closer to the big climbs ahead in the Black Forest, which got me excited for the views. Also it seemed that if I got the climbs done it would be the easier part to finish the ride.
You’ll be able to enjoy a nice scenery while riding up and down the bigger climbs in the Schwarzwald.
Before nearly reaching the highest point on the route I discovered a one person chairlift. Since I worked as a lifty for a whole winter in Austria I was really stoked on seeing this rarity. There are quite a few lifts scattered around the relatively small Mountains of the Black Forest, featuring short and beginner friendly slopes.
Going further up the Mountain I spottet what looked like a (maybe abandoned) ski jump on the facing mountain side.
On the top of this same Climb there is a great view to be taken in. You’ll be able to see down through the mountains all the way to Strasbourg in France. The sun shining in between the clouds made this even more stunning and beautiful.
As a reward for the hard effort climbing up, on the way down I was able to make up for the time admiring the view with some fast kilometres along the valley.
I must say by this point through the route, at about 182 km and 2841 m of climbing my legs got quite tired and I had a harder time going up the following hills.
Nearing the end of the ride, some flatter terrain and quite a bit of roads in the mix I started to push some more to make those kms. It’s a race after all. To finally finish was also part of the reason.
At km 245 I was quite euphoric to be riding the last 5 km only to notice that I had not arrived at the starting point when reaching 250 km. The disappointment was pulling my moral down quite a bit with the ever increasing exhaustion. To top it off I had to face yet another climb with some quite rough surface demanding my last bit of energy, I even found it easier to push up it. Those last kilometres stretched and I needed to put on my head torch.
Arriving at the starting Point was a relief and huge achievement. I had set the goal to finish in 17 hours and did it in 16:23 h, so I was very happy with my result.
Summary
After a Shower, Pasta and a nights rest I felt my whole body ache. This was the longest ride, with the most kilometres and climbing I have done so far.
I had a great day out riding, got wet, dirty and sweaty. What I have learned by riding my bike is that we can usually quite a bit more than we think we’re capable of. Often times it is mostly a mental struggle, that if we push through will be very rewarding.
As of writing this article, I noticed that a slight pain I had in the Achilles tendon did not fade away yet. It seems like it I developed a little tendinitis there. Like I wrote in the beginning, I haven’t trained as much as I wanted to this year, so I think the cause was the sudden Increase in duration and intensity of cycling. This was also my first long distance endurance ride this year, so far I had only done shorter high intensity crosscountry MTB rides.
My plan of riding 180 km to Saarland and do the orbit there will need to be postponed. I want to give my foot some rest this next two weeks, and see if I can recover to a certain extend.
For the month of August I planned to ride my bike all across Germany, from southwest to northeast and back. I really hope I will still be able to do so, doing easy paced days. The amount of Orbits I will be able to do is probably going to be less, since those are some quite demanding rides.
