Beautiful race

The first European pro race I saw was a stage of the 1997 Giro d’Italia. That spring I spent two weeks in Italy at the Velo Veneto racing camp. We rode to see the stage over the Passo Pordoi in the Dolomites.

I will always remember what Ron Palazzo, the guy who ran the camp, said to me as we waited for the race: “First you hear the helicopters, then the race caravan starts to come through, then you see the long line of riders wind up the mountain. It always brings tears to my eyes. It is a beautiful sport.”

When the race finally came through, I knew what he meant. We waited in the cold and rain for hours, but it was worth it when we stood in the road and cheered for the riders struggling up the mountain.

I felt the same way in 2002 when a work trip amazingly lined up with the World Championships in Zolder, Belgium. I remember riding the train early Sunday morning to the Elite Men’s race. The train was packed with people speaking French, Flemish, Spanish, Italian, English, German, and who knows what else.

That day I got to eat frites and mayonnaise, drink Belgian beer, and see the Italian team deliver Mario Cipollini to the final 200 meters (after which there was no question who would win). I felt as though I had stepped into one of the European cycling videos I watch in the winter while on the trainer.

I wondered if I would still feel that way in Salzburg. Simply being in Europe, for a race, wasn’t a novelty anymore. It wasn’t until the day before leaving that I was even sure I would go.

But then, while driving to my hotel, I passed a couple of Spanish team riders, then a couple from the Netherlands. My heart started to beat just a little faster.

Saturday morning, just before the start of the Men’s U23 race, I was finishing breakfast when I heard the helicopters overheard. In that instant, I was ready. I grabbed my backpack and rode down to the start, just in time to see the U23 men finish their first lap.

First came all the police motorcycles (and clearly they were enjoying it), then the lead cars, then the riders, then all the support cars. It’s an amazing spectacle. Having organized a couple of local races, I cannot even imagine what goes into an event such as this.

U23's on the first lap.


Because the races are contested by national teams, rather than by the normal pro trade teams, there is a large amount of flag waving and enthusiastic but good-natured cheering and national rivalries.

The Danish and Italians can still drink together.





The road race is held on a circuit, this year 22km in length, so the spectators see the racers many times. We saw the U23’s do 9 laps, the women 6, and the Elite Men 12. That’s a lot of racing over 2 days (and those who came earlier in the week saw the time trials also).

Combine the number of races, the course, the people from all over the world, and you have an event that is a cyclist’s dream.

Late Sunday afternoon, when the men’s race had ended and the Italians were again celebrating, I got on my bike to ride back to the hotel. With the races over and everyone leaving, it suddenly seemed very lonely. I stopped and took a picture of Paolo Bettini’s face frozen on the video wall, then followed an Austrian couple down the hill, on a back way into Salzburg.

Next year the race is in Stuttgart. I’m already thinking about it.

Surprise ride

I love it when you just stumble into a surprise.

Here I am in Salzburg to see the World Championships. The drive was 7 hours of white knuckles from the traffic, road construction, and other drivers. The last kilometer to the hotel took about 40 minutes through Salzburg. I was cursing the decision to drive rather than take the train.

But because of the car, I have the bike. I’m here early enough to go ride, and I figure that’s the best thing to get rid of the driving stress. I want to see if I could ride part of the road race course. As it turns out my hotel is only 1km from the start/finish, so the start of the course is clearly marked.

I start out riding and quickly realize that the course is completely closed to traffic and lined with barricades (all 22km of it). There are other people riding it too, and we have the whole course. I’m thinking, this is amazing. I just cannot help myself from riding hard. With the course closed, the other riders, people watching along the course, it feels like a race.

I ease up and pull out my camera and take some pictures while riding. A 4 man group (Austrians I think) I had passed comes by in a paceline, and I jump in. When I get to the front we start up the first climb. I go a little harder, look back, and the other guys are gone.

I take some more pictures and a guy in a yellow jersey and hairy legs attacks me on the hill. OK, this is serious now. I get out of the saddle and go by on the steep part. People at the top are yelling “Forza”, “Allez”, and I swear I hear a “go Torelli”.

On the downhill I catch a guy in a full US Postal kit. He latches on, then at the 5km sign I say, “we’re sprinting at the end, right?” He laughs and says no. When I ease up to take some pictures again, Yellow Jersey Guy attacks. He came back on the downhill! This I cannot let go. I ramp it up and pass him in the finishing stretch, almost taking out a girl in the crosswalk. Oops.

At the end of the first lap, I realize I had not eaten anything the entire day, only coffee. I stop and buy 2 Mars bars and some awful carbonated apple drink. The sugar boost is enough for another lap.

Unfortunately the course has now been opened to traffic, so we are dodging cars on occasion and cheating the red lights. I hook up with a group of 3 guys. I figure I will be nice and not go hard on the hill, but then I think, hey, this is the Worlds. There is no mercy here. I want to get a sense of how hard this course will be for the pro’s. So I go hard and pass them. Then I pass some guys walking. OK, so maybe the “competition” isn’t the strongest.

On the way back to the hotel, some local woman on a “city bike” in essence flips me off because I got in her way. I just give her a look that says, “I just won Worlds. Like I care what you think”.

The first group.


Yellow Jersey Guy (with chainring tattoo)


The steep (notice the Gerolsteiner guy).


I beat this little punk too. He ended up walking.


No my name is not on the road.

A problem everyone should have

I need to decide what to do this weekend.

The UCI World Championships (bike racing of course) are going on in Salzburg, Austria. That’s a 6 or 7 hour drive for me (or 7-8 hours by train). Salzburg is supposed to be nice, I’ve read that the course should be good this year, and it’s very cool to see one of the biggest pro races of the year.

Then there is Oktoberfest in Munich. The real Oktoberfest. This is about a 5 hour drive or 6 hour train ride. I’ve never been there, and I’m sure it would be crazy. (though finding a hotel is a bit questionable at this point).

Bike racers who don’t enjoy beer would probably say go to Salzburg. Beer drinkers who don’t ride would say go to Munich.

And what if you enjoy both beer and racing?

Help me out, ‘mates!

Last race (?) of the season

I wanted to do one last race this season. I always want to do the last race knowing that it’s the “last race”. It’s no good one or two weeks later to just say, “that was the last race”. It doesn’t have the same sense of finality, or give you the chance to go all out for one more good result.

I found two different races I could potentially do this weekend. I chose the race that was about 2.5 hours away, because it was somewhere I hadn’t been before. One of the nice things about racing here is even the trips to and from the race can be enjoyable.

One the way, I passed many fields full of these yellow flowers. I’m not sure what they are, but they were gorgeous.


The race was yet another criterium, but at 70km quite a bit longer than the others I’ve done here which I hoped would be to my advantage. There were two very tight turns, one of them onto a road that was only a bit wider than a bike path. Fortunately there were only 30-35 guys in the race for a change. For me, in a criterium, this makes all the difference. I could not imagine this course with 90 guys.

After I got my number and was riding back to change, I stopped and talked with a couple of local guys watching the race that was going on. They told me there were crashes because the riders were scared ("angst") going through the corner. They said they had told the organizers it was too tight, but did they listen? They looked at my bike -- not one you see around here -- and asked where I was from (they usually guess England). Then asked, how did I know about this race? Ah ... the Internet.

I wanted to be patient and wait for the 2nd half of the race to do any serious attacks. But no one was making the race hard, so sometimes patience isn't the right answer. I attacked and 2 other guys came along. We got caught after a couple of laps.

Right as we got caught I attacked again, and we had a 4 man group. After several rounds of attack-and-chase, finally I got away with the same 2 guys from the first break.

It’s funny how that happens. Sometimes it doesn’t take long to sort out who wants to make the race go that day.

With about 20 laps to go, another group of 4 joined us. The announcer kept running through the names in the break. Every time he said my name, it was always, “Brian Batke aus den USA”, as though I were some celebrity racer over here. I guess we would probably do the same at one of our local races.

Normally I would not want to sprint from a group of 7. But with about 5 laps to go my right calf started to cramp, so I wasn’t up for any late lap attacks. I was in pretty good position (3rd wheel) as we headed for the last corner. Then one of the guys did this impressive kamikaze attack over the grass on the side of the road. Must be a cyclo-crosser. As everyone scrambled to get his wheel, I lost my position and then only managed 5th in the sprint.

I can’t complain though. It was a fun race, I was one of the animators, and afterwards stood around BS’ing with the other guys in the breakaway. For my 10Euro entry fee, 5th place got me 60Euro, a set of Look cleats, some tire levers and some bottled water.

I hung around after our race to see one of the most fredly things I think I’ve ever seen: a criterium for recumbent bikes. Not that I have anything against recumbent riders, but one of them was racing in long pants and a shirt with a pocket protector. I am not kidding. At one point, two guys crashed in the tight corner. They were going so slow I think they might have just tipped over.


I drove home through some insane Sunday afternoon traffic. It was as if all of northwestern Germany was on its way back from somewhere. As I drove I was thinking, maybe I should see if there’s a decent race on the calendar next weekend.

Home and back

Labor Day week I made a trip back to the US – mainly for a family visit but also for a couple of work events.

I was curious how it would feel to be home again. Would it feel as though I’d been gone a long time? Would it feel strange to be in the US again, hearing only English?

Surprisingly, it seemed like I’d been gone maybe 2 weeks – like I had been on a longish trip for work. I guess you can’t undo a lifetime of living in the US in just 2 months.

You can however start to pick up some new habits. Like driving. My wife said I was driving like a German: too fast, too close, and too much on the brakes. I hadn’t consciously noticed this until she pointed it out. 65mph seems very slow when 75 to 90 is the normal cruising speed.

It was great to see everyone, but in retrospect I tried to cram way too much stuff into a short period of time: 2 picnics, Taste of Cleveland event, soccer game, football game, movie, 2 bike races, work meeting, drive to Detroit for another work meeting.

The low grade headache I had from the flight home didn’t go away for 4 days. Lesson learned.

Now, about the bike racing. Sunday morning I drove out to Tamarack, PA for the Tour de Tamarack road race – a race where I’ve always done well. The radar looked clear but as I got closer, it started to rain. I was thinking about the last race in Germany, where I turned around and went home. It was strange -- I just could not do that again.

Unfortunately my legs weren’t as committed. Maybe it was the jet lag, or the low grade headache, or the rain, but I felt pretty bad the entire race. In the end I didn’t even try for a placing.

The weather turned better on Monday, and I was looking forward to the Tuesday night Westlake race. It’s only a training race but it has become a weekly ritual for something like 7 years now. And this week it turned out well. Not too long into the race, 3 teammates and I managed to break away from the field. It then turned into a team time trial. OK, the field was not so big, and most of the big guns weren’t there. But we still rode pretty damn hard, and my legs felt good. It was probably the most enjoyable race I’ve done all year. How many times do you get to finish 1^st through 4^th?

The week went by even faster than I anticipated. Fortunately the nice weather followed me back here. I got off the plane, drove home, drank some coffee then went out for a 3 hour ride under blue skies and sunshine.

Good day at the races

After my first race experience, I was questioning whether it was worth the trouble to race over here. I thought: I could just go out for a nice 3 hour ride, on some new roads with some new scenery. No driving, no hassles, no crashes.

But there was a race only 25 minutes away, and I was told it would be hilly. I couldn’t resist hilly.

Things were starting to feel more normal. I had moved into my apartment. My clothes and other things, including my race wheels, finally arrived from the US. I was able to pack my race bag as I would at home. It’s interesting how little things like this have affected my general mood.

The course was a good one for me: only 2.5 km but it had a big climb, short flat part, then big descent. I wanted to be more aggressive this week, and went with most all the breakaway attempts. A 3-man break looked promising until one of the guys rode into my back wheel and crashed. I had visions again of someone hassling me.

About halfway through the race I jumped away solo on a prime lap. I took the prime then kept going. I dangled in front of the field at 20-30 seconds for a couple of laps. Then the gap started to grow. Then people around the course started to yell encouragement (which, I must say, was a big motivation).

I stayed away for the win, picking up 7 primes along the way. My take at the end: cash, basket of food (chocolate, cookies), two tires, pair of gloves, towel, model truck, 2 pens, 2 cigarette lighters (I think even the racers smoke here), fluorescent vest. Entry fee was 10 Euros (about $12), including the 5 Euro late fee.

After the race, I was the novelty – the unknown guy from the US who won. I talked to a bunch of people, gave an interview to a reporter in fractured German, had my picture taken.

This was just a couple days after the news of Floyd Landis’s positive drug test from the Tour. Everyone wanted to talk about this. The reporter asked if doping is common with racers in the US. I said I didn’t believe so, while thinking to myself, how unfortunate that this is the big topic of interest.

On Monday, a colleague at work brought in the newspaper. Looking at it, I could see the reporter also asked me if I had doped. I hadn’t realized that at the time, but fortunately I somehow gave the right answer.

DSL and talking to yourself

I finally have an Internet connection at home (along with a telephone).

I’ve been debating whether or not that is good. I’ve gotten used to not having Internet access all the time, always checking email, the weather, racing results, etc. I’ve been able to read books, made out of real paper. I think I’ll need some discipline to keep from being on-line all the time.

It’s taken a full 2 months to get the DSL connection. Getting the appointment with Deutsche Telekom is the first hurdle. Then the installer doesn’t show up for the appointment. Then he shows up but there is a problem with the system in the apartment, requiring access to a locked closet, for which we don’t have a key.

Sometimes it seems every little thing is difficult here. But in the end it makes for a good story.

The DSL guy is quite personable and helpful. As usual, I try to speak in German as much as possible. The DSL guy speaks pretty good English. So as is also common, I speak in German and get answered in English. People here often want to practice their English as much as I want to practice my German.

The DSL guy tells me he doesn’t get too many English-speaking customers, and says his English isn’t as good as he would like. Still, it’s better than my German. I never stop being impressed at how many people here can speak more than just their native language.

He often stops and searches for the right word in English, saying it first in German. It’s interesting for me to see someone do this with English, and imagine that this is what I look like with German. It often feels like I will never reach a decent level of fluency in German. There seem to be so many words to learn.

The DSL guy thinks out loud as he works. He repeats out loud what he is doing, like a narrative. He tells me that he talks to himself to help keep organized. He says he even does this while driving in his car.

Then he tells me he’s divorced and how he needs to go pick up his son later. I’m wondering if his (ex-) wife got tired of hearing him talk all the time.

I think of the Austin Powers movie, when they unfreeze Austin and he says (out loud) that he now has no inner monologue. I keep waiting for the DSL guy to say something when he sees the dust bunny in the corner (or worse).

He says that after working with a customer who speaks English he finds himself talking to himself in English.

I tell him maybe I should try that with German. I think that if I ever do start thinking in German, out loud or not, I will finally have “gotten it”.

Leaving comments

This may not be entirely obvious ... but you can leave a comment on any topic by clicking on the "comments" link at the bottom of the topic.

Comments are always welcome!

About the title

Several people have asked about the title of this blog.

Über die Brücke means “over the bridge” in German.

This has both a literal and a metaphorical sense.

Oberkassel, where I’m living, is on the other side of the Rhine from the center of Düsseldorf. So you must go over one of several bridges to reach my neighborhood.

Metaphorically, it has to do with being over here and on this little adventure (any more explanation takes away from the metaphor).

First Jerk

I met my first jerk ten days after arriving in Germany.

Other than the surly cashier at the market – common, I was told – people had been friendly. On my bike I’d only been honked at once, and that was my fault. So it was ironic that the jerk was another bike racer.

It was my first race in Germany, and I was nervous. Everything was strange. There were no teammates or friendly faces. No usual pre-race routine. At the start I saw guys look around, then look at me: the unfamiliar racer.

The race started fast, but not really any different than back at home. There were attacks and counter-attacks, fast periods followed by slow. It was a regular bike race. Still, I was nervous.

About halfway through the race, a guy on my right moved over abruptly. I moved too, probably overreacting. I felt someone to my left give me a big push. When I turned to look he started yelling at me in German. He put his hand on my hip and shoved me to the side. Then he tried to ride across my front wheel.

In all the races I’ve done in the US, I can only recall two occasions where someone rode with such intentional aggression, and it wasn’t this extreme. And here it happens in my first race.

I rode up next to the guy and tried to say, in German, “hey, the other guy moved into me.” But with trying to ride, breath, and speak at the same time, I’m pretty sure I made no sense. I didn’t anticipate making enemies already and now had visions of someone hassling me every race. In that one moment, Germany became less friendly. I wished my teammates were with me.

I felt I needed to do something. With 6 laps to go I attacked solo, 2 laps before a prime (a mid-race prize). I had a big gap, and it looked like I would win the prime until my left contact lens came out in the wind. With essentially one eye I had to go easy into the turns. Another guy caught me at the line for the prime – a teammate of my new friend. I rode the last couple laps at the back, happy for the race to be over.

The lost contact lens meant driving home on the Autobahn with one eye. With Audis, BMWs and Mercedes flying by, I didn’t dare enter the left lane. I just listened to the voice on my car’s navigation system when it said, “keep to the right for the A46 …”