Last day we headed from Seefeld in Austria back to Germany and ended up in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. Four very hard but most of all very fun days was over.

  • Day 1 – Sonthofen – Pfronten 73,1 km 2758m ascent, 2639 descent. #238 of 308 – 5:01:48. One puncture, one technical stop in addition. Cramps the last five kilometers. So much uphill and very steep downhill…worst day ever.
  • Day 2 – Pfronten – Lermoos (Austria). 78,39 km 2295 ascent, 2170 descent. #212 of 300 – 4:37:06. Overall (not really sure due to a crappy result list this day). A very nice day on the bike, fun to ride all the time!
  • Day 3 – Lermoos – Seefeld (Austria). 58,96 km 1864 ascent, 1667 descent. #204 of 295 – 3:19:06 – Overall 218. Started hard, tried to follow Ole Andreas, had to let him go in the second ascent, but just before the top it started to get fun again, and I was able to pedal pretty hard the rest of the race. Almost died and went to heaven when I missed a turn and in about 40 km/h biked straight out into the woods. Luckily I did not fall of the bike, neither did I hit any trees, missed a minute or two, but no injuries which was most important.
  • Day 4 – Seefeld – Garmish-Partenkirchen. 78,05 km, 1731 ascent, 2231 descent. #199 (YES!!) of 288. 3:54:08. Got a good start, had not felt any better, from the second ascent I was able to push hard until the rain came, then I lost much of the motivation, was really happy when I started on the last ascent – finally warm again…but hell, it was sooo long and sooo steep. Finally we started the descent to the finish line, and after four days with only one puncture and a minor techical issue fixed in no time both me and the bike had finished Trans Germany 2012. Overall 207 of 287, down from 308 finishers the first day.

Back in Sonthofen preparing the bags before heading home in the car. Lars pretty happy!

The rear disk of Lars’ bike. It is not rust you see, but burns after the intense heat when breaking in the steep downhills, mostly on day one and three.

Learned a lot, most important lesson – for some strange reason the body just seems to adopt to the race, making it easier to go every day.