The favourite is starting to feel the strain
Johannes Fischbach: Even during training on Saturday, I realised something wasn’t quite right. The track should suit me perfectly. Fast, lots of acceleration, technical bends – actually, exactly my sort of thing. That’s why I’d definitely seen myself as one of the favourites. But during training, the bike kept slipping out from under me. Nothing spectacular, not even in places where I was pushing the limit. It just slipped. And I don’t know why.
That’s an unsettling feeling for a racing driver. Being fast is good. Being slow is bad. But the worst thing of all is not knowing whether you’re fast or slow.
Usually, when I’m training, I look for a rider whose pace I can gauge. Tomas Slavik, for example. Then I tag along behind him and see: is he pulling away? Can I keep up easily? That’s how you get a feel for where you stand. In Stuttgart, I can’t manage that. As soon as I stop anywhere, someone calls out: “Fischi! Photo?” Then comes the next photo, the next autograph, the next interview. Once you stop, you’re still there ten minutes later.
I’m delighted to see everyone who turns up. I really am. But this weekend I find myself caught up in a whirlwind of training, cameras and people. Whilst the other riders are chatting amongst themselves, I’ve vanished somewhere between the microphone and the selfie. I can barely keep track of who’s going fast, who’s having problems and who’s even still riding.
That’s another reason why the result surprises me so much. Alex Marin, who went on to win, is one of the most talented mountain bikers I know. A gifted technician. But he weighs perhaps 65 kilos, rides a downhill bike and has fitted the softest tyres he could find. As far as I can tell from a physics perspective, that makes absolutely no sense for this course.
I thought: You need weight here. You need power to accelerate out of the bends. And once your mass is rolling, it just keeps rolling. Alex, on the other hand, is light, doesn’t have the greatest power output and is riding a bike that’s actually a bit too much for this course.
Then he’ll win.
Sometimes, it seems, physics is just a matter of opinion.
A qualification achieved as if in a half-sleep
The course in Stuttgart has little in common with Valparaíso or other South American ‘cerro abajo’ courses. There, the main concern is often simply to make it down in one piece. You need courage; you have to jump over absurd stair gaps, improvise and, occasionally, pretend that self-preservation is merely a non-binding recommendation from the race organisers.
Stuttgart is different. If you take a calm look at the obstacles, many good riders can master this course. The difficulty only arises when riding at race pace. There’s no secret ‘super line’, no gap for riders with particularly large body parts. Everyone follows largely the same line. What matters is perfection: every bend, every pedal stroke, every transition. One small mistake leads to the next.
I can’t find that rhythm in training. And certainly not in qualifying.
It’s only later, when I watch the footage from my helmet camera, that I burst out laughing. My braking points are ridiculous. My granny would have braked three metres further on. The run looks as if I’d fallen asleep whilst riding and only woke up now and then to pull the brake lever again, just to be on the safe side.
The worst thing is: whilst I’m driving, I think the barrel’s fine.
As I head for the finish line, I think to myself: ‘That’s easily enough to get me into the final.’ So I conserve my energy. About 50 metres before the final jump, I stop pedalling. I land, stop pedalling and coast to a halt. In my mind, I’ve already qualified.
I finished thirteenth.
For a moment, I think I’m out of the running. It hasn’t occurred to me that there are only two riders left after me. A few seconds later, I realise: I started third from last. There’s no way I can slip out of the final places now.
That was a close call. And it would have been an embarrassing situation: going into the race as the favourite and then being knocked out because you’d saved your energy for the final metres of a final you almost didn’t take part in.
At the same time, this dismal qualifying result is exactly the reality check I need. Until then, I didn’t know whether it was just a lack of confidence or whether I was actually lacking pace. Now the answer is clear: Fischbach, you’re completely lacking in speed.
I head straight back up, find a quiet spot and go through the run in my head. Brake here later, push harder there, turn in more aggressively there. But no matter how I do the maths, I can’t make up the three-second gap. I even consider changing the tyres again. But eventually, there’s only one strategy left: stop doing the maths. Instead: give it my all!
First the fountain, then the traffic light pole
Even the choice of tyres had been on my mind. Most of the course is dry and fast. So, at one point, I’d fitted tyres with virtually no tread – slick tyres as smooth as an eel, just like in MotoGP, compared to what you’d normally use in urban downhill racing. In Genoa, the slicks were my secret weapon.
They work brilliantly down below in Stuttgart too. Then, suddenly, the upper section of the track opens up. There, you’ll find two gentle bends with loose gravel and a small well that you have to jump over. Not good!
I’m standing up there thinking: Great. Now I’m going to be the idiot who skids off on his slicks and ends up in the fountain in front of the cameras.
So I’m concentrating so hard on not skidding off the ramp that I forget the obvious: I need enough speed. Even whilst in the air, I realise I’m half a metre short. I hit the kerb, and the tyre gets completely punctured. Later, the organisers lay a mat over the kerb, because the fountain goes on to ruin several more tyres.
Actually, the jump wouldn’t have been a problem. But I definitely didn’t want to end up in the water because of my tyres. That’s why I almost did end up in the water because of my tyres. That, too, is part of the peculiar logic of a race day. In short: the slicks have to come off again!
The final: give it your all!
In the final, I’m finally racing the way you’re supposed to: aggressively, with intensity, without any half-hearted braking points. Even so, it’s not a flawless run.
At the top by the tea house, my bike slips out from under me. I have to brake on a wooden section because I nearly fall off. Later, I reach the drop by the bridge. After that, there’s an inside line and an outside line. There’s a traffic light pole in between.
I take the outside line, lean into the bend – and suddenly this pole is right in the middle of my lane.
Not because someone had suddenly put it there. It had been standing there all weekend. I’d simply forgotten about it. Completely. In my mind, there was no longer a traffic light pole in that spot.
I have to open up the bend again and just manage to squeeze past. When I watch the video later, I realise for the first time just how badly I’d lost it. A driving error can be explained. Forgetting a traffic light pole is harder to explain. Especially as traffic light poles are the sort of thing you’d better be aware of before you’re heading towards them at high speed.
Still, it’s a good race. On the day, I’m giving it everything I’ve got. Of course, I’ll spot later on places where I could have braked a bit later or driven a bit more aggressively. Racers always find the time once the race is over. But even if I’d driven flawlessly, it wouldn’t have been enough for victory. Perhaps I could have moved up two or three places. I simply didn’t have the pace to be right up there at the front on the day.
I can accept that. It would be harder to feel that I hadn’t tried everything.
The route that nobody understood
I’m not the only one puzzling over this course. Tomas Slavik has failed to qualify. Pedro Ferreira, one of the specialists from Valparaíso, is out. Pedro Burns, who also specialises in urban downhill: out. Riders who are usually among the very best on tracks like this are suddenly standing by the side of the track, completely baffled.
Slavik’s head is spinning this evening. Mine is too.
After all, several riders on downhill bikes have made it into the top six at the same time. On a flat course where, in my view, a heavy bike makes little sense. Alex Marin even wins on such a bike. He doesn’t tackle the course with brute force, but with a level of perfection that makes our theories look rather outdated.
That is precisely what makes this stage of the tour so interesting. A Cerro Abajo doesn’t have to be the same everywhere. Stuttgart is no Valparaíso in Swabia. The route demands less of a will to survive, but more precision.
And it’s great fun. Especially the four fast switchbacks – that’s what I call the blue banked bends. One catapults you straight into the next. Then there are the big jumps in the lower section. You can just roll down this course and have a right go. But if you want to win it, the fun turns into a matter of millimetres.
Even the South American riders – some of whom had probably feared a flat, monotonous route at the start – are thrilled. Stuttgart isn’t serving them up a lacklustre imitation of their own races. The city is offering something of its own.
She also throws in a bit of slapstick now and then. As Bernard Kerr crosses the finish line, the inflatable Red Bull finish arch collapses. Adrien Loron and I sprint over and hold the deflated arch aloft so that Bernard can pass underneath it. In doing so, we end up standing right in the middle of the light barrier and trigger the timing system. Fortunately, every bike is fitted with a transponder. Otherwise, our helpfulness might well have been recorded as a new course record.
“Fishie! Fishie! Fishie!”
What I remember most about Stuttgart are the people.
The region is mad about mountain biking. What’s more, Cerro Abajo videos have been among the most-watched clips in our sport for years. Almost everyone is familiar with these images: narrow alleyways, steps, jumps, walls, and people right alongside the course. When a race like this takes place on your doorstep for the first time, everyone turns up.
I hear my name everywhere. “Fischi! Fischi! Fischi!” It’s brilliant, but it’s also tricky. During training, I can’t give everyone the attention they deserve. As soon as I realise I’m struggling with the route, I have to shut it all out, ride straight back to the top and focus on my performance. But I feel guilty about it.
So after the race, I stick around. First interviews, then autographs. Hour after hour, until it’s almost dark and nearly everyone has gone. My contact with the other riders this weekend, on the other hand, is limited to just a few moments. Normally, we sit together, talk about racing lines and marvel at things together. This time, though, I keep coming back two hours later because there’s always a microphone waiting somewhere.
I’ve missed out on a place on the overall podium. I was third going into the race, but Alex’s incredible run saw me slip down to fourth. Of course, it would have been nice to have a medal for third place in the overall standings hanging up in the trophy room with my parents later on. But it’s not the end of the world. If I’d arrived as the leader and then dropped back, it might have hurt a bit more. Third, fourth – oh well.
What’s more important is what this race demonstrates. Urban Downhill brings the sport straight to the people. Nobody has to climb a mountain or trek deep into the woods. The riders fly right through the heart of the city, sometimes just an arm’s length away from the spectators. Anyone seeing it live for the first time can hardly believe what’s possible on a bike. That’s exactly why people cheer so loudly.
I believe that, in future, more World Cup riders and teams will take these races seriously. For a long time, the argument was: it’s too dangerous, it doesn’t fit into the calendar, so we won’t let our riders take part. But the reach and impact are hard to ignore. An action sport could hardly get any closer to its audience than this.
And what about us older blokes? Slavik isn’t exactly spring chicken any more, and neither am I. Now we’ve got riders in their early 20s – fast, hungry and, it seems, with no respect for our track records.
Let them come.
Stuttgart was a brief shock. Now we’re analysing what happened, learning from it and carrying on with our training. We’ll be among the favourites again at the next race.
Absolutely.
Dimitri Lehner
Editor