Sandro Spaeth and Thomas Zahnd have celebrated an impressive
comeback today. Yesterday, both had to accept a painful defeat falling
behind leading Team Bulls by 13 minutes. Today, on the leg from Neustadt
a. d. Weinstrasse to Erbach im Odenwald, both secured the victory. The
two Swiss bikers needed 2:11:19 hours for the almost 130 kilometres – of
which the first 60 were held neutralised and thus without any timing.
With an outstanding finish, Spaeth and Zahnd took home the victory with
a lead of only one second on Team Rothaus-Cube, consisting of Frank
Lehmann and Thomas Nicke (2:11:20.3). Some other six hundredths of a
second, Karl Platt and Stefan Sahm came in (2:11:20.9) and therefore
defended their lead in the ranking in a confident way.
After yesterday’s exhausting first stage, today was more
relaxing due to the 60 kilometres long neutralised first part which
Stefan Sahm called “a cheap coach trip which was a lot of fun.” But
right after the peloton had passed Heidelberg , the Bulls-riders were
pushing the pedal. “This definitely tore a hole in the starter field”,
so Sahm further on.
But there were two teams which were able to follow the speed. In the
end, Switzerland ’s duo was all smiles. “We rose from the dead”, said
Sandro Spaeth. “Yesterday, Thomas had some problems but today,
everything worked out fine. The last 15 kilometres are the best proof
for that because we were pushing it really hard.”
In the mixed category, it seems that we will see a
start-finish-victory of Carsten Bresser and Alison Sydor. Team Rocky
Mountain / Haywood crossed the finish line in a time of 2:27:42 and thus
enlarged their comfortable lead again. More than 35 minutes later,
A-Team / www.kiga-gmbh.de reached the finish in Erbach (3:03:08)
followed by Bobteam.info (3:05:00).
On the women’s side, team Fiat-Rotwild was able to celebrate a
back-to-back triumph, too. After 2:39:02 hours, the German-French duo of
Kerstin Brachtendorf and Daniθle Troesch rolled over the finish line.
Danish Anna-Sofie and Kristine Norgaard came in 1 minute and 50 seconds
later (2:40:52). Sandra and Peggy Klose from team Zwillingscraft secured
the third rank and still sit in the second spot of the women classification.
In the master category Sachsenteam von Welt is enlarging its lead
due to the second victory on the second day of the CRAFT BIKE TRANS
GERMANY. Robert Novotny and Milan Spolc made it to the finish in the
time of 2:20:28. Almost four minutes later, Scott Racing Team Heilenmann
repeated its yesterday’s second rank (2:24:06). Team Belli rounded out
the master’s podium with 2:27:22.
Stephan Erich and Eugen Roehrle (number 169) were the fastest bikers
in the grand master category (2:45:11) but the Taunusgazellen 106 are
still leading the pack of the teams which are older than 100 years due
to their second rank today (2:45:30). Vo Dr Alb Ra-team came in third
(2:53:24).
