Switzerland, BMC Cup Basel/Muttenz

Well I have been back in Switzerland for just over a week. The weather has so far been awesome with plenty of days over 30 degrees and only two days with rain and one of them was on the drive across from Munich Airport.  

 

Morning training ride.

Training has been pretty good and I have enjoyed reacquainting myself with the technical Swiss single trails. I spent the first few days in Brot Plamboz near Nuchatel at Jeromes house. It was good to catch up with him and Patrick and I had a good time there riding on the quiet roads and dry forest trails. I also spent quite a lot of time escaping the heat by cooling off down at the lake.

Via Ferrata with Jerome.

On Friday I travelled to Pascal's house in Basel for the final round of the BMC CUP nearby in Muttenz. A strong field turned up so it was raced at a fast pace. The Muttenz race is unique, held on a very flat course with only 50m of climbing per lap. With so much flat terrain it plays out in a similar way to a road race with groups forming early on and it is very hard to make up ground to the next bunch with so little decisive climbing to split things up. Also it is deceptively physical because with the lack of altitude gain there is also not much descending so there is not a lot of chance to recover. My result wasn’t amazing, ending up in 36^th position. But the time spent suffering at race pace should wake up the legs and help build the form for worlds.

Start loop.

I will spend two more days here in Switzerland staying in Thal before driving across to Austria to stay near the Worlds Champs course on Wednesday.