Race across the Alps (RATA) 2001

Nauders, Austria, July 7, 2001

By Marko Baloh, Race Across the Alps 2001 competitor

Marko Baloh before the race
Photo: © Marko Baloh

Talking about extreme bicycle racing, Race Across AMerica (RAAM) is the race to beat. But from this year, we have a race in Europe, that is a strong contender for a second hardest - RATA! The Race across the Alps is surely worth its name, starting in Nauders (Austria) and covering some of the most grueling climbs of Italy and Switzerland.

It passes over:

The race started at 12.00 o'clock on 7th July 2001, with 30 of the Europe's best extreme- cyclists and one from USA - Rick Kent, 5 times finisher of RAAM. The favourites for the win were Wolfgang Fasching (two times winner of RAAM, two times World 24h TT champion), Herbert Meneweger (last years second in World 24h TT Championships, RAAM finisher 1999) and Geritt Glomser (professional in Post Swiss Team, in the last month 17th in general classifiction of Tour de Suisse and 2nd in Austrian National Championship Road Race).

The race continues into the night
Photo: © Marko Baloh

Glomser showed his ambitions early, as he jumped away from the pack in the foothills of the Stelvio Pass. The others didn't bother much about him, thinking he would crack later in the race. Stelvio Pass greeted us with rain from the bottom, hailstone a little higher and snow blizzard at the top. The first to cross Stelvio after Glomser was J_rn Schwarzkopf (Germany), shortly folowed by myself - Marko Baloh (Slovenia) and Paul Lindner (Austria). That all changed before the downhill, because the cold (the temperature was just above zero) made some of us stop and change to warmer clothing.

At the top of Passo Gavia Glomser had a huge lead of almost half an hour in front of second placed Paul Lindner. After him there were Schwarzkopf, Dotto, Knaus, Meneweger, Wildhalm and myself, more than 50 minutes back on the leader. In my second extreme race ever, I proved to be a suprise package of a race (not for myself, but certalnly for others). My hopes before the race were high, but after I almost froze on Stelvio, almost fell downhill (because of a careless driver of a car), got a puncture and waited pretty long for my team to catch me and change the wheel, I felt pretty discouraged and was on the verge of abandoning.

On the Mortirolo I suffered like everyone else, its 18% gradient was simply killing my muscles, knees, back, arms, etc. But nevertheless, I passed my first oponent there as the sun began shinning on us. On the top I changed my clothes once again and began chasing down others. I had some moral support from other riders, namely Fasching, with whom I was riding for some kilometers (he told me that everything can change in the next 300 kilometers) and Meneweger, who beleived I had a chance of catching Glomser and winning the race!

The top three riders at the award ceremony.
Photo: © Marko Baloh

On Bermina Pass I dropped Fasching and passed Knaus, Dotto and Schwarzkopf, down the valley I passed Lindner and on Albula Pass Meneweger, who gave me some words of encouragement as I passed him. I was now in the second place and slowly, but surely closing in on Glomser. In the foothills of Stelvio Pass (from Switzerland) his advantage was just 20 minutes, which is not bad, since I was almost one hour behind him 300 kilometers before that. But here, at Santa Maria, the man with a hammer finally caught me and I had real trouble getting up the last two climbs. I was fighting just to keep rolling the pedals and to defend much deserved second place!

1 Gerrit Glomser (Aut)                22.33.20
2 Marko Baloh (Slo)                    0.41.53
3 Herbert Meneweger (Aut)              0.44.29
4 Wolfgang Fasching (Aut)              0.56.29
5 Jörn Schwarzkopf (Ger)               1.45.47
6 Marcel Knaus (Fin)                   1.47.14
7 Kurt Peschke (Ger)                   1.49.11
8 Richard Uhlschmied (Ger)             1.50.40
9 Ivan Dotto (Ita)                     2.09.51
10 Thomas Widhalm (Aut)                2.29.41
11 Rainer Popp (Ger)                   2.36.50
11 Gernot Turnowsky (Aut)              2.36.50
13 Franz Venier (Aut)                  2.56.00
14 Christian Strebl (Aut)              3.27.50
15 Stefano Gamper (Ita)                3.51.58
16 Manfred Guthardt (Aut)              4.11.05
17 Heinz Riess (Aut)                   4.32.12
18 Ingmar Hermann (Ger)                5.39.30
19 Beny Furrer (Swi)                   6.15.15
20 Bernd Paul (Ger)                    6.26.35
21 Gernot Winkler (Aut)                6.36.10
22 Franz Asböck (Aut)                  8.22.56
23 Rick Kent (USA)                     9.26.39
24 Alexander Gepp (Aut)                    DNF
25 Mathias Guischard (Ger)                 DNF
26 Luigi Barisone (Ita)                    DNF
27 Paul Lindner (Aut)                      DNF
28 Lars König (Ger)                        DNF
29 Gerhard Emhofer (Aut)                   DNF
30 Adrian Probst (Sui)                     DNF
31 Werner Franzelin (Ger)                  DNF

You can get more information about the Race Across the Alps here: www.wassermann-radgiro.com and more about Marko Baloh's carrer and results (for now only in Slovenian language, sorry!) here: www.motosvet.com/markobaloh