European Marathon Champs: Course pre-view

We're staying in a lovely apartment in Rohrbach, which is in northern Austria and very close to the Czech and German borders. The race start/finish area is in Kleinzell, which is about a 20 minute drive from our apartment. We've been here for a few days now and I've pre-ridden most parts of the course. It's going to be a very challenging race with lots and lots of consistent ups and downs. There really will be nowhere to rest! I like it :)

The course covers 100km and includes 3000 high metres of climbing.

 There's a nice mixture of terrain, including lots of forest trails with rooty, rocky climbs and fast descents. There has been some rain over the last couple of days which has made some of the forset trails a little muddy and slippery. If there is more rain over the next few days then some of the very steep climbs will be pretty tricky! I'll be riding my Canyon Grand Canyon CF hardtail together with a Conti 2.4 X King on the front and a 2.2 Race King on the rear - my favourite setup :)

So, it's time to rest, eat, sleep, ride a little and wait until Sunday. I'm feeling strong so fingers crossed for good luck!