2012 Craft Bike TransAlp

Lakata and Mennen dominate second stage/Kaufmann and Stoll capture Yellow Leader Jerseys

News Release / 16.07.2012

The overall ranking got pretty garbled on the second stage of the 15^th CRAFT BIKE TRANSALP. Topeak Ergon Racing athletes Alban Lakata (AUT) and Robert Mennen (GER), who were dogged by bad luck yesterday, clinched today's stage through Tyrol, which led over 77.90 km and 3,274 meters in elevation from Imst, Austria, to Ischgl, Austria, in 3:31:37.8 hours. According to this, the Austrian-German team jumped on the third spot of the overall ranking.

The first rank and thus the Yellow Leader Jerseys went to German Marathon Champion Markus Kaufmann of Centurion-Vaude and his BiXS iXS colleague Thomas Stoll from Switzerland. The two pros reached the finish right next to the Silvretta Gondola after 3:33:37.1 hours. Today's runner-ups were almost six minutes faster than yesterday's winners of German Team Bulls, Karl Platt and Tim Böhme (3:39:24.7).

The deposed overall leaders however were able to defend the second rank of the overall standings. Platt and Böhme are now 3:38 minutes behind of Kaufmann and Stoll, but also have to watch out their back as Lakata and Mennen have a deficit of 5:44 minutes on the new Transalp leaders.

A deficit which is not that big; especially in the light of today's performance. Lakata and Mennen were simply killing it. The Austrian-German duo was the only pairing which was able to keep up the top speed set by Kaufmann and Stoll in the climb to Venetalm (1,976m). After the highest point of the day, the four mountain bikers subsequently extended their lead before later on victorious team Topeak Ergon Racing broke away in the tough and long ascent through the Paznaun valley into the finish of Ischgl.

“It was pretty tough today but I'm happy that we were able to get back to business after our bad luck yesterday. We were able to catch up,” said German Marathon Championships runner-up Robert Mennen.

His Austrian Topeak Ergon Racing Team partner Alban Lakata added: “We had to invest a lot of energy yesterday but had also some very strong legs today.

We didn't want to risk too much in order to avoid technical defects. Now, everything is possible. We'll see how it goes over the course of the next days,” the 2010 Marathon World Champion added.

Tactic of Centurion-Vaude/BiXS iXS works out

However, the two stage winners also took advantage of the outstanding climbing work delivered by the new Transalp leaders who wanted to test their rivals at the first climb.

“We wanted to check how good they are and also make up some time. Due to this, we pushed it hard in the first ascent. That paid off,” said Thomas Stoll, who won the 2009 Transalp.