BIKE Transalp powered by Sigma

Alban Lakata and Kristian Hynek Victorious on Opening Stage

News Release / 18.07.2016

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Austrian-Czech pair Topeak Ergon Racing 1 has clinched the first stage of the 2016 BIKE Transalp powered by Sigma, which led over 88.85 km and 2,960 metres of climbing from Imst to Nauders today. Alban Lakata (AUT) and Kristian Hynek (CZE) clocked in a time of 3:28.51,5 deservedly taking over the overall lead with an advantage of 1.04,5 minutes on Austrian racers Daniel Geismayr and Hermann Pernsteiner of Centurion Vaude 2 (3:29.56,0).

Rank three went to Karl Platt (GER) and Urs Huber (SUI) of Team Bulls 1 (3:30.19,8; +1.28,3) who had been coming out first on the opening day of the one-week mountain bike stage race across the main ridge of the Alps over the past four years.

Defending champions of Centurion Vaude 1 Markus Kaufmann (GER) and Jochen Kaess (GER) came in with a gap of more than seven minutes being forced to settle for fourth (3:35.59,3) after Kaess had to deal with more than just a technical defect:

“I stroke a bad patch. I had problems to breath after I had bruised a rib in a crash at last week's German nationals. Then I also had a flat four kilometres before the finish line so we lost a lot of time today.”

Across Pillerhoehe and Pfundser Tschey both triple winners of 2013, 2014 and 2015 had played a major role in the leading group of the ten best male pairs which got smaller and smaller over the course of the day until the top-4 of today entered the final climb together.

Then the respective 2016 world championships second and third ranked racers had the strongest legs on the 450 metres of climbing up to the green border at Norbertshoehe.

“Kristian [Hynek] was very strong today. He definitely dominated the finish. I'm happy that I was able to keep up his pace and that we had the chance to break away. I'm very pleased that we gained over one minute on this short distance, especially as the first day traditionally is kind of a scanning of your rivals,” said Lakata, who had triumphed back in 2012, after the stage which was ridden more than 10 minutes faster than two years ago.

Title aspirants show their strength

In all other categories, the main favourites for the titles lived up to the expectations.

In the master category defending champions of Wilier Force 2 Massimo Debertolis (ITA) and Andreas Laner (ITA) took home the win in 3:52.05,5 coming in more than eight minutes ahead of Max Friedrich (GER) and Stefan Danowski (GER) of toMotion Racing by black tusk/Bergamont (4:00.23,9).

Sally Bigham (GBR) and Ben Thomas (GBR) of Topeak Ergon Racing 3 dominated the mixed category (4:01.17,9) while Hansjuerg Gerber (SUI) and Daniel Annaheim (SUI) of baumat/bikeholiday.ch stood out in the grand master classifier (4:09.15,2).

On the women's side of things, Swiss racers Sabina Compassi and Melanie Alexander of Cyclopedia-DANiSchnider Radsport took over the lead in a time of 4:58.17,8.

Tomorrow's second stage will lead over 56.17 km and 2,126 metres of climbing from Nauders to Scuol. The field will have to master the climbs up to the mountain top station of the Bergkastel gondola as well as the one to Reschner Alm to make it from Austria to Switzerland.

For further news and information on the race please visit bike-transalp.de.

Results

You can find all results of stage 1, which will be constantly updated throughout the day, online.