After the whole team arrived late in the evening on Friday, our tactics meeting took place in the morning after breakfast. Our task was to secure overall victory in the GCC team classification and also to drive Stefan onto the podium. The race was very fast thanks to the Bürstner team's speed work. Right from the start, I was up front to be there for the first attempts to break away.
Everything went as planned up until the first climb, but by then I could tell that some of the climbers hadn't had their best day. Stefan always fought with Christian in front to catch up with the top and they tried everything to bring about a decisive situation. That didn't work out and a sprint decision was made. Daniel once again showed his extra class and won his fourth race. For me the best individual performance by a team rider! Unfortunately, none of the others were able to match the performances shown throughout the season, so we had to leave the overall victory to the Strassacker team.
After initial disappointment, we were still happy about a good season with many good placements.
Since we're not the worst at partying, we let it rip at the end!
Great fun all season once again!
My special thanks go to Merkur Druck GmbH and Markus Adam, who always supported us even when things weren't going so well!
Bye for now,
Your Bernd.