Team Lübbering/ Inside Blog: Last Sunday, the 3rd race of the GCC took place in Cologne, the Skoda Velodom 2018. Team Lübbering was well represented and so there were twelve of them over the long distance over 123,3 km.
The demanding route through the Bergisches Land ran mostly on the professional route from "Rund um Köln" and featured a classic "saw blade profile". Only the first few kilometers were flat, but even these were tough. The pace was really high right from the start and there were some nasty crashes that the team luckily stayed out of.
For the first real test of the race, the climb from Odenthal in the direction of Bechen, we had planned to drive very far ahead of the field into the climb. This turned out to be more difficult than expected, as it felt like half the peloton had the same idea.
As expected, the GCC top teams took the lead on the climb and ensured that the pace was kept very high. As a result, the peloton split into several groups early on.
The subsequent mountain tests on the steep "ramp" in Bergisch Gladbach, as well as the cobbled ascent to Bensberg Castle, had to be ridden twice, which resulted in a further selection of the groups.
After the end of the race, everyone, except for those plagued by defects (Marco and Jörg), was satisfied to have conquered this difficult "Cologne classic". It was a very nice day of racing with good organization and many spectators along the route.
We will come again in 2019!
The placings of the women:
5. Manuela Freund
12.Angela Mancini
23. Felicitas Wendler
38. Merle Kaase
Men's rankings:
63. Alex Heinichen
110.Michael Wise
141.Marius Bocker
196. Renzo Calligaro
433. Leon Wilson-Brown
553. Oli Nienaber
DNF (defect) Jörg Pohlmann
DNF (defect) Marco Bastiaansen