Fröhlinger's short night and hot day
Young Johannes Fröhlinger of Team Gerolsteiner is getting to know that pro cycling is not...
Young Johannes Fröhlinger of Team Gerolsteiner is getting to know that pro cycling is not necessarily as glamorous as it seems. The 22-year-old neo-pro had one of those experiences at the Tour de Suisse.
"That was a horror night," he wrote on Radsport-Aktiv.de. "We couldn't get to sleep in our sticky, hot hotel room, and tossed and turned half the night. At 5:30 we were awake again and had the feeling that we were sleeping in the middle of a traffic circle. There was a huge intersection right outside our window. I wouldn't have thought that there are as many cars in Liechtenstein, as came by right past our room."
And then there was the race itself: "I overdid it in the opening phase and needed some time to recover. On a third-category climb, Linus Gerdemann showed me his cycle computer, which showed the temperature was 41°C. Crazy. We all took innumerable turns going back to get water bottles."
"The next two days are surely the hardest of the Tour," he concluded. "Since I have trained often in that region, I know the mountains and I am fully aware of what is coming -- which is not necessarily an advantage...."
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