Grüezi us dr Schwiiz!

Grüezi us dr Schwiiz!

It has been one week since I arrived in Switzerland and I am loving it more and more by the day. My “hoch Deutsch” is slowly modifying into a very beautiful dialect of the Lenzburger schwiizerdüütsch while my body and skin is adapting to the extreme weather conditions that have challenged my survival skills over the past few training rides.

I arrived in Zürich last week Tuesday and went straight to the FISCHER Zweiradsport Seon/Buchs bike shop of Roland Fischer to receive my goodies. I was generously provided with amazing products from Fischer Bikes, Shimano, cycling clothes from Fuchs-Movesa, a Met helmet and some proper Vittoria tires.

The first three day’s showed weather that I would only find in my deepest nightmares. I rushed back to Fischer to ask for some more layers and bike gear as every ride ended in a struggle to try and get the feeling back in my toes and fingers.

The Fischer bike is performing absolutely incredible. It is much lighter than my previous mountain bikes and the new XTR rims give it a very fast responsiveness. I decided to go for a 1x11 (32tooth) which has been as smooth as silk. The Vittoria Pcyotc have luckily given me some sense of confidence in the wet, slippery and unknown trails.

Over the last week I got to ride with two different club rides in their technical training. The level that the youngers are at here in Switzerland amazes me. These ‘lighties’ that are probably over two head smaller than I have balls of steel, flying down these tricky single-tracks close behind me. With only two groups I have already seen so much potential in a great number of them and finally understand how countries like Switzerland manage to produce such world class cross-country riders. I was quite surprised to see Matt Lombabi coming to one of the group rides; it was nice not being the only southern hemisphere rider battling it out amongst the Swiss. Good luck to him in Italy this weekend.

The Easter weekend was spent in Lörrach with my aunt and uncle, who were kind enough to drive me up to the Bällchen (a mountain top at 1400m) which had snow on it. Since I haven’t seen snow since my visit to Germany in 2005 I was childishly excited when I saw the tip of the Bällchen covered in it while doing one of my rides through the Schwarzwald. I couldn’t resist but to ask them if we could go up there the following day.

Other than that, my diet has hopelessly crumbled to the delight of Swiss chocolate, cheese and the ever so delicious rusks of Eric’s. Hopefully once the temperatures start to rise again I can resume my normal eating habits and return to my racing weight. The Namibian flag is also flying high in in the LCC (Lenzburg Country Club) and the weather is slowly starting to improve; I’m starting to feel at home here.

I’ll be driving to Schaan this weekend for my first race, the BMC-Cup series opener, so wish me luck and you will hear from me next week.

Adieu, and till next time,

Martin