Originally written in German. Translated to English by AI — please excuse any awkward phrasing.
Lanzarote extreme.
It’s Sunday, February 16th, 2014. It was to become one of the most memorable riding days of my life…
The conditions: better weather than the day before, fewer rain showers, but still more than enough wind. So much wind that I thought multiple times about whether to even get on the bike at all. Four hours on the bike — why do I do this to myself. 60-80 km/h winds as the baseline, gusts happily exceeding that.
In the end I took the plunge — total duration 4:45h, with the following results:
- Got caught in 2 sandstorms: checked
- Every possible opening on body and equipment filled/coated with sand: checked
- Stopped twice to pour sand out of shoes: checked
- Blown off the road to the right 4 times: checked
- Blown across to the wrong side of the road twice: checked
- Multiple free full-body acupuncture sessions: checked
- After 4h an average of 21.4 km/h: checked
- After 4:45h an average of 25.5 km/h: checked
- First time switching to the big chainring after 4:05h: checked
- First time on the aero bars after 4:15h: checked
- Stopped to drink: checked
- Stopped to blow my nose: checked
- Rode roughly 90% of the time at an angle uphill: checked
- Rode at 15 km/h on the flat at 250 watts: checked
- Rode at 64 km/h on the flat at 250 watts: checked
- Hand cramps from gripping the bars: checked
- Blown sideways countless times: checked
In the end I was just relieved to make it home in one piece. It was genuinely pretty reckless to go out at all, but somehow I had to get through it. You grow through challenges — I learned a lot. Above all, that I was previously quite the coward when it came to crosswinds and gusts. There’s still a lot of room to grow there. And sometimes shock therapy really is the right approach…
