Easter race: Podium finish at Sachsenring circuit

A podium finish was the declared goal of Philip, Paul, Patrick, Max and Wolfgang – they had not travelled to find stress, but wanted to be successful. The profile of the motorbike race track is well known in cycling Germany and is considered an absolute national classic. This year, other CT teams such as the RadNet-Oßwald Team or the P&S Team were at the start, and with Christian Koch (Lotto-KernHaus – 2nd place) and the winner of the race Tim-Torn Teutenberg (Leopard TOGT Team – European Champion in the elimination race), there were also top riders from the Continental range. Not an easy task, but a challenge.

The pushbikers were present in the race when they needed to be and reacted quickly when they missed something. At the end of the 70 kilometres, which were spread over 20 laps, it became clear that it would come down to a sprint. The pushbikers went for Philip Weber. For the last two laps, Max Benz-Kuch controlled the pace at the front to make sure there would be no more attacks. On the last lap, Patrick Reissig and Paul Rudys rode a perfect lead-out from the top. “I had to start my sprint relatively early, which was not quite optimal on the slightly uphill finishing straight with headwind”, Philip Weber summed up afterwards, ” I rode a strong sprint from the front and was unfortunately still overrun by the two riders coming out of the slipstream in the last ten metres.” His annoyance was initially great, but the joy of his teammates over 3rd place was very great. “As a group we had a really nice day, and for us “Ostbiker” it was fun to see many old familiar faces and to experience the whole flair,” Philip Weber was pleased.

For the 47th time, “Rund um Schönaich” took place with the Wolfberg 1.5 kilometres before the finish, which has often decided this classic in the past. The Maloja Pushbikers Future Stars first competed in the age groups up to juniors U19. In the elite Max Benz-Kuch rode as an individual starter for the Pushbikers. “More of a Bundesliga peloton than a purely amateur event,” he sums up. “As soon as I picked up my race number I saw the numerous spectators on the side of the course and was admittedly a bit overwhelmed – wow, unfortunately you don’t get this atmosphere at many UCI .2 races. That shows: Germany can very well do bike racing!”

On the undulating short course with the aforementioned climb to the Wolfenberg, which has to be crossed 16 times, no team was able to bring in a controlled basic hardness and so they attacked back and forth in constant rhythm changes until a group of about 35 men was left for the last 30km. This group did not really settle down either. In the beginning, Max Benz-Kuch went along with every attack that looked promising in order to gather race hardness, but also with the aim of collecting a good result. “Unfortunately, I didn’t really manage the latter with 19th place. So I was able to compete again and again as an individual starter, but in the end I didn’t finish on the podium, where I would have liked to be.