Anxious anticipation for the queen stage

To be honest, I was a bit scared after yesterday's debacle during the prologue, where I really rode myself into misery. But after a good night's sleep, the world looked a little different. Despite a lot of respect for today's queen stage, with 72 kilometers, 1600 meters uphill and 4050 meters downhill, I was really looking forward to the day. We both knew that there were some really good descents on the stage plan - let's go!
The starting gun was fired at 8.15 am in the freezing cold and we set off on the first section of the stage. Immediately after the start, we hit another climb with an elevation gain of around 250 meters. As I didn't want to repeat the mistake of the previous day, I took it very easy this time, no matter how many riders passed us.

This time it's the other way around: Anita tries to push me, but it rolls off me. I never want to feel like I did yesterday on the bike again. But the pushing had a reason, because just as we set off on the first descent, all the riders who had previously overtaken us on the ascent were there too. Despite the slight traffic jam, we have a fun ride with lots and lots of overtaking maneuvers, which doesn't go down well with everyone ;)
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What comes down must go up again - and down again

After this first fun descent, I'm feeling pretty good, but then I'm shocked to realize that the big climb with almost 900 metres of altitude is just around the corner. The motto is to stay relaxed and pedal regularly. We don't make it up to Visperterminen very quickly, but steadily.

From here, the descent leads us in tight hairpin bends towards the valley and our first shuttle. This takes us comfortably to Bürchen. We already know the trail towards Unterbäch, so we're really looking forward to riding it at racing speed for once. But you have to fight hard to get there on this stage. First, the trail climbs steeply before finally riding down. On this descent, we can finally really let it rip. There's hardly anyone blocking the trail in front of us - we just accelerate, just the way we love it.

The infamous twelve-kilometre flat section along the Rhone to Leuk proves to be quite gruelling thanks to the "dear" headwind. Fortunately, Anita does practically all the leading. We ride along the river at high speed and close to over-acidification

Racy end to the day

I don't really need the steep climb at the end of the section, and therefore to our last shuttle of the day, and the 200-metre sign before the finish is definitely a lie, as long as 200m seems to me. But we're not done yet, because we have to take the train up the mountain again in Leukerbad, from where we ride another section almost exclusively downhill - it doesn't get any better than this. Nevertheless, we are happy to finally reach the finish. Despite the fact that I was still pretty tired on the day, Anita and I were able to make up a lot of time and, as a reward, climb to third place on the podium in the mixed and women's teams category - yeah!!!