On the new course, which began with the climb to the peloton for the first time, Urs Huber was able to easily break away from the leading group together with last year's winner Cristiano Salerno from Italy, the Belgian Frans Claes and the German Sascha Weber. Before the long descent at Bachalpsee, however, only a trio of Huber, Weber and Claes were still a few seconds ahead, as Salerno had dropped back due to a broken saddle and later abandoned the race. On the technically demanding descent on the Bachalpsee trail, Hansueli Stauffer was able to turn his 15-second deficit into a two-minute lead. As in previous years, the final ascent to Kleine Scheidegg was the deciding factor. Michael Stünzi moved up to second place.

"It was very special to compete here again after the two failures in the previous years," said Huber, marked by the traces of a minor crash. "Things were rather tough for me at the start. I felt that it was the sixth race weekend in a row. But now the joy clearly prevails. I've never won another race seven times," explained the 33-year-old Swiss marathon champion.

Second-placed Michael Stünzi surprised himself the most with his best result to date in the Bike Marathon Classics: "Until now, I thought I was mainly fast on less hilly routes. Today I proved the opposite," said the 27-year-old from Prättigau, amazed. However, he was glad that he had his teammate Marc Stutzmann, who knows the area, as his lead rider on the Bachalpsee trail. Otherwise, he simply rode at his own pace and was able to make up ground at the end.

"The Bachalpsee trail was really fun. I was able to overtake rider after rider," said a delighted Hansueli Stauffer. The podium place had come at just the right time after things had not gone particularly well for him so far this season. "When Urs Huber overtook me on the climb to Kleine Scheidegg, I almost caught a cold," said Stauffer with a good dose of self-irony.

The same goes for the women's winner, Esther Süss: "I was sweating blood and water on the final ascent to Kleine Scheidegg because I was expecting Ariane Lüthi at any moment." But this time none of her rivals were able to catch up. Lüthi reached the finish more than ten minutes behind. She said: "That was really tough! After the stage race in Romania the previous week, I wasn't sure if I had enough recovery time. That's why I only signed up at the last moment. But as I would have had to do some hard training anyway, I preferred to ride the Eiger Bike. With this magnificent mountain backdrop with the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau, I was able to torture myself better." Florence Darbellay, who had led the women's race at the start, lost 14:15 minutes to the winner, but was nevertheless satisfied, as the Eiger Bike was the perfect preparation for the Grand Raid, which took place two weeks later and which the Romande won in 2017.

Florian Thie from Sigriswil wins the middle distance ahead of Micha Klötzli and Flurin Staub. New Zealander Samara Sheppard is the fastest women's runner ahead of Alexandra Zürcher and Michèle Wittlin.

Results:

Men (88 km):
1st Urs Huber (Mettmenstetten) 4:19:11.
2nd Michael Stünzi (Grüsch) 1:03.
3rd Hansueli Stauffer (Sigriswil) 1:56.
4th Sascha Weber (De) 3:34.
5th Andreas Moser (Madiswil) 5:00.
6th Frans Claes (Be) 6:50.
7th Konny Looser (Hinwil) 11:52.
8th Marc Stutzmann (Rüfenacht, BE) 12:48.
9th Oliver Zurbrügg (Lauterbrunnen) 13:04.
10th Emilien Barben (Chez-le-Bart) 17:21.

Women (88 km):
1st Esther Süss (Küttigen) 5:29:45.
2nd Ariane Lüthi (Gunten) 10:30.
3rd Florence Darbellay (Neuchâtel) 14:15.
4th Andrea Ming (Edlibach) 17:53.
5th Franziska Brun (Emmenbrücke) 45:26.

Men (55 km):
1st Florian Thie (Tschingel ob Gunten) 2:30:13.
2nd Micha Klötzli (Tramelan) 5:09.
3rd Flurin Staub (Sils Maria) 7:50.
4th Hans-Babtist Seeberger (Kippel) 8:22.
5th Fabian Heinzer (Schwyz) 9:33.
6th Adrian Jäggi (Lohn-Ammansegg) 10:35.
7th Florent Bolis (Orsières) 11:41.
8th Cédric Pacios (Vétroz) 11:46.
9th Yannick Rohner (Ammerswil AG) 12:45.
10th Sascha Deplazes (Sedrun) 13:08.

Women (55 km):
1st Samara Sheppard (Neus) 3:05:59.
2nd Alexandra Zürcher (Oey) 0:58.
3rd Michele Wittlin (Liestal) 4:28.
4th Tamara Burkhard (Jenaz) 6:03.
5th Letizia Strimer (Ardez) 6:19.