"The Iron Bike Race next Sunday is a welcome change for me at the end of a cross-country season that didn't go according to plan," says Florian Vogel openly. And also that he won't be starting just to roll along. "The region around Lake Sihl is my favorite training area, the Iron Bike is basically my home race," says Vogel, who lives with his family in Rapperswill-Jona.

Lukas Buchli is also aiming to win the Iron Bike Race. Like Vogel, a crash at the stupidest moment put a spanner in the works of his season plans. He has already had to write off another overall victory in the "iXS Swiss Bike Classic". World champion Christoph Sauser as well as Urs Huber are unassailably in first and second place in the intermediate rankings and are therefore foregoing the start in Einsiedeln. Buchli is determined to reach third place on the top-class podium, which could only be contested by Jérémy Huguenin - at least in theory.

No early escape
Buchli's tactics are clear: go full throttle one last time this year. But he also says: "Everyone is tired from the long season." In other words: An early escape, as he had tried in 2011 and then had to admit defeat to Sauser and Vogel, is rather out of the question this year. "The race will be decided on the climb to Spirstock," suspects Buchli. This is the main obstacle at kilometer 74 of the challenging 101-kilometer loop over the hills around Lake Sihl.

The women's iXS swiss bike classic has also already been decided. Swiss bike marathon champion Ariane Kleinhans took the overall title in the national race series ten days ago by winning the "O-Tour" - and traveled back to South Africa, where she is living with her husband for the winter. Milena Landtwing, the 2011 Swiss champion, has thus lost her toughest rival. It was probably only a major defect that prevented the Zug native from taking her first victory in Einsiedeln on Sunday. She thus secures second place in the "iXS Classic" - most likely ahead of Jane Nüssli and Cornelia Hug.

The final should be exciting even in the fun category, where leader Stefan Sulser has dominated the past two years with iron calves and flawless winning streaks. This time, Hanspeter Rusch, Sascha Wälti and Simeon Niederer could still snatch the lead from the Davos native.

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