Lipnik is the place to go if it comes down to marathon season kick off. This event covers so pretty much everything: good opportunity to set good results at the very beginning of the relentlessly long race period, stunning sceneries, picturesque mountains littered with astonishing impressive castle ambient. But most of all for the news that Gary Fisher, yes Gary the godfather of mountain biking, the greatest advocate of global cycling gave his "Sure, I'll be there" to my invite to attend this show. What's more, Gary was supposed to line up for one of those distances.
Apart from the sporting aspect and being an addicted performance biker, for me the crucial point has been definitely meeting up with Gary, i.e. follow up on those tremendous conversation we led at the time of invitation for a couple of month ago. "Do you think the race is hard enough for you?" - I asked Gary - "No matter what, I m going to ride it, at least the middle distance. I have to!" - responded Gary.
It's pretty obvious that he is not only an tireless evangelist of this awesome sport but makes everyone follow suite - leading by example. "Jump on your bike and switch out your daily stress - only you, your rig, and this eternal beautiful surrounding" His preaching's, speeches and dialogues are that infectious, every time I have the opportunity to exchange with him it rises my eyes and you just catch yourself at discovering how gorgeous our bike world is.
Nearly 2100 racers started which is a new record, whereby a Kid race has been held on Sunday as well. Given SELAS' 10th anniversary the event manager made frankly the best out of it. It became a downright bike fest littered with many side events like sprint race on the eve of the main race, small exhibition of bike producers and sponsors. And of course entertaining music and shows which contributed to high spirit of all attendants. To make use of Gary's statement " This is incredible! " His excitement hasn't been lessened on the coming day when the Kid race took place " This is amazing - I have never seen such huge crowd of Kid's lining up for a bike race. Wow!"
To Ales Prochazka's (race manager) credit, this kind of event is genuinely outstanding and his commitment to that deserves respect. Gary's placement has been of second nature, more important was his statement "A very enjoyable and attractive track. The singletracks, epic sessions, but most of all the castle..." That's true, it is something very unique to SELA. The castle is passed once a race, the second time there one passes the finish line. How cool is that, being welcomed by that huge crowd of spectators yelling at you and cheering you up along the way. Now, the social part of SELA is renowned for ages so no wonder those folks are rooting for every biker all along. A phenomenon which isn't understood for every event I happened to cover so far. The same is true for a respectable standards this fest provides year after year. They are tiny things and details, however that's amounts to this welcome difference in comparison.
On to the race, we have to take in account that SELA is part of the most prestigious Czech national marathon series, moreover belongs to Inter Mountain Series (and a couple of other Czech series) as well. The bottom line is thus the starter field is illustrious accordingly. On top of that, it's pretty much the first race for the majority, hence everyone is trying to set a good note, or at least test him-/herself whether the season preparation kicks in or even not. Good thing is as well, there isn't such a mass start, rather blocks are built up, by virtue of previous results, or self performance assessment.
Aid stations are well placed, additionally equipped with tech support. I have been pleased to welcome the greatest and most famous photo-provider around, Sportograf, which kept up to all those expectations as far as service goes. Kudos to Sportograf for these gorgeous pictures.Remains to be noted the famous after-race party and socializing with like-minded folks, this is all the time a welcome come-together. Sure, beer and Czech folks goes hand in hand, thus this part of the hanging-around is for the majority the most important time. "What an incredible event" sounded Gary conclusively while signing those thousand and thousand signatures. Well, same here, I got a notion as well having attended once again another awesome SELA cranking up its standards year after year.Robert
