Dear Readers,
I’ve got a bit of product testing and Tour de Suisse course scouting to tell you about.

I’m at a DT Swiss/Schwalbe 2009 product introduction, and yesterday, on my 50th birthday (which I’m still celebrating, as it’s still the 23rd in Boulder for another hour) we – magazine writers and Schwalbe and DT Swiss staff – rode up Mont Chasseral, the huge mountain dominating the town of Biel, Switzerland, the home of DT Swiss. It was perfect weather and a great climb – 4000 feet of elevation gain with an incredible overview above treeline from a giant TV antenna atop the peak.

In one direction, you could see the Eiger area of the Alps in the distance, and in the other direction, you could see the Grand Ballon and the Ballon d’Alsace – famous Tour climbs just over the French border.

My bike with the DT RR1450 Mon Chasseral wheels and Schwalbe Ultremo R tires in front of the TV tower atop Mont Chasseral

Photo: Lennard Zinn

The new Schwalbe Ultremo R tires were great for the climb, being only 180 grams, their tacky edges gripped the road tightly on the switchbacks coming down. Finally, five of us fully tested the hard center rubber strip and ceramic-coated radial belt proven puncture-proof in lab test demos that morning in Schwalbe’s product presentation by riding a gravel road for 5km or so and cyclocrossing over a dam.

The DT Swiss RR 1450 Mon Chasseral wheels I was riding also proved up to that task as well as the climb and descent they were named after. Actually, the name is a play on words, as the Chasseral is the climb DT Swiss employees use to establish bragging rights within the company, and “Mon Chasseral” means “my Chasseral,” a slight change from “Mont Chasseral”.

The DT Swiss and Schwalbe crew along with magazine writers atop Mont Chasseral. That's Dan Hart wearing the headband.

Photo: Lennard Zinn

Unfortunately, Dan Hart, a young, enthusiastic 22-year-old writer on his first assignment from Bicycling and on his first full day ever in Europe took a nasty crash on the descent when he overcooked a left-hand switchback, ran off into the grass and bounced off of a rock outcrop, tossing him in a heap and flinging his bike all of the way to the opposite side of the road.

He was taken away by ambulance on a backboard to a local hospital. He broke three vertebrae and had some internal bleeding, but thanks to his helmet, which was completely smashed, he had no head injuries and was lucid the entire time. He was flown during the night to a bigger hospital in Bern, and we are all crossing our fingers for a quick bounce back for Dan.

Unbeknownst to him, either, he crashed right on the dividing line between the cantons of Bern and Neuchatel. First the Neuchatel police showed up, who did not speak a word of German (or English for that matter) and went around amongst the riders interviewing only French-speaking ones. They then checked on one of the riders’ Garmins and saw that they were slightly over the line into Bern and thus out of their jurisdiction, so they called German-speaking police from Bern. The ambulance did not concern itself with the borderline and took him to a hospital in the canton of Bern.

Markus Burghardt (left) and Gerard Ciolek eating big Italian gelatos shortly before their time trial start up the Klausen Pass

Photo: Lennard Zinn

On Saturday, I rode the uphill time trial course of the Tour de Suisse a few hours before the riders would tackle it. It was very hot, and an incredibly hard climb. It went straight up the Klausen Pass from the start in Altdorf and was 25 kilometers of solid, hard climbing. My Garmin said it was well over a mile of elevation gain – 5800 feet in fact. I totally underestimated it and was not anticipating its magnitude when I embarked on it. I definitely had not thought I would be doing a ride nearly on the order of Mount Evans. I planned to ride it as fast as I could, which I did, in order to compare my time to those of the Tour de Suisse riders, but I did not plan on running out of gas with 10K to go.

As I was suffering up it, watching the inflatable 20K, 10K, 5K and 1K to go arches come to me ever so slowly, I became ever more impressed with the climb and contemplated Kim Kirchen anticipating his ride down below in his yellow jersey. I just could not see how anyone, other than a pure climber could hold onto that jersey on this stage, and I was thinking that a rider like Kirchen would have to lose four or five minutes. I resolved that if some classics guys went up this mountain as fast as the climbers I would be suspicious of whether the ProTour really has cleaned up its doping act. I guess I’ve become cynical over the years seeing implausible results by riders who are not built like climbers.

The new Mavic Atrium Gore-Tex rain jacket

Photo: Lennard Zinn

However, my belief was restored a few hours later when a bunch of pure climbers topped the leader board, Kirchen dropped from first to seventh while losing 3:25 in a valiant effort, and four minutes separated first from 20th.

Oh, and it took me 1:45:00. In contrast, Roman Kreuziger’s winning time was a stunning 1:00:22! That’s amazing – 24.848kph on a climb like that. On a cloudless day, it was incredibly beautiful up there; for maybe a half-an-hour as I climbed, I was watching an amazing waterfall on the opposite side of the deep valley pounding water down onto the rocks below from a couple thousand feet above.

A super-thin, super form-fitting, superlight Mavic Altium jacket I’d just gotten the previous week at a Mavic press intro at the ski resort of La Clusaz in France became my new favorite mountain riding accessory on those descents of the Klausen Pass and Mont Chasseral. At the Mavic factory in Annecy, a company named CTC which Mavic contracted to optically scan the feet and take the body measurements of every one of the 800 employees of Salomon/Mavic took our foot scans and body measurements as well.

The output of CTC's foot scanner; it also specifies numerically every dimension of the foot.

Photo: Lennard Zinn

The company has ended its contract of producing cycling clothing and shoes under the Adidas name and is presenting an entirely new line under the Mavic name. So I came away with new Mavic road and mountain bike shoes that fit like gloves, and two Mavic Altium jackets that conform to my body like few pieces of clothing ever have. One is a Gore-Tex rain jacket with vertical zip expanders in back to fit over a Camelbak and with a hole in front for the tube, as well as two front zippers to provide full closure or to open a two-inch wide mesh vent down the front. It’s cool, but it hasn’t rained since I’ve been here (although it did for a month until the day I arrived). However, that thin shell jacket has become a good friend. It wads up smaller than my fist, weighs less than my cell phone, and provides great windproofing with such a tight fit that there is no obnoxious flapping as you carry high speed down a mountain.

Now I’m heading to a tour of DT Swiss’s factory built within an ancient castle and have mountain bike product from DT and Schwalbe to try tomorrow.
Lennard