As the Kraftwerk Trophy 2006 24-hour race approached I grew more and more nervous.

Marko Baloh, Chris Hopkinson & Juré Robic "I am truly honoured to be pictured with what I consider to be the two best cyclists in the world. What a photo! " — Hoppo

Comparing this year's training mileage to last year's showed a pretty bad picture - two days before the race I have covered 5500 km in training, compared to 15500 km last year. Bad Omen? I wasn't sure. During and after my across Slovenia record ride I was feeling very strong. A friend has told me that muscles have a pretty good memory of what they have been doing for the past 20+ years and all I needed to do was give them a wake-up call. A nice pep talk to calm me down I thought, but the circumstances were forcing me to do exactly what he has proposed.

The Kraftwerk is a drafting race, organized by Reinhard Hörmann, who raced on the winning four-man Austrian team in RAAM '03. His four-man Team Orthomol Sport won the Kraftwerk in 2004 with 975,12 km (605.91 mi) and 2005 with 956,00 km (594.03 mi). This year Orthomol Sport (Hörmann, Matthias Buxhofer, Roland Garber and Thomas Wittner) came with the goal of 1000 km in 24-hours.

With not so many miles, but some very fast and hard ones, I found myself on the start line on May 13 facing 58 other solo competitors, among which Juré Robic, my old friend and adversary. Robic won the last two Kraftwerk 24s finishing each less than 10 km behind the winning team and holds the UMCA's non-drafting 24-hour road record: 840.04 km (521.975 mi). Last year I won the Kraftwerk 12-hour with 487,56 km (302.96 mi) and I hold the 12-hour track record: 452.73 km (281.31).

Marko Baloh takes a feed at 40+ km/h!

A few other ultra champions like Wolfgang Fasching, Valentin Zeller and Franz Venier opted for a 12-hour race. Zeller told me that he had just finishing a huge quantity training, while Fasching's primary goal for the first part of the season is 24-hour European Mountain Bike Championships in June.

The race takes place in Theiss, Austria on a 4.78 km (2.97 mi) completely flat but exposed course.

The 12-hour riders went on the track at 8 a.m. and after two hours the 24-hour racers started. The 12- and 24-hour teams provided a blistering tempo for the first hours and Robic and I were the only solo racers who were able to hold their speed. The average speed in the first six hours was almost 45 km/h (27,9 mi/h) covering a lap in just over six minutes! Working with Orthomol Sport were RC Donau Fritzi Racing and Team SPORTNORA. A rider would race for three to five laps and then exchange with a teammate. For comparison the 15th stage of the Giro d'Italia was a 117 mile flat route, which the pros covered in 4 hours 15 minutes. The pros averaged 44,3 km/h (27,5 mi/h) — and then took the rest of the day off!

Riding a team time trial with riders you just met! Race organizer Reinhard Hörmann is leading the pace line.

Of course, Juré and I had to "check each other's pulse" once in a while. First Juré went with the attack of a few teams, only to find me counter-attacking a few moments later. With that little test of strength, we could see that we were pretty evenly matched and all we could do was wait for the other one's mistake.

In the late afternoon the wind started to blow very hard, slowing us to 35 km/h at times. On top of that it began raining, making the prospect of setting a record very grim. Fortunately the rain stopped only half an hour later. The race was still very fast until 8 p.m., when the 12-hour finished. At times I had to reach pretty far into the red zone, but there was no way I was going to give Juré an advantage of one lap. With the big effort of staying with the fast teams, we gained quite a few laps advantage over the third placed rider and a race for a victory would be decided between the two of us.

As expected the 12-hour race fought among the above mentioned three Austrian riders. Wolfgang Fasching finished with 106 laps and 506.7km (314.85 mi), a one-lap advantage over Zeller, who had lost a lap due to a puncture. Zeller had 501,9 km (311.87). Zeller qualified for RAAM in 2004 and then took fifth in his rookie RAAM (2005). Venier finished third with 497,1 km (308.9 mi). Venier finished sixth in RAAM 2002 and has strong results from Race Across the Alps in 2002 and 2003, among other races.

Ann Wooldridge racing to the 12-hour Kraftwerk win.

Ann Wooldridge, from the UK, was the first woman with 372.84 km. (231.67 mi). Wooldridge won the Kraftwerk 12 last year as well as the UMCA's Ultracycling Cup Competition 12-hour division.

Once the 12-hour racers finished their race the pace of our group became a lot smoother. It was still 40+ km/h (25+ mi/h) but more regular and easier to follow. All we had to do was eat, drink, put on more clothes because of the cold and put the lights on. All of that had to be done at 40+ km/h, as stopping would surely mean losing one lap (4,78 km).

The trickier part was peeing - no stopping for that, either. I'd find a spot that was flat or a bit downhill, move to the right, do my thing off the bike and pray that someone didn't attack at the same time. And then speed up again and catch up the fast group that has gained 200-300 meters on me in the meantime. Not an easy task, I can tell you... But, it went OK every time and by sunrise, we were still together with the fastest teams.

Robic & Baloh

As the finish was getting closer, Juré and I discussed how we were going to approach it. We agreed that we were equally strong on the day, that we both worked very hard and it would be a shame if one would have to leave the race disappointed. Plus, it looked like we would be able to break the drafting 24-hour drafting record held by Daniel Wyss who rode 977 km in 24 hours at Schötz. The big race of our season - RAAM - is coming up in only four weeks, so why "kill" each other over this victory. We decided to finish it off friendly, split up the victory and possibly the record. Crossing the finish line hand in hand, the crowd really loved it. And, I must admit, we loved every minute of it, too! It was so much better than one ending overjoyed over a victory and the other in tears after 24 hours of excellent racing. We have both deserved this victory and I have absolutely no regrets over our decision.

Theresia Kellermayr was the first woman with 717.00 km (445.52 miles). Kellermayr is one of the founders of the Austrian women's team velochicks.at.

In the four-man team race Orthomol and Donaufritzi stayed together until the last lap when Hörmann (Orthomol) attacked and gained two minutes on Donaufritzi. Orthomol finished with 984,5 km. The world record four-man team record is 1018 set at Schötz in 1998.

Juré Robic & Marko Baloh sharing first and Christoph Strasser

After the race the initial results showed that we missed the record by 500 m. Fortunately my wife Irma is in my crew. She is a National UCI Commissar and she quickly determined a mistake in the timekeepers' log. After we received the official finishing time of Juré and me, she calculated the distance that we covered in 24 hours with a formula in UCI Regulations. We sent the result to the organizer and it only took a day or so for the Race Director to call and tell us we are the new World Record holders with 978,57 km in 24 hours!

As you can see, less really is more sometimes. Last year I was training like crazy and couldn't keep up with Juré at Kraftwerk because of asthma episode that slowed me down. This year I could do it with less than half of the training miles. I don't kid myself that RAAM will be the same. After three or four days, the lack of training miles is probably going to catch up with me. But who cares? I am there this year for one goal only - getting to that finish line in Atlantic City on my bike. If only I stay healthy this time around, I assure you - we are going to have fun ..."