The XCM (cross country marathon) World Cup overall title will be decided at the Sea Otter in Girona, host of the last of the six events of the competition. It will be on September 20, and David Valero, second today in Kirchzarten (Germany), will face the winner, Belgian Wout Alleman, in what is expected to be an explosive duel. The biker from Granada leads the classification with a 125-point advantage and must finish among the top six if Wout Alleman wins. Valero’s worst position of the season has been 14th on the Island of Elba, Italy, in the second event of the campaign.
The Black Forest Ultra Bike Marathon is a beast. Mike Kluge, its first winner in 1997, stated at the finish line that anyone who managed to finish the race could consider themselves a winner. Each year, nearly 5,000 people attempt it, convinced that their finishers status will grant them a brief moment of glory. The course features over 3,500 meters of positive elevation gain, 118 kilometers of broken terrain, up and down, which is maddening, all day jumping from stone to stone, the dual suspension trying to alleviate the torture of an arrhythmic pedaling where the whole body pushes. At the finish line, not only do the legs scream in pain, but also the back muscles, shoulders, and even the fingers, stiff from the jolts and braking.
David Valero loves these challenges, eternal races that gradually erode energy and morale until the event becomes a free-for-all, rivals dropping off without any attack, disgusted by the discomfort of a high pace, a grinder. In fact, this season, everything is going well for Valero, who has even just won the Spanish XCO Championship, precisely the category he decided to abandon at the end of last season to embrace XCM, that is, the long and purest version of elite mountain biking. The Andalusian biker has made history by winning two of the five XCM World Cup events held to date, in addition to his recent European title achieved in Ramales de la Victoria, Cantabria. He is 37 years old, has a brilliant past in Olympic cross country, and a huge desire to continue enjoying cycling, the continuous changes that technology brings, and which allow him to be excited about his new Orbea in his Klimatiza team. In the Spanish XCO Championship, Valero felt like a kid, fighting precisely against Thibaut François, still U23 and destined to be the national benchmark in the highest global category of XCO. Valero is having so much fun now that he dreams of wearing the rainbow jersey, a garment so special and so desired that he doesn’t even dare to voice his longing.
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In the absence of television broadcast, the Black Forest race started at half past seven in the morning, a logical time to avoid the suffocating heat of the central hours of the day. Those who wanted to follow the race could check the dotwatcher (points that advance on a digital map thanks to the beacons carried by the participants) on the official XCM World Cup page, a curious exercise that somewhat harks back to the past. Nowadays, all television efforts are focused on the XCO World Cup, even if its circuits do not always provide entertaining races. But, even without television, XCM has a huge following among mountain bike enthusiasts, who find in its courses the authenticity of a specialty that was born to take bikes to the mountains and not to confine them to prefabricated circuits enclosed in ski resorts.
In the women’s category, Natalia Fischer held her own against the season’s dominant force, Swiss Anna Weinbeer (four victories in five races), securing a strong second place four minutes behind the winner, the undeniable leader of the World Cup overall standings.
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