Rossbach, a very small village in the Spessart region was the first stop of the German Enduro One series. This was the third time Rossbach hosted a stop of the series and the first one already provided excellent trail riding with technical challenges in every stage. Although this little town is in the middle of nowhere there is a strong mountain bike community all around and all citizens are keen to make this event a big family-like meeting. Just three of seven stages could be trained including the prolog. All other stages had to be raced blind.

Early Sunday morning we noticed that, after the rain on Friday, the trails were dry and pure dust again. That could have added some extra salt on all the roots and rocks we rode yesterday. As suspected stage one was all in from the start. Beginning with some rooty corners the trail followed the fall line of the hill with rocks and off camber sections paired with tight switchbacks and high speed downhills. Matthias found himself beside his bike a few times and hit a tree somewhere. Nothing serious but found the flow all around.

Up to stage two we took the same way but followed the fire road further thru the woods. Same game here – a few corners and down into the steeps with a road gap and technical challenging lines. This one was much better but still not the race mode our Process and we were capable of. A long uphill took us to stage three, one of the trained stages. Beginning with a flat single track the trail got steep and steeper interrupted by a 400m fire road section.  We knew we had to put all in and it felt like the speed was spot on. Overall time should have been good for now. But still four stages to come. Matthias got more and more in the race and improved his single positions from stage to stage although stage four and five felt really weird with no flow at all.

On the last two stages Matthias knew what to do and it paid off! He ended with another podium in his strong class. Good job, man!