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“It looks like the Alps here with all the mountains,” says Carla Hahn, “really beautiful and cool”. One small but important detail for cyclists quickly makes it clear that it can’t be here in Germany: “The street dogs here are really chilled. They don’t care when we ride past on our bikes.” The 18-year-old from the Lexware Mountain Bike Team won the bronze medal in the U-23 women’s short track race on the first day of the European Championships in Cheile Grădiștei, a ski resort at 1300 metres in the Romanian Southern Carpathians. “I was hoping for a medal, but I wasn’t expecting it.”

Her team-mate Antonia Weeger came tenth. The men’s short race was unfortunate for Max Brandl from the Lexware team, which is based in the Dreisamtal and Upper Black Forest. Lying in second place, the German double champion caught a flat front tyre in the deep mud and crashed as a result in a bend before the finishing straight: “That’s annoying and disappointing, just a shame because I was feeling good”. Instead of a possible medal: 15th place for Brandl. Team-mate Benjamin Krüger fought his way to eighth place in the U23 category. The German relay team with Lexware team members Nina Benz, David List and Lennart Krayer finished fifth in the European Championships. Two flat tyres and a crash threw the sextet too far back to make it into the medals.

With or without PTN ? 

If the Lexare bikers didn’t have PTN in their tires, they would have had to abandon the race. However, with PTN, they were able to ride to the service point to make the change, although they still lost a lot of time. The weather conditions were very adverse, with a lot of mud, fog, and rain, which made visibility very poor. This can lead to not seeing the stones that damage the tires.