Jun 2, 2026

Five stages, Salsomaggiore Terme, Emilia Romagna. My third multi-day mountainbike stage race, after the Bike Transalp a couple of years back and the Sudety MTB Challenge in Poland last year - and this time it ended early. I only made it through three of the five stages.

Going in

I’d gotten a concussion on May 3rd, which put a real dent in the training I could do in the weeks before the race. The evening before stage 1 I also noticed a scratchy throat - probably nothing, possibly the start of something, impossible to tell in the moment. Add hot conditions for all three stages I actually raced, and there were at least three separate reasons my legs might not show up, stacked on top of each other before I’d even started.

Stage 1 - the prologue 🥵

22.9 km, 674 hm, 1:31 moving time, raced hard from the gun through tight castle descents and steep off-road ramps around Bargone. But something was wrong from the very first kilometers. A couple of km in, on an uphill grass-field track right before the paved road that climbs up to Bargone castle, I had to stop. Not slow down - stop, dead still, for a short while. I never do that mid-race. It felt like if I kept pushing I’d just fall over sideways into the grass. After a minute or so it passed enough to get going again, but I was riding within myself, waiting for it to hit again. It didn’t - not like that. Shortly after Bargone castle, on the short uphill loop around it, something clicked and my legs finally started working the way I expected them to. From there I could actually push, and the stage ended with an average heart rate of 166 bpm and average power of 162 W - a real effort on paper, four gold PRs on climbs I’d never touched before. Whatever that early scare was, I told myself it was a one-off.

Stage 2 - the queen stage 🥴

58.8 km, 2254 hm over Monte Pianazzo (479 m), Monte Santa Cristina (963 m) and Monte Stallazzo (343 m) - more climbing in one stage than most of my single-day marathons all year. Same story as stage 1 at the start: legs not there, having to hold back and just wait it out. And again, at some point mid-stage, it clicked and I could finally ride like myself. Didn’t change the overall numbers much though - 4:30 moving time, average heart rate down to 147 bpm, average power down to 154 W. GranFondoRank rated the day at 29% of capacity against a 60-day average around 420 points, by far the least I’ve gotten out of my legs all season. The 🥴 in the activity title was accurate. Whatever was building in my throat, the heat, or just the accumulated fatigue - something was clearly off, click or no click.

Stage 3 - false dawn 😀

49.8 km, 1773 hm, back over Valico di Sant’Antonio (650 m) and Monte Canate (853 m), plus Pianazzo and Stallazzo again. No shaky start this time, no waiting for a click - legs just felt ok from the first pedal stroke to the last. 3:45 moving time, average heart rate 141 bpm, average power 138 W. On paper the lowest output of the three days, but it’s genuinely the stage I felt best on the whole way through - no dizziness, no bargaining on the climbs, no early red flag to ride around. I actually let myself believe I’d found my rhythm and fought the cold back.

Then the race ended and I fell apart. Not normal post-race tired - I lay on the sofa for hours afterward and the tiredness didn’t lift. I’ve raced enough marathons to know what “spent” feels like, and this wasn’t it. This was something else entirely.

Stage 4 - the one I didn’t start

Woke up the next morning with dizziness and a bit of vertigo. No question about it at that point - I withdrew before the stage. In hindsight the concussion three weeks earlier, the scratchy throat the night before stage 1, and three days of racing in the heat had all been quietly stacking up the whole time. Stage 3 wasn’t recovery, it was borrowed time.

The numbers, added up

Three stages raced, 131.5 km, roughly 4700 hm of climbing, about 9:46 total moving time. Average power dropped stage over stage - 162 W, then 154 W, then 138 W - while average heart rate dropped right alongside it. Normally that pattern just reads as multi-day fatigue. In hindsight it reads more like a body trying to tell me something I wasn’t ready to listen to yet.

What did I learn

• Vital signs don’t lie even when I want them to. The steadily dropping power and heart rate across three stages, plus the post-stage-3 crash, were the data pointing at something long before the vertigo made it undeniable.
• A concussion a few weeks out is not “recovered enough for a stage race,” even if it feels fine day to day. I should have trained more before this one, and the concussion is exactly why I couldn’t.
• The trails themselves were genuinely great - surprisingly techy, but calibrated just right: challenging without being overwhelming. Some of the best trail practice I’ve gotten all year, concussion and cold notwithstanding.
• I’d sign up for something like this again in a heartbeat. Just next time in actual shape to finish it.

racemtbstage race