Road bike world championships in Copenhagen

This Sunday Silva visited the road bike world championships in Copenhagen. We were there to support our ambassador Fredrik Kessiakoff, normally riding for the Astana Pro Team, but now representing Sweden.

Photos by Johan Sahlin

It was a really sunny and warm day and when we drove of the ferry in Helsingør we decided to take the beautiful “Strandvejen” along the sea, instead of the freeway towards Copenhagen. We couldn´t resist a stop at a nice café along the road and enjoyed a cappuccino and a croissant in the sun.

After the short stop we headed towards Copenhagen and the race. We arrived early, but there were already a huge crowd. The Belgians had a huge “palace” with big screen TV´s and, of course, beer and frites and were in a good mood. It seemed like the whole of Norway were there too.

We found a good spot in a small climb and waited for the riders to pass. We heard the helicopter in the distance and cars and motorcycles passed us, and suddenly the first breakaway flew pass us. It´s really amazing how fast they ride! When the main peloton passed us there was an impressive wind drag! They were riding 17 laps on a circuit and a total of 266 km. The 60 km ride we did the day before suddenly didn´t feel quite that impressive…

We could see Fredrik sitting nicely in the main peloton every lap, and he was very fortunate to avoid a big crash that happened almost were we stood. Suddenly the main peloton wasn´t as big as before and Fredrik was the last man to come pass us a little bit behind the main group and we realized that something had happened as riders with blood on knees and elbows passed us one by one.

The race was really exciting and the atmosphere among the 250 000 spectators were great! As expected the race ended in a big sprint, since the course was very flat. Not ideal for Fredrik who is a really good climber and he finished with the main group in 54:th place. Even though Fredrik didn´t win we had a very nice day watching the race. Awesome!