Image: private
Image: private
Your legs are tired, your bottom hurts. After 13 days on the bike from Eferding to Istanbul, Rudolf Ditzlmüller (59) from Puppingen and Helmut Weiß (54) from Fraham started the Istanbul Marathon on Sunday and crossed the finish line after 4:40 hours and 4:30 hours respectively.
“It was pretty borderline because we were already really feeling the 2,000 kilometers of cycling and our thighs exploded after just 20 kilometers of the marathon,” says Helmut Weiß when the OÖNachrichten reached him by phone yesterday. They joked with friends via WhatsApp that unfortunately they hadn’t overtaken any top Kenyan runners, but they hadn’t traveled by bike. Of course, the two former triathletes were miles away from their personal best marathon time, but that was beside the point. Because they combined their tour with a good cause and will donate a nice four-figure sum to the Wels association “Rollende Engel”, which fulfills the last wishes of seriously ill people.
“It was a successful trip with many adventures, and we may be able to finance some people’s last trip,” says Weiß, who will stay in Istanbul with his friend Rudolf Ditzlmüller until Wednesday before flying back to Austria.
Image: private
Almost everything went according to plan
Luckily, the two of them were spared any falls on their daily stages of between 130 and 160 kilometers; they only had two punctures on their long tour. The almost 160 kilometer long final stage in pouring rain to the city on two continents with around 16 million inhabitants was particularly challenging. “We were completely soaked, it was already dark and we had to look for accommodation in this megacity,” says Weiß. Both are enthusiastic about Istanbul, its open people and sights such as the Blue Mosque and the famous Hagia Sophia. As they drove through small villages in Bulgaria and Romania, they were shocked by the sometimes great poverty of the people in these European countries. There they were met by horse-drawn carts instead of cars, and many houses were only covered with plastic sheeting.
The two of them will leave their racing bike in the garage for the near future. The two leave it open whether this was their last big cycling adventure. They have already proven their endurance several times, in 2012 they cycled to Marrakesh in Morocco and in 2018 to Athens.
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Source: Nachrichten
