Transcontinental Race winner Fiona Kolbinger puts in massive lockdown ride

Fiona Kolbinger, winner of last year’s Transcontinental Race, has posted a massive ride she undertook on Friday to Strava, covering 559.5 kilometres as she rode from her home in Dresden to tackle the highest climb in the Lower Saxony region before heading back.

The 24-year-old, who since becoming the first woman to win the race last June has completed her medical studies and qualified as a doctor, said on Strava that the ride formed part of a challenge she has set herself this year to ride to the highest point of each of Germany’s 16 states, or Länder.

> Who is Fiona Kolbinger? The medical student who has become the first woman to win the Transcontinental Race

She also revealed the food she ate during the ride, which took 21 hours 48 minutes and 48 seconds to complete – including no fewer than 14 Snickers bars - with Strava estimating that she consumed 8,848 calories.

Responding to questions put to her by followers on Strava, she said: “Thanks everyone, just realized this was my longest solo ride so far and parts of it felt pretty much like TCR (brief stops, partly suboptimal weather and being unable to get the heart rate over 100 any more in the end).

“Water and food: I took 2 bananas, 400g Haribo, 10 Snickers, 200g mixed nuts and raisins and 1.5l juice from home and this turned out to be a bit optimistic.

“Juice refill at a gas station at km 250, water refill at a church at km 400 (had also eaten all my food by then). I therefore needed two unplanned refill stops, one at a McDonald’s drive-in at km 450 (two large packs of fries and 500ml coke) and one at a gas station at km 490 (2 Snickers).

“Overall, my bad planning made the last third of the ride somewhat hypoglycemic.”

She also revealed that she got caught in a downpour as she returned to Dresden, saying that she “got pretty soaked on the way back and hid in a scenic hunter’s high seat next to the road for 20 minutes.

“Luckily the sun came out afterwards and dried everything, so just the shoes stayed wet until the end.”

Previously this year, Kolbinger has ridden up the highest peak in the Harz mountains, the Brocken, the summit of which lies at 1.142 metres above sea level, and which is in the state of Saxony-Anhalt.

She said: “This time, I was aiming at the Wurmberg, the highest point of the county of Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) as part of my little 2020 project to cycle to the highest point of each German county.”

Located, like the Brocken, in the Harz mountain range, the Wurmberg reaches a height of 971.2 metres.

Germany began easing lockdown restrictions in mid-April, although Chancellor Angela Merkel has come under criticism from some quarters about not ending them as quickly as some people would like to happen.