So yesterday, not only all the weather god were taking care of Innsbruck, as the weather was hitting 23 Celsius degrees but also tens of thousands of sports fans were closely following events taking place here in the middle of the Alps. The 2018 UCI World Tour was taking place here the whole week and it was nuts! Take a seat and watch the "behind the scenes" of such event as you can't see everything on your screens.
The whole week
It wasn't just one day. The races were taking place the whole weeks, all the various brackets and divisions were racing on different days. I'm all about sports and quite enjoyed it. Just the feeling that I'm riding my bike to work/university and in couple of hours, the professionals from around the world will be doing the same was just too cool to not enjoy. Also, all the barricades were permanent the whole week, so you really felt like a professional.
And the big final - Sunday men Elite race came
And the day was it awesome. Remember - we're in the middle of Alps here. It's mountains all around. And end of September. There was a snow here a week ago - no joke :D But this Sunday, it was 23 degrees. Plain CRAZINESS!
Just a suupercalm chill day..who would say couple of streets next to this, guys are pushing on the limit of what's humanly possible. But streets indeed felt somewhat different....they were..emptier. One would actually think it's a ghost town if he couldn't hear screams over the buildings.
Ok, I admit, at this point I'm just promoting Innsbruck as a travel destination. But hey, it actually is a travel destination and one of the most beautiful towns in the world. So don't think about it twice and come over to visit me till I'm here :) I feel I won't be staying here longer than one more year :)
Tram rails - student enemy n. 1 here in Innbruck
Yepp, we hate them more than teachers :D Why? Well, 90% of students living in Innsbruck ride a bike. It's cheap, it's fast and the scenery while riding a bike is just too awesome to take a bus. But there are these trams and their rails..And once your front wheel gets stuck into the rail as you're crossing it, you know what's gonna happen...
So I was wondering whether 50% of riders will die here this year :D Nope, they covered the rails for them! I secretly hoped they'll keep them on even after the race but I was (of course) wrong :D
Shops
Cool thing was, that the whole week, some special types of food were missing in most of the shops. Salmon and pizza mostly. I hated them, cuz I wanted to buy salmon!
Cut the BS and let's get to the race
Ok, so I wanted to go to the race now. Had no idea which direction tho....soooo I went. Random. Ofcourse I've found it. The racing was taking place everywhere..It was like a snake thru the whole town.
It was crazy to see soo many foreigners coming to Innsbruck just cuz of this event. How did I know they are foreigners? Well, I couldnt understand shit what they were talking about :D + soo many various flags!
Love story
Cutest moment of the day was for me, when this little Cassanova didn't want to let the policewoman work and was constantly talking to her :D Eventually she gave up and just talked to him while her collegue was doing all the work :D
Peter Sagan
If yo guys don't know, I'm from Slovakia. And you probably know who Peter Sagan is - winner of previous 3 years! So nooo wonder I was pumped for him, hopefully winning again. And the town was full of Slovak people, who came to support him. Was cool, not to feel like the only Slovak person in the town :)
Sadly, the man himself didn't manage to win this year :/ But it's all good as he already won 3 times sooo I guess he just wanted to let the others win also :D He actually eventually showed up, but me and my camera weren't ready and I had the worst possible settings. So the picture looks like shit :D Our microwave could make the better one :)
But when he came, people recognized him and the roar they were making got much streonger than with the other cyclists. Here you can see just some of em, screaming :D I liked how the crowd was totally mixed, old people, young people, Austrians, Spaniards, Slovaks, Turks etc etc etc. Was kinda nice to see :)
All in all, it was just an awesome experience , to see event of this magnitude by my own eyes. I could write much more but I'm not really sure if someone reads it :) Lemme know, whether I should write 2nd part with more BEHIND THE SCENES as I have much more of them and also many other cool photos left :)
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