Far and up! Year review 2020

Veit Riffer is an exotic amongst the bike athlete. After a dramatic climbing accident in 1999 in Elbsansteingebirge with a following paraplegia he discovered the handbike. The tours got longer and more challenging.

Burdern are there, to be overcome. In 2020 there was a whole new page added to the challenge catalog: Not only the weather and the terrain showed up as variables -nun schlugen auch (wieder) politische Entscheidungsprozesse bis auf die Freizeitgestaltung der Menschen durch.

Despite all challenges I completed my most successful tour season. 15.338 km and 157.554 am are even for ambitious cyclists quite impressive, but for hand bikers like me this counts even more. Aside from that I work 4 days a week, so I don't have unlimited time for my hobby. That's why it ended up being only 121 rides.

There already mulitple highlights this year. On one hand I'm dedicated long-distance cycler. In this category especially the non stop tour from my home town Pirna to Berlin and back over 435 stands out. But the tour with the turning point Leipzig is extra worth mentioning as well. Besides this 313 km long route, I went 6 more long edges (distance over 200 km) in 2020 – that is a new record for me as well.

In summer the almost annual alpine vacation gave me the oppurtunity, to prove my stamina while mountain cycling. At this point I could cross all renowned alpine passes with the handbike, so that this time, destination outside of the main routes caught my interest. Because I wasn't allowed to go to south east France respectively north west Italy because of the travel restrictions, I had my fun in the swiss alps instead. The drive from Interlaken over Grindelwald onto the Männlichen in Berner Oberland became my undefeated favourite of this year's alpine tour.

Besides my activities on the performance limit, I love hanging out with other cycling enthusiasts. Shared happiness is double happiness! My czech friend Lád’a has been my loyal company on his racing bike regularly for many years. Even though, there's obviously not more handbikers with my spectrum of interests, than tour cyclers, my swiss sports friend Rudy still belongs to them. In 2020 we could finally be back on the road together in Oberwallis. Silvia was the newcomer for me this year. We had gotten to know each other virtually on the internet platform Strava and soon met for trips together. In her home, the swiss jura, the mountain bike queen showed me how things went right the start.

For me, this sports year 2020 couldn't go better. New records, interesting encounters and the joy in exercise in the amazing surroundings – that is the quintessence of all my activites. The Rohloff-SPEEDHUB was always there with me!

Veit Riffer

Blog: https://bike-o-matic.blogspot.com

Detailed year review: https://bike-o-matic.blogspot.com/2020/12/corona-heit-krone.html