One of the most used sentences in the OCM is “was exciting all the way through”. It is applied to any race, whether it was interesting or not. It is a bit annoying, isn’t it? It is like hearing that a new musical artist is “original”. “Original” is such an overused word that its meaning is close to nothing. Is Lady Gaga original? Come on people, do not let me rant about which music is original and which not, because there is not enough space in this front page to house all my musical rage. (note to self: focus, this is about cycling!) When you say “this race was exciting all the way through”, you are saying pretty much nothing. But, damn, 17th Germany Tour was exciting all the way through, and this time it is not a trivial saying.
  
  It is not really exciting to see a rider dominating the start of the Tour, but it was an impressive dominance at least. Jan-Joost Dussel (peddelen) mastered the field in the prologue through the mall of the northern town of Kiel. The cold, cloudy weather of the first day was similar during all the Tour. The 10ºC mark was never surpassed but, on the brighter side, the 0ºC was not either crossed and not even a single drop of rain fell from the menacing clouds.
  
  Heading southwest to Bremen for the first bunch sprint, peddelen’s men enjoyed a nice lead during the longest stage. Despite Dussel’s dominance, the fight at his back was a good one. Nijholt (Greenride), number one ranked rider by that time, was a far runner up, while the young, rising Greek star Drimalas (Kremer) started showing his strength, surprising members and guests, but not his wounded manager (who just received knee surgery prior to the race, and has been in pain while in the team’s car).
  
  “Misfortunes always come in threes” is, again, a niche sentence you use when you have nothing to say. Dussel maybe felt jealous of Lady Gaga (she has three albums), and decided to go for his third straight victory. This time it was a bit more hilly stage as we are inland, but Dussel just does not make distinctions: he likes to win anywhere. Cologne was the scenario, and Nijholt and Reinhold (Equipo Easy On) the podium companions. With this, Dussel built a 55 points difference over Nijholt, almost securing the Sprint Classification.
  
  First mountainous test had the beauty Frakfurt am Main countryside as the idyllic landscape to watch cycling. The lumpy terrain did not give any good ideas to the riders, who went on the attack even before they crossed the km0. This is usually the longest stage of the Tour (in hours, I mean), but this time the quick tempo set by the never ending attacks made Freiburg’s stage having this honour. Frenchman Samy Jourdan (Il Grillo) found his legs to outsprint the GC favourite Nico-Jan Stubbe (WV De Dommel) and the confirming rising star Drimalas, who seemed to perform in any terrain and grabbed the white jersey from Van Der Eyde, was third.
  
  With his victory, Jourdan also

jumped into the race lead, but that was not going to last much, and his manager already showed concerns about the time trial. The fifth, hilly stage to Heidelberg was set to see the favourite Dussel score again, but the overcongratulated rider miscalculated with an early attack on the last hill and was unable to grab any points, finishing 10th. It was Gillis Doderwinkel (The Killers) who took all the honours over the “Wit” Belgian duo of Portai and Feaux.
  
  Touching the border of France and Switzerland, the stage to Freiburg was a nice ride for many of the contenders. At least, before the last climb. Almost the entire pack reached the bottom of it, as the two first category one mountain passes were controlled by WV De Dommel’s and Il Grillo’s men. That relatively low pace allowed Ipaty Bizony (NECFTW) and Darell Randel (CCFC) to jump off the pack with enough force to create a one minute gap with 5km to go. Only the demolishing attack of Stubbe took the pair down. Still, they finished second and third behind WV De Dommel’s man, who also jumped the lead into this “Nederlandse” Tour. Bizony celebrated as he had won, giving a full-of-tears gayish hug to his manager Noppes.
  
  With seven men under one minute and a half, it was the Munich time trial the one deciding the Tour. A slept Gregory Levis (Equipo Easy On) knows when and where he must be awake, and this long time trial is his place. He got his fifth victory in this stage, out of seven participations (one third place, and one injury), over Natanael Buso (sprint4live), no other than the hour record holder.
  
  On the general classification competition, the things went extremely close as Dussel, Drimalas and Randel all did a good time. With Jourdan out of the picture with a poor performance, Scothern not doing a single stage over the average (for a top Tour rider, I mean), and Stubbe’s cold performance, it was everyone’s surprise to see who took the lead: Thodoros Drimalas. If we had seven men under the 1’30 mark in Freiburg, we had eight after Munich.
  
  So Kempten would decide it all. This is what you would call a regular, hard mountain stage, but any of its kilometres has a different taste for the riders. Somehow they feel like if the road was paved or they had a flat tire. They also feel the pressure, the claxons of angered managers, the die-hard crowds. But they can’t see anything else than the yellow jersey they always dreamed of.
  
  The stage was nervous, tactical, fast, tiring and difficult to analyse. We had a semi-successful breakaway including Gillenwater (Equipo Easy On) and Doderwinkel, a raged team (CCFC) going full throttle with the inspired pair of Shippey and Lannoye who were working for Nagy and Randel, Scothern using all the force he seemed to have stored in previous days, Drimalas struggling as he was supposed but not far from the favourites, and Feaux, Bosmans, Aktieris, Bayer or Bizony willing to ‘fish in troubled

waters’ as we say in Malaysia.
  
  In such a mess, Willis Stilwell (Poker21) prevailed in style, with Scothern some seconds behind and Nagy third, confirming that he ends the Tour with power left. Stubbe, sixth in the stage, was able to get the yellow maillot over Drimalas, the definitive move of a maillot that did not feel comfortable in any shoulders.
  
  Ninth hilly stage from Leipzig to Potsdam was just a formality for Stubbe and WV De Dommel (they are used to hill racing because of Ghidarcea), and was the perfect occasion for Ulvis Aktieris (Legia) to show that he was worth such a long transfer fee. The youngster Latvian made up Dabino’s terrible Tour with his solo move. In the peloton, Reinhold and Nijholt topped the field. Many of the favourites arrived together, so no significant GC changes were observed.
  
  Dussel wanted to pay tribute to his team by leading Sesimbra out in the last stage from Potsdam to Berlin, but he outpaced his companion and (ouch!) finished winning again. Niels-Jan “I also have a compound name like the Dutch champions” Olfers (sprint4live) was second, while Sesimbra managed to get third despite being outpaced by his captain.
  
  In the end, the magazine's preview guessed who was going to win in the GC, SC and YC. But I could have not imagined such a beautiful ride by the favourites. This tour was “exciting all the way through”. After the podium protocol, Mark, manager of WV De Dommel, invited everyone to his bus’ party. Lady Gaga was on the player… but, hey, FREE BEER!!!
  
  General Classification
  1. Nico-Jan Stubbe, WV De Dommel
  2. Thodoros Drimalas, Kremer
  3. Darell Randel, CCFC
  4. Oleksandr Nagy, CCFC
  5. Wit Feaux, IGF
  
  Sprint Classification
  1. Jan-Joost Dussel, peddelen
  2. Avery Nijholt, Greenride
  3. Winfried Reinhold, EEO
  
  Youth Classification
  1. Thodoros Drimalas, Kremer
  2. Gillis Doderwinkel, The Killers
  3. Ulvis Aktieris, Legia
  
  Written by Holger Czukay from Asymm Project to OCM Magazine