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Pssst! The latest insider news: Team MILRAM’s new rider Sebastian Schwager about his first race for Team MILRAM as a pro at the Tour Down Under, on the other side of the world.
26/01/2025
My first race for Team MILRAM was really special. Actually, I already rode several professional races in the past years. But starting in a professional team’s jersey was different anyway. So I expected more from myself than usual. I wanted to perform my tasks as well as possible. In this regard, the team gave me a pretty easy start. My tasks were to get the bottles and to accustom myself to the team and the race.
Before the start, my respect for the race was really high. However, it was blown away with the starting signal, and I could concentrate on the race only. And the race was really hard. This is also my room-mate Sebastian Siedler’s opinion. He is sitting next to me at the moment. He thinks it was a challenging race, not really suited for just getting used to the races after the winter break. The course was pretty hilly, a constant up and down. The asphalt was somehow rough, so that we had to pedal quite hard. And then there were the high temperatures. About 40 degrees when the race started at 11 a.m..
Actually, what I didn’t like that much was the weather. After the heat at the beginning it didn’t stop raining for the last three days of the tour. Bad luck, for we were told that it was the first rain in Australia in a very long time, and absolutely unusual for this season.
But it was great to fly to the other end of the world for my first race as a pro. I never participated in a race so far away from home. During the training and the transfers I was able to see some of the landscape. It somehow looks desert-like, really impressing. And every now and then, some kangaroos jumped past us. Sebastian was positively surprised by Australia as well. He already was in Sydney for a short time, yet he didn’t have the time to see much of the city and the country.
Arriving in Adelaide was pretty hard first of all. Altogether, we travelled for two days. Starting in Amsterdam, it took us 12 hours to get to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. There we had a 12 hours’ stopover, before we were on the plane again for another eight hours until we came to Australia. The race started three and a half days after our arrival. So we had just a few days to acclimatise. This wasn’t easy, with a time difference of nine and a half hours and a completely different climate. In order to get used to everything, we started to practise at once. It was quite hard, and during the first days I really had to take care to stay awake during the day. At home, I would have been in bed already.
According to this, I always was very tired in the evening. After dinner, me and Sebastian mostly spent some time in our room, relaxing or watching a film. But the few days I had with the team were great. Meanwhile, I really feel comfortable with the team, everybody is very nice. And of course it is great to have somebody in the team I already know a little, like Sebastian Siedler. We have the same coach and live only 50 kilometers form each other. If I have any questions, I always ask him first, and he is able to help me most of the time.
So my first journey with Team MILRAM was a great experience. Three days after the Tour Down Under we start the long way home again. After the journey, I will have time to recover at home until the end of January. At the beginning of February I am going to Mallorca. Sebastian will be there again as well. There, my second race for Team MILRAM, the Mallorca Tour, is on the schedule.
Keep your fingers crossed for me and Sebastian!
All the best,
Sebastian
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