Mountain bikers Teus Ruijter and Bas Luca de Vries finished ninth on Saturday in the Bike Transalp duo race. The race took the mountain bikers from Ehrwald, Austria, across the Alps to Arco, Italy, in seven days. The start was difficult for the duo with a twelfth place in the first stage to Imst in which de Vries had difficulty with the heat and the steep final climb. The second and third stages went a lot better with twice a tenth place and in the fourth stage the KMC riders passed Stelvio well to arrive eighth in Bormio.
From Bormio, the Queen’s stage of more than ninety kilometers over the Gavia to Malè was on the program a day later, in which a hard-fought ninth place was achieved. On the way to Roncone, the price for the effort of the previous day was paid, because the sixth stage was no higher than twelfth place. In the final stage to Arco, a crash by de Vries in the first descent seemed to throw a spanner in the works, but the men rode well back to the front and narrowly lost the sprint for seventh place. With this they finished ninth in the final standings behind the winning duo Marc Stutzmann from Switzerland and the Czech Martin Stošek.