Ride Report: Timo Rokitta - Orbit360 2021
Posted By Gravel Union
On 23 June 2021
Timo Rokitta has fired up his gravelly space rocket and taken on the first of a series of Orbits as part of Germany’s Orbit360 gravel series.
Part 1 - Orbits 1 to 4
Back in 2020, the pandemic in Germany had led to many bike events being cancelled. But just because events couldn’t take place, it didn’t mean the end of cycling. Gravel event organiser Raphael Albrecht and his team saw it as a new beginning and made a decision to share the best gravel routes in Germany with the cycling community. From that moment on, Orbit360 was born. The first unsupported gravel adventure series where riders could compete against each other, but safely and in an exciting new format! Riders could choose their Orbits out of 18 different routes and collect points. The race window is open for ten weeks and riders can start at whatever time and location along the Orbit they want. Tracking is completed via komoot and completed Orbits will be listed in the virtual leaderboard that will determine the season rankings.
Raphael was able to convince me to do eight events of the Orbit series and so I started planning which routes I would ride. My first Orbit was the Spin Spark in the Ruhr area, which comprised 156 kms and 2200 meters of climbing. For this Orbit I travelled by car for almost 3 hours and started at a forest carpark near Ratingen. The Spin Spark Orbit had many trail sections with roots and some steep descents and was sometimes very muddy. But also, there were many fast descents at the end of the tour which made up for the exhausting sections. I finished in under 8 hours, but then had to drive 3 hours back home again.
One week later I start to one of the hardest Orbits, the komoot Cosmos in the Taunus, which comprised 186 kms and 3770 meters of climbing. With humid temperatures on the day of my ride, it was picturesque loop full of vineyards and sections alongside the River Rhine. There was one memorable and super-fast descent from a plateau down to the River Lahn. Due to the high heat and humidity, at one particular fuel station stop I filled my drinks bottles full of cold coke and then I was ready for the rest of the route! The end of the route was a technically demanding and muddy trail down to Wiesbaden. I rode the Orbit quicker than I had anticipated and was able to complete the whole route in under 10 hours.
I rode my third Orbit, the Votec Warp in the Swabian Alps. After the start in Balingen, the first climb was extremely steep. The path wasn’t rideable and in fact was hard enough just to walk. Luckily, the rest of the track compensated for the initial strain. Over beautiful white gravel hills, which looked a lot like the crete senesi in Tuscany, the route took me to the "Zeller Horn” where I had a fantastic view to the old “Hohenzollern Castle”. From here I was in the gravel paradise of south-Germany. The route took on many of the dreamlike white gravel roads to the south. First over a plateau, then along a railway line and alongside a small river. In Sigmaringen I reached the River Danube. Here I rode beside the water on a bike path, sometimes on gravel, sometimes on trails. At one point, the route was supposed to cross the River Danube via a set of large rock stepping stones, but the water level was too high and the current too strong. After a little detour I was soon back on the track. The last third of the route was again very hilly, but I finished in less than 8 hours with 178 kilometers and 2425m of climbing in my legs.
The fourth Orbit that I rode as the conclusion to the first half of the series was the Eleven Earth in the Odenwald. My chosen starting point was only an hour away from my home, but I decided to leave at 5 a.m., because it was going to be a long day in the saddle. The weather outlook was relatively unfavorable - more than 30 degrees C was forecast. I chose my starting point so that I rode the toughest climbs near Heidelberg right at the beginning. After these first two mountains there were 16 more categorised climbs waiting for me. I couldn’t make up much time on the descents as they were very often technical on narrow trails into the valleys. During the ride I had to refill my bottles three times because the temperatures were very tough. As always, I don't take any breaks and only stopped briefly to refill my water bottles or to pee. Even so, it still took me almost 11 hours. In these conditions, more was simply not possible, particularly when the overall stats showed a ride of 200 kilometers and 4385m meters of altitude gain.
After the first four Orbits, I have ridden a total ride of over 700 kilometers and have over 13,000 meters of climbing in my legs. I am curious what awaits me at the next Orbits.
Watch this space for details of how Timo gets on in the final of his four Orbits. To find out more about the series, check out their website here. You can see the leaderboard details here