Chapter 67: Green Hell

Mark

Normally August was a slow month. The big cycling races were either over or yet to come in September and October. It was the time when people had their holidays. For us, August would be very busy this year.

We had the Idiotarod in Pasadena coming up, then Meri’s farewell race and in between or beforehand we had to find some time for Nadja to learn the Nürburgring-Nordschleife, the world’s most fearsome racetrack. Now a certified racing driver she had wheedled a seat in one of the cars of Jonjo’s team for next year’s 24h of Nürburgring race, but that required her to acquire a special permit. In essence she had to finish at least two of the shorter 4-hour or six-hour VLN races at the same track.

That left her two races in late September and mid-October and three in the spring next year to achieve that. Since spring was usually too busy in her cycling schedule, we had decided to try and do it this year.

“Topless brainstorming!” I announced, and like always everyone instinctively looked around if Jenny was anywhere near. Well, she wasn’t, because she was away for the first race weekend since her reduction in success ballast. Femke, who had delivered Jonjo and Bea to accompany Jenny to the races, had of course used the opportunity to stay with us over the weekend. All shirts and Bras came off.

“Nice,” I said appreciatively and popped open a beer. “Now, I’ve spoken to Jonjo. We could book the Nordschleife for an entire day, but we can still not go on it with racing cars. That would take over a hundred marshals and then we would be talking about a million bucks or more.”

“We could use our bikes,” Nadja offered. “It would be a nice extra training.”

“Aren’t you missing something?” Femke asked. “I don’t know her as well as you, but I can’t imagine that Jenny would be best pleased if you visit the world’s most famous race track without her. And if we go slow enough for her to follow us, it won’t be much of a training session.”

“I could go slow enough and stay with her,” Meri offered. “I’ve retired now, so it won’t be a loss for me, and frankly, don’t underestimate how fit that kid is. In fact I would be more worried whether Mark can follow Jenny. He’s not used to sitting on a bike for a long time.”

“She’s been training on a bike?” Femke asked, obviously surprised.

“Yep, we have a smaller one on the roll, just for her,” Lydia said. “With all the hype around Schumacher and his fitness regime, she has been almost obsessive in being as fit as she could be.”

“And it saves her from failing PE,” Regina added with a chuckle. “She’s completely hopeless in all the girly sports – gymnastics – not hers. But give her a ball to throw or ask her to run three thousand meters and she creams the lot. In May her school sent her to do the cross-country run around Hosena, and she won the county championship.”

“Why not use the roller skis instead?” Nadja suggested. “Lydia, Femke and I can use all the practice we can get and it should be slow enough for Jenny and Mark to keep up, and even if not, she has Mark and Meri with her.”

“You do realize that this track is over twenty kilometers long?” I asked. “Even on a bike your average cycling race wouldn’t amount to more than six or seven laps. And you’ll certainly need more than one or two laps to learn that track.”

“Jenny won’t,” Regina chimed in. “She has seen every racing video ever created since she was four. I’m pretty sure she knows that thing already. She’ll be happy enough doing just one lap on the real thing. That means you can do one or two laps on your skis and then switch to bikes.”

“That sounds like a plan,” Meri agreed. “Two laps on skis should be more than enough as a training session. Then you can take a break, perhaps get a massage from our resident hunk, and then go for a few more laps on the bikes.”

“Right, good idea,” Femke supplied and opened a beer for herself.

“Speaking of resident hunk,” Lydia said. “Now that we’ve all unpacked our tits, you gonna play with them or what?”

I grinned and waved her to come over. She smiled as she sat down in my lap, facing me, and offered me the goodies.

“Please form an orderly queue ladies,” Regina quipped as I started licking Lydia’s nipples.

Femke

Our veritable convoy rolled into the parking lot of the Nürburgring a week later. The sunny weather of the last two weeks had given way to cloudy skies, but it didn’t look like that meant rain. For us that was a win-win, especially Mark of course. The hot weather of the previous days had meant none of us had worn much, if anything, which allowed us cyclists to catch some sunlight to battle the ridiculous tan lines we had.

Now though, for what was shaping up to be a hard day of training, the lower temperatures were a god-sent.

We were met by Jonjo and two other members of his racing team, who were rather surprised by the methods Nadja was planning to employ to learn the track. I was a bit surprised how happy they were to see Jenny, until Mark told me that she had visited their team HQ during the time when Nadja was practicing for her racing license. Apparently they had adopted Jenny as some kind of team mascot. Mark had not said as much, but that was my conclusion.

I had seen the odd race here or there on the Nordschleife, after all the Netherlands weren’t that far away, but always on TV. When we embarked on our first lap, I was almost shocked about how steep some of the sections were and I realized that just one lap was going to be a very long one, not only because it was over 20 kilometers in length.

I was a hopeless climber on roller skis and it wouldn’t be any better when we would switch to the bikes. Whenever the way went uphill, my damn muscles turned into a nuisance as I had to haul my bulk up the incline on sheer power. Now, downhill was a different matter. That was when gravity turned me into a bloody rocket ship.

I looked at the digital speedometer on my wrist and I hit nearly 80 kph when down-hilling a section called ‘the foxhole’, and that was on roller-skis. On the bike I could expect to hit seriously unsafe speeds here. Unfortunately it went immediately back uphill, so by the time I had reached the crest, Lydia and Nadja had already caught up to me.

The most amazing thing though was that we were all passed by Jenny on her bike on the uphill section. With her skinny frame, not weighing much more than a paper bag, she was climbing like a homesick angel. Yep, that girl was definitely fit.

I had not followed much of the recent discussion about the extra weight they had slapped on Jenny, but I knew that Jonjo’s chassis design was apparently a bit better than what other kids had at hand, so one could be forgiven for thinking that Jenny was only winning so much because she had the best kit. But what I saw at the moment made me realize that she would cream the lot just as well in a foot race or in a bike race. That girl took her training very serious, perhaps not too surprising when growing up in a household with three Olympic medalists.

When we finished the first lap, I was only too happy to take a break. The constant up and down was killing me. Mark and Meri had the same idea, but to our surprise, Jenny didn’t. As if it was the most normal thing in the world for a twelve year old to go for more after cycling over twenty kilometers, she tagged along when Lydia and Nadja went for a second lap.