On Sep 29, 2007, during the Bike World Cup in Stuttgart, trained bikers and city prominents raced against each other on the steepest hill in the city. The prominents were permitted to use doping – electric doping. And they won the race.
 

 
Around 1pm Herdweg Street (a part of the Bike World Cup course) with a 12% grade was the setting of a very special race. The city prominents were permitted to use doping – electric doping: a still not yet popular method of power assistance. With the electric system an untrained bike rider can climb the hardest hill of the Bike World Cup without a problem. These bikes also happen to be appropriate for everyday use, reported as healthy from leading sports medicine doctors, and not including any pesky side-effects of city traffic such as park-place-finding-anxiety, traffic jams and air pollution.

For More Bike Traffic
There are many reasons to make pedelecs public. The organizers of the event – Cities for Mobility, and the non-profit organizations Stuttgart Solar e.V., and ExtraEnergy e.V. intend to promote pedelecs as an energy efficient means of transport. Thus they support Mayor Dr. Wolfgang Schuster's (Stuttgart) bike traffic plan, which intends to bring the bike traffic percentage in Stuttgart up to 20%. This race is only one part of a whole Pedelec Action Month, in Stuttgart.

The first racing team includes Mayor Dr. Martin Schairer, Klaus Vogt (City of Stuttgart economy official), Silvia Fischer (city council, Green Party), and Susanne Scherz (City of Stuttgart traffic planner). They raced on pedelecs by the companies Heinzmann, Biketec, Currie, Hercules, and Wisper. This has never happened before: “doped” bikes completely legal and official at the Bike World Cup! and they were fast! Two pro-bikers and trained hobby cyclists kept up well but in the end they were missing two extra legs for extra watts. First was Silvia Fischer on the Hercules pedelec with BionX drive, second was Klaus Vogt on the Heinzmann Estelle, third was Mayor Martin Schairer on the Currie bike.

Werner Woelfle (city council, Baden-Wurttemberg Parliament, Green Party), and Stefan Spatz (Associate Director of the social assistance department of Stuttgart) challenged their colleges from the City Hall on regular road racing bikes.


Photos
Riders
Race
Organizers

Links
Pedelec action month in Stuttgart
More about the Bike World Cup 2007


Last updated: October 15, 2007