Einzelzeitfahren Rohrspitz – Fußach: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The course follows a single road from start to finish, the Rohrstraße, an access road closed to general motor traffic that doubles as the local alignment of the Lake Constance cycle path. The start is at the Rohrspitz campsite where the access track joins the cycle path; from there the road sweeps south-east in one long curve along the shore of the Fußacher Bucht to a finish just short of the Fußach football ground. It is a pure point-to-point course, with no turnaround and not one tight corner.

There is effectively no climbing. The road stays between 395 and 398 metres, 86 percent of the course is flat, and the finish actually sits five metres below the start. The terrain is not the opponent here: the clock and the wind are.

The Rhine delta is open, treeless alluvial land between the lake and the Rhine dyke, all reed belt, polder fields and water on one side. There is no shelter anywhere. With a 17:00 start, riders usually meet the lake breeze at its steadiest. The time trial is run by RV DJ's Bikeshop Simplon Hard and has been the middle act of the Summer Bike Series since 2022, with a separate Vorarlberg state championship classification alongside the open one.

Pacing Strategy

Depending on your level, 2.86 kilometres takes about four to six minutes. That is too short to ration anything and too long to force through anaerobically. Bring the bike up to speed over the first 200 metres with a clear surge, then settle immediately into the position you can hold all the way to the line.

Because 86 percent of the course is flat and no ramp ever breaks the rhythm, your time is decided by how consistently you hold the aero position, not by how you distribute power. Sitting up, or one long look down the road, costs more out here in the open than a brief dip in wattage ever would.

The real trap is the wind. Across the bay it can come in from the side, and the temptation is to fight the gusts rather than stay narrow. Keep your elbows in, carry a clean line through the few long curves, and remember that drafting is banned: a rider who started ahead of you is a time check, not a wheel to chase.

Training plan for Einzelzeitfahren Rohrspitz – Fußach: 12-week build

Plan on an effort of roughly four to six minutes. Physiologically that sits squarely in the VO2max range: you are well above threshold from the first second and have to hold that level without cracking in the final third. The character of the effort is entirely steady, because the course neither offers recovery nor demands accelerations.

Two things decide it: the start and your position. Getting from a standstill up to racing speed eats a measurable share of the total time in a trial this short, and after that the fastest rider is the one presenting the smallest frontal area. So practise standing starts, and ride your race position under real load rather than only at endurance pace.

Conditions belong in the plan too. An early-evening start in the first days of September falls in the window when the wind over the Rhine delta is at its most reliable, and the alluvial plain offers no shelter at all. Deliberately train in wind and on exposed roads so that gusts move you neither out of position nor out of rhythm.

The emphases follow from that: short, hard intervals of three to six minutes above threshold, some of them ridden in race position, plus a handful of very short maximal efforts for the start. And since the criterium is raced on the same Saturday morning, it is worth doing at least one session where you produce two hard blocks in a single day.