Sören Nissen successfully defended his “Roc d’Ardennes“ marathon title from last year riding his STEVENS Sonora SL. The marathon race of one of the biggest bike festivals in the world was 82.5km (51mls) long and featured 2,230 meters (7317ft) elevation gain. It is part of the UCI race calendar therefore stacked with many strong participants.

Sören Nissen, recent Danish Marathon Champion, was able to distance himself from the pack with a break-away group right from the start in the early morning. „Right after the start we – so to say – went straight to heaven“, Nissen said. After only a few kilometers the racers had to master a 15 to 20% incline that forced the pack to stretch out and eventually ripped it apart into several groups.

Sören Nissen said about the race: “After only 20km there were only 20 riders left in the break-away, going an incredibly high tempo. So we stayed together for about the first half of the race. To prevent crashing, I decided to even increase speed on one of the longer ascents, which split the group even further, so in the end only five riders were left.“

The other four racers with Nissen were Markus Kaufmann, former Cape Epic winner Robert Mennen, Karl Platt and Belgian ‘cross legend Sven Nys. “ Facing this kind of competition it was clear that Sven and I had to act, otherwise the German riders had taken over control. When they attacked on a long hill 15km before the finish, we had no choice but to answer that attack immediately.“ The effort split the group once more, so only Mennen, Nys and Nissen could stay ahead in front of the others.

Sven Nys was not able to keep close to Robert Mennen and Sören Nissen, and on the final three kilometers the Danish Champion took advantage of some mistakes Mennen made in the downhill sections which he had attacked with too much risk. “From that moment on me and my Sonora SL flew towards the finish line like a rocket. Sören Nissen won in 3:27:18 hours in front of Markus Kaufmann, Sven Nys and Robert Mennen. Karl Platt came in sixth. Next Sunday Nissen will start in the European Championships in Singen/Germany.

After the race Sören Nissen was writing autographs at the STEVENS booth that was part of Happy Bike Days an event that is included in the Roc d’Ardennes festival. Among the autograph collectors were the youth riders of team 123-VTT that also uses STEVENS bikes.