Fröhlinger's short night and hot day

Young Johannes Fröhlinger of Team Gerolsteiner is getting to know that pro cycling is not necessarily as glamorous as it seems. The 22-year-old neo-pro had one of those experiences at the Tour de Suisse.

"That was a horror night," he wrote on Radsport-Aktiv.de. "We couldn't get to sleep in our sticky, hot hotel room, and tossed and turned half the night. At 5:30 we were awake again and had the feeling that we were sleeping in the middle of a traffic circle. There was a huge intersection right outside our window. I wouldn't have thought that there are as many cars in Liechtenstein, as came by right past our room."

And then there was the race itself: "I overdid it in the opening phase and needed some time to recover. On a third-category climb, Linus Gerdemann showed me his cycle computer, which showed the temperature was 41°C. Crazy. We all took innumerable turns going back to get water bottles."

"The next two days are surely the hardest of the Tour," he concluded. "Since I have trained often in that region, I know the mountains and I am fully aware of what is coming -- which is not necessarily an advantage...."