Christian Knees was the overall winner in Bayern last year (Image credit: Florian & Susanne Schaaf)
Sixteen teams will participate in the 30th edition of the Bayern Rundfahrt from May 26 to 31, 2009, including five ProTour teams. Eight of the teams will also ride in the Tour de France.
Race director Ewald Strohmeier was quite happy with the achieved quality in the peloton. "We had an excellent starter field in the past years, but I think that with the line-up in our anniversary year we can show the importance of the Bayern Rundfahrt in the international racing calendar."
Some riders have also already been announced, headed by Milram's Christian Knees, who is the defending champion. Milram already indicated it would send a strong team including Gerald Ciolek and Linus Gerdemann.
Danish team Saxo Bank also is in good standings with the German stage race, thanks to three-time winner Jens Voigt. Columbia-Highroad is an American team with a bit of German history, and riders like Marcus Burghardt or Bert Grabsch are likely to participate. First time starters include Euskaltel-Euskadi and Garmin-Slipstream.
The professional Continental teams include Agritubel, Cervélo TestTeam and Skil-Shimano, all three of which will also race in the Tour de France.
The queen stage will be from Mühldorf am Inn to Ruhpolding, with the climb to the Hochschwarzeck, to be done twice. The individual time trial around Friedberg is 26 kilometres long.
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