Swiss Epic 2022 – Dream Race

Swiss Epic is an annual mountain bike stage race held in the Canton of Grisons, Switzerland. It has been accredited as hors catégorie (beyond categorisation) by the Union Cycliste Internationale. It is part of the global Epic Series and was once inspired by the pinnacle event of it, the Cape Epic.

This years SPAR Swiss Epic 2022 race is going to be held on 16-20 AUGUST 2022 in Graubünden, Switzerland.

Graubünden is unique in the world of mountain biking, thanks to its plethora of trails. The 2022 SPAR Swiss Epic host towns – Arosa, Laax and Davos – alone count 500, 330 and 700 marked kilometres of trails.

The event takes in 363 kilometres of riding and 11 650 metres of accumulated climbing.

Spar Swiss Epic 2022 Route

MY STORY – MY PASSION

I´m Laxmi – 7 times National Mountain Bike Champion from Nepal. I’m also 2019 SAG gold medalist and National Best Player 2020.

I raced for the first time in 2008 after that I continued racing most of the national events. And Finally on 2014 I won the National Game.

Cycling is my passion – I don’t paddle just for fun or keeping myself fit. Over the last one decade or more I got involved into cycling like a crazy.

I got interested on cycling when I was 6-7 years old. Sometimes I used to hire a cycle and sometimes taking cousins cycle without asking. Then After completing 10th grade, I had to go to college on bus. And to save the travel expense, I decided to ride bike.

Since then I continued to cycle and made it as a career.

MY DREAM: SWISS EPIC

While practicing for race or for fun we used to watch race videos on YouTube. And there we found out about Swiss Epic Race. We used to follow “Jenny Rissved”, “Nino Schurter”, etc. and find out that world class racer participated in such races.

And then It became a dream race for the athletes from Nepal as it’s very expensive.

THE ALPIDE TEAM

(two strong women from different countries, connected by the same passion)

Luckily, later on 2020 CATERINA CAPDEVILA proposed me to participate on Swiss Epic race with her. It’s the most joyous moment for me, as it’s a dream race. Later we also discussed about the finances for participation and she also promised me to sponsor fooding and lodging.

I met Caterina while Stage Race in Srilanka 2014. I was amateur ride at that time. Since then we’ve been friends. Our style and pace of racing is also almost similar. And she also have been supporting me since I was from a country where girls needed to be empowered and encouraged to come forward in sports. And we also wanted to MOTIVATE ALL GIRLS all over the world.

It was very difficult to travel on that pandemic time. But here we are, planning TO RACE in this AUGUST 2022. We’re planning to race together on Swiss Epic as “the alpide team”. We got this name as we wanted to combine the mountain ranges of both Europe and Asia. Himalaya only covers Asian Mountain ranges (Nepal, India, Tibet) and Alpine Range covers European and Asian mountain ranges.

NEPAL CYCLING SCHOOL

And It’s been more than a decade I’ve been racing on official games nationally and internationally. During this time I’ve been to many countries like South Korea, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Germany, India, Austria and Italy.

But didn’t see any progress on Nepals Mountain Biking Community. There was no training center for Nepal as other sports do have. No practical coach, no cycling background, no long term athlete development program, no plan for cycling sports development program.

So, we professional athletes of Nepal (Thus, National athlete Team) realized that THE NEXT GENERATION SHOULD BE MORE TALENTED THAN US and THEY SHOULD BE FACILITAED BY US.

We can guide them through experiences and show them a good cycling life as we have learned many lessons with decades of experience coaching level from UCI International satellites.

Thus decided to form a good platform for athletes to FACILITATE TRAINING and EQUIPMENT and help them to participate in different cycling events representing the Nation.

DONATIONS:

The donations will be used to cover all the costs for the race and Laxmi´s trip to Switzerland. Every single Euro which will be left will be spend straight to the Nepal Cycling School to support the Kids and the National Newcomers!

So, if you want to see me participating on Swiss Epic 2022, you can support me with the donations from the gofundme link below (AndShare this post with your family and friends)

THANKS:

THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO SUPPORTS ME THROUGH THIS CROWDFUNDING-CAMPAIGN AND IN MY MISSION TO MAKE THINGS HAPPEN, TO EMPOWER WOMEN IN SPORTS & CYCLING AND TO CHANGE OUR WORLD INTO A BETTER ONE!

Special thanks to:

RADL RASTI & TEAM

especially to Marco Schreiber & Jutta, Thomas, Kim and Joachim. Since many years the sponsor me, support me in give me access to equipment since many years. They sponsored me a new bike to continue my MTB-Journey.

check out: https://www.radlrasti.de

CATERINA CAPDEVILA

for her support and women company in the past and for organizing everything around the Swiss Epic.

SABRINA FILZMOSER, we met 2014 during the race in Bhutan and raced together a couple of times more. She left me her bike so I was able to continue my athletic career and racing.