The first finishers are in! Floris Braat was the first one to be back at in Eupen after 42 hours and 45 minutes. His skills as a former Olympic canoeist must have come in handy on the wet and muddy trails through the Ardennes.
Just over an hour later, Adrien Guilmin has also found the end of the ACT3 track. 

Lars Hundscheid, Aleksander Pachulski and David Malfliet are expected to finish on Saturday morning as well.

Katrien de Smet unfortunately scratched but all other solo women are still out there! Elodie Deprez is the first one to be back in Belgium and has about 150 kilometers to go. Djoeke Donkers has almost finished Luxembourg so she can set her sights for Eupen as well.

No duos are intact anymore as of the starters, only Philippe Dujardin is still on the road, albeit solo.

First finishers!


Thursday at 10AM, the ACT3 participants started their ride in beautiful weather. They knew that this wouldn't last all day as the forecast was showing lots of rain later in the day. As the showers came in yesterday afternoon, the town of Gemünd was where many riders resorted to the local supermaket and pizzeria. Resupply is pretty scarce on the ACT3 route and with this amount of rain, the town saw quite some people staying for the night in the local youth hostel. 

Floris Braat (Cap #7) and Adrien Guilmin (Cap #35) both had a really fast start and kept their pace up when the rain started. Floris has almost completed the hike-a-bike sectors through Luxembourg and is around kilometer 320 now. He has hardly taken any time to rest so far and keeps pedaling on.
Adrien, a top-10 finisher of the Silk Road and Bohemian Border Bash, is 35 kilometers behind Floris in second place. However, he seems to have had an overnight rest stop of two hours. He even built a fire to dry out his clothes! Will this extra rest pay off later in the race?

Cap 70 Florian van der Calseyde's tracker has only last pinged early this morning so it's difficult to tell his exact location - he might be closer to the front than we can see.

In the women's field, Katrien de Smet (Cap #22) and Elodie Deprez (Cap #23) are extremely close together.  Katrien has slept indoors last night while Elodie had an outside resting spot. They will enter Luxembourg in the next hour or so, let's see if the muddy hike-a-bike sectors will bring a gap between those two!

Duo Nick Hendrickx and Kim van den Eynde (Cap #217 and #218) are leading the pairs category as  many of the other couples have already split up.

For today, the weather should improve a bit with les rain, but the trails are still very muddy and slippery. This is taking quite some toll as around 25% of the field has a DNF at their name within the first 24 hours. Let's hope this doesn't increase too much further as most riders will tackle the very difficult trails in Luxembourg today.

The first 24 hours


A-Cross the 3 (ACT3) is a mountainbike ride of 500 kilometers across 3 countries (Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg). Within this loop, riders have to tackle at least 10.000 vertical meters on the trails. There is no set time limit, but the organizers indicate that people who 'are looking for a challenge' can try and do it within 80 hours - so that's what a lot of the participants hope to achieve. 

Race Directors are Berten de Canne and Stefan Maertens who both have an impressive list of participation in on- and offroad ultras (think Atlas Mountain Race, Silk Road, Trans Balkan Race, Tour Divide, Highland Trail etc). Some of the challenges found in these races have been added to ACT3 as well: very technical sections which for most riders are only possible through hike-a-bike. This makes ACT3 a great opportunity for those who are warming up for a bigger goal such as Tour Divide later in the year, or as a first test to see how an offroad ultra goes, before signing up to an intercontinental adventure.

# The Route
A-Cross the 3 follows a clockwise loop starting in Eupen in the Belgian Ardennes. After an uphill start the riders make their way to the German border where they will cross the Eifel to the south. At around the half way point, they enter Luxembourg where a much-feared long section of hike-a-bike awaites. Having surived that, another 180 kilometers in Belgium through the Ardennes to the north separates them from the finish line. 

![ACT3 Route](//images.ctfassets.net/6hyijb95boju/2SSJFI2YDuLpkkTh8nM7X3/01ec8b758108e2166bd1206df78fcb5e/20230429_184632.jpg)

The terrain consists of several types of off-road trails including single track, double track and forest roads. There are a few villages on the route, but resupply in terms of stores or gas stations is scarce so adequate planning is required. The organizers specifically mention that it is not suitable for a gravel bike and having seen gravel bikers attempt it (and crash) last year I can definitely confirm this.

# Weather

At the start line, things seem to appear calm with around 18°C and little wind. Later in the afternoon, a lot of rain (25 mm!) is expected and also on Friday showers remain on the menu. This will mean a very muddy track at times - let's hope the riders brought some big tires.
![Capture](//images.ctfassets.net/6hyijb95boju/2OLpHJkXKTgTzPQ78fJx7W/a47eb729e9161f16d968aa677e8d13e0/Capture.PNG)

# The Riders

There are 5 solo women at the start line. Katrien de Smet and Elodie Deprez have quite some ultra and hike-a-bike experience from Atlas Mountain Race and the Hellenic Mountain Race. Djoeke Donkers is also a very experienced cyclist who also organizes her own event Arden2Eifel

In the men's field, last year's top 10 finishers Floris Braat and Lars Hundscheid are back for another round. There are many other experienced riders starting, special mentions go to Daniel Gona (who finished Tour Te Waipounamu in New Zealand earlier this year), Leon Weissmann (who had a go at his first ultra last December at GranGuance Audax Trail) and Aleksander Pachulski (first finisher of Iberica Traversa in 2020).

A-Cross the 3 - Race Preview

Wout Jacobs

A-Cross the 3 2024 Tracking and Commentary 

A-Cross the 3 is an unsupported MTB bikepacking adventure across 3 countries (Belgium, Germany & Luxemburg). For those looking for an additional challenge, they can attempt to ride it within 72 hours. The others can just ride it and have fun.

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A-Cross the 3 2024

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