
Shortly before 1530 on Friday afternoon, the last solo rider crossed the finish line at Cafe de Proloog. Mathijs Wansink (cap 34) completed the course in 150 hours and 30 minutes. He was the 17th solo finisher. Ahead of Thomas Ballay (cap 16) who had passed him on Thursday night pushed on through the night, stopping for about an hour near Arcen, he then made stead progress throughout the day to finish an hour before Mathijs. Friday saw four solo riders finish within four and a half hours of each other. 

The first pair, Johannes Läubin & Lars Hülsmann (cap 3033) made it to finish only a few minutes after Thomas (cap 16). They were followed by the final riders on the course Joost Doelman & Wilfred Greup (cap 1018), who finished just over 25 hours after Johannes & Lars. 

 [instagram update](https://www.instagram.com/p/C8ynCoNoMcU/) 

Posting an instagram update over breakfast, it's clear that Joost and Wilfred took the extra time to savour every Frühstück, ontbijt, bäcker, bakker, taart, and Kuchen they could along the route. Finishing in a time of 174 hours and 56 minutes. The pair got maximum value, maximum fun, and above all, maximum cake out of the event.

Everyone who took part gave it everything they could. Congratulations to all who finished, and hopefully this event will become a fixture on the calendar for years to come.


The End


Wednesday and Thursday have seen a steady stream of riders making it to Cafe de Proloog. Tjerk Bakker (cap 41) was first to arrive at 0931. Tjerk is a veteren of RATN, switching from the road to off road doesn't look to have slowed him down much. All of the riders arriving on Wednesday are Dutch. 

Thursday saw an additional four riders finish. Most recently Juergen Markl (cap 6) arrived just after 10pm. There's quite a gap back to the next rider, Patrick Velt (cap 12) has stopped just before the 1040 mark. Giving him a nice 90km to finish on Friday. At the time of writing the only dots riding through the night are Thomas Ballay (cap 16), and lead pair Johannes Läubin & Lars Hülsmann (cap 3033). Both are within 5km of each other, and have less than 125km to go. Given the heat wave currently hitting the Netherlands, riding in the cool of the night may be a benificial strategy. Just before 2300 on Thursday Thomas passed Mathijs Wansink (cap 34), who is stopped for the night near Roermond. Mathijs takes over the position of Lantern Rouge. from Thomas. 

Further back in Germany Joost Doelman & Wilfred Greup (cap 1018) have passed the worst of the Eifel section and are bedded down for the night near Monschau. They have about 330km left to do. Based on some of their social media posts, they are taking full advantage of the excellent cake selection available in Germany. With such a beautiful course, Joost and Wilfred are getting full value out of their race. 

Congratulations to all the riders who have finished already, good luck and ride strong to all those still out there. Not far now. 

Starting to finish


Tuesday afternoon, at 15:12 Sjoerd van 't Hul (cap 40), crossed the finish line at Cafe de Proloog. Completing the 1130km course in 3 days 6 hours and 12 minutes. He was followed Neequaye Dsane (cap 43) three hours later. A further three and a half hours later, Jay Verhulsdonck (cap 29) rounded out a podium. Then eight hours after Sjoerd, Joachim Rubarth (cap 14) arrived at de Proloog. 

A further four riders have passed the 1000km mark and should reach the finish Wednesday morning. Aside from the Lanterns Rouge of Glenn Govaert (cap 9), and Joost Doelman & Wilfred Greup (cap 1018), all riders are through Köln. Glenn's dot seems to have stalled in Bielefield, which given it's a town that doesn't exist, could be down to tracker error... we'll find out in due course. For the rest of the riders, they're making steady progress through the final stages of the course, and will hopefully make for a steady stream of arrivals over Wednesday and Thursday.

The next update will be Thursday evening. 


Riders return


As the sun sets on the riders for the 3rd time, things have got very interesting at the front of the race. 

On the face of it, Sjoerd van 't Hul (cap 40) has managed to pass Neequaye Dsane (cap 43) to take the lead. But turning on the track log for Neequaye, makes it very apparent things are not as simple as they first appear. 

Everything was fine until he was about to rejoin the Vennbahn near Roetgen. Here he deviated from the official route, missing out a large loop into Belgium, to rejoin the Vennbahn, and with it the race route, at Walheim, before leaving the route again shortly before the 845km mark. A tour of the suburbs of Aarchen, and he's rejoined the route at Vaalseberg. At the Base of the Camerig he's taken another detour from the route. What has caused this, we don't yet know. It could be a tracker error, and he's actually been on the course the whole time. There could be construction work. Or he could just have made a navigational error. Sjoerd went through the area about an hour before Neequaye, and followed the official race route. Jay Verhulsdonck (cap 29) is about to hit the area where Neequaye went off route the first time. We'll see what happens to his track in due course. 

In total eleven riders have made it through Köln, and are making their way through the Eifel and Zuid Limburg. This represents over half of the remaining riders. As the race goes on the riders are being spread over an even greater section of the course. Glenn Govaert (cap 9) retains the title of solo Lantern Rouge, he's made it as far as Bielefield. He's still ahead of the speed necessary to finish in the time limit. 

Joost Doelman & Wilfred Greup (cap 1018) continue as pairs Lantern Rouge. They are just before the point where the course turns south west and heads for Sauerland.

While the reasons riders scratch are often not made public, Bo Harnisch (cap 17) reported that his freehub was "kaput" and he was unable to continue. 

Elsewhere Arne Schippers (cap 23), currently in 4th place, has reported being unable to comfortably sit, he continues to push on. He's made it to Monschau, having completed the Eifel section. 

With less than 200km left for the lead rider, we should hopefully see our first finisher on Tuesday. There's plenty of time, and distance left in this race, and with ultra distance cycling, anything could happen. 

Next update Tuesday evening. 

All change

New on the ultraracing calendar for 2024, from the team that brought us great events like Race Around The Netherlands, and the Three Peaks Bike Race The Hills Have Bikes is an 1130km mostly offroad cycling route starting in the Netherlands, but spending most of it's distance in Germany. 

The event starts at Cafe de Proloog. A cycling cafe that has been home to the start and Finish of the Race Around The Netherlands and Race Around The Netherlands Gravel Edition. A popular cycle cafe, de proloog, and the square in front makes for a great start location. 

The riders started 0900 CEST on Saturday 22nd June 2024, and have until 1800 CEST on Sunday 30th June 2024 to finish the route. This gives riders 201 hours to complete the course, meaning they need to average 5.6kph including stops to finish in the time limit. As Ultra cycling events go, that's an exceptionally generous time limit. But that time limit hints to this ride not being a simple route. 

The route itself does something many a long bike ride in the Netherlands does. Leave. While it is possible to do a 1900+km route in .nl (i.e. RATN), for most long rides it's very common to cross the border into one or more of the neighbouring countries (look at where the routes the Dutch long distance cycling club Randonneurs NL go, a lot of them leave the Netherlands).

Sixty percent of the route is offroad. Starting with a section through the Veluwe, this part of the route has a lot of commonality with the start of RATN-GX, tho it doesn't go as far north in the Veluwe, but including the notorious sandy sections. After the Veluwe the route is mostly on fast rolling gravel and packed sand heading for the German border. At this point the riders are going to have 50km or so of never being quite sure which country they are in as the route follows the Dutch/German border, and crosses it multiple times. At Enscheded the border is crossed one last time for several hundred kilometers at least. 

At Bevergern the route crosses the Dortmund-Ems canal, and heads up onto a ridge. Past towns like Tecklenberg (home to a really good bakery doing excellent cake), onwards to a gap in the ridge at a town that may or may not exist (Bielefield). Just outside of the town of Horn shortly before the 410km mark, the route reaches it's Eastern most point, and turns southwest, heading for the Sauerland. A beautiful area of wooded valleys, the route here takes the approach that the best way to experience the valleys is to traverse them. The 174km Sauerland section packs in 2830m of climbing. Here riders will really start to know if they have made the right choice in bike, as well as put their bike handling skills to the test.

After the hills of Sauerland, the route goes through the centre of Köln. This is a great opportunity for resupply, as well as make use of a bike shop if needed. 

If riders thought the hills of Sauerland were tough, the coming section through the Eifel is going to really test them. On paper the 1620m of climbing in this 91km section doesn't look too bad. But as the route heads for the Urftsee it twists and turns to find every hill possible on it's way to the artificial lake. Once reaching the lake the route follows the edge of the water before crossing it and beginning the ascent to Vogelsang Ip. The climb here is brutal, over 18% in places. This section of the route also featured on the Utrecht Ultra route in 2023. Vogelsang has a complicated history (see the route [intro post](https://dotwatcher.cc/race/utrecht-ultra-2023?post=5g8VcnSf6wTnXULq2C9xXJ#posts) for UU-2023 for more details). The cruel gradients don't end after riders have riden under the gate house of Vogelsang Ip, as they descend, then reascend the valley on the otherside onwards towards the Belgium Border.

After climbing out of the valley at the town of Monschau, riders briefly join the Vennbahn. A geographical border anomaly that was once a railway line, the now cycle path will be a welcome change for riders. For the approximately 4km of smooth surface they get to follow, before turning left into Belgium proper, a gravel "short cut" bypasses the serpant like route of the Vennbahn, before it's rejoined near Roetgen. Riders get to enjoy almost 20km of gentle down hill on smooth surface before departing the vennbahn for the last time as riders head for the three country point. 

With nearly 860km in their legs to reach the highest point of the Netherlands, and the point where it meets Germany and Belgium, it's in theory at least, down hill from here to the finish. Having descended the Camerig, the route dives off into the undergrowth once more, for a 20km offroad section to Valkenberg. An area familiar to many from it's appearance in spring classics like the Amstel Gold race, this route taken for THHB, provides a new take on the short, sharp, punchy climbs of Limburg. 

From here the route loosely follows the Maas to Nijmegen, taking in as much beautiful offroad cycling as is possible along the way. There's no way the route can be accused of being direct at any point, but this section is particularly circuitous. With all the climbing and distance so far the finish in Amerongen will feel so close, yet also so very far away. This section of the route also includes the only part that can't be riden at night, with a detour provided for riders who want to make progress between 2000 and 0530. The area is a nature reserve, and the rules do not permit cycling at night. 

At Nijmegen the route crosses the Waal and heads towards Rhenen where it crosses the Nederrijn. Having crossed the river, the route dives off into the shrubbery one last time for an offroad ride along the Utrechtse Huevelrug to finish back where they started 1130km ago. 

The route is a greatest hits of off road cycling in the Netherlands, Nordrhein-Westfalen, and Rheinland-Pfalz. The route is definitely more of a mountain bike route, than a gravel bike, tho it will be interesting to see how the various rider setups work out. 

That's the route. But, the astute among you will notice that the race has already been on the go for over 36 hours. So where do things stand for the riders? 

At the time of writing, the riders are spread out over more than 350km of the route. At the front Neequaye Dsane (cap 43) has pulled out a lead of almost 60km over nearest rival Jay Verhulsdonck - van der Velde (cap 29). Both riders look to have stopped for the night. Both are a bit off course, suggesting hotel accommodation. Sjoerd van 't Hul (cap 40) is not far behind Jay. While 60km covers the front three, it's another 60km back to fourth and fifth. Arne Schippers (cap 23) and Joachim Rubarth (cap 14) are both stopped in the same town, and it's not really possible to say which of those two is truly ahead of the other until they wake up and get moving. 

Further back lead pair Johannes Läubin & Lars Hülsmann (cal 3033) have passed the 375km mark, and are making good progress. 

Solo Lantern Rouge is currently Glenn Govaert (cap 9) who has completed 310km of the course so far, and his average speed is well above that necessary to complete in the time limit. The pairs Lantern Rouge Joost Doelman & Wilfred Greup (cap 1018) are less than 5km behind Glenn. 

As a new event, the field is not massive, but what it lacks in numbers, it makes up for with some fantastic talent. The conditions are great, and the riders making fantastic progress. With the top three already past the half way point, it's going to be interesting to see how things progress in the coming days. 

The next update will be on Monday evening. 

There's Bikes in them thar hills!

Julia Freeman

The Hills have Bikes 2024 Netherlands Germany gravel race 

The Hills have Bikes 2024 Netherlands gravel race

This inaugural race from the organisers of the Race around the Netherlands takes riders into Germany in search of hills! With 60% of the route off-road, riders will need a little more tyre for this adventure.

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