Discover Benelux

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Discover Benelux | Special Feature | Egmond aan Zee

TEST OF ENDURANCE ON THE SAND With more than 250km of North Sea coastline, it comes as no surprise that the Dutch have combined their landscape with their love for two wheels to create another popular cycling discipline: beach racing. After road cycling, mountain biking, track racing and city riding, comes this lesser known but rapidly growing form of cycling, taking place on the beach. TEXT: EMMIE COLLINGE | PHOTOS: PHIL GALE / LE CHAMPION

Not dissimilar to mountain biking but with drop handlebars as in cyclocross, the norm, competitors charge up or down the coastline with the North Sea winds acting as either friend or foe. Variations in tidal conditions add to the challenge, with narrow stretches of churned up sand at high tide or the more welcome low tide, when the beach resembles a Dutch pancake and is at its fastest. AGU Egmond - Pier - Egmond, now in its 15th year, takes place in the popular seaside town of Egmond aan Zee in North Holland. The race was born out of a shared passion for cycling and some inspiring

14 | Issue 3 | February - March 2014

photos from the 1930s of a local named Piet Tervoort, a man seen in all weathers cycling up and down the shoreline. It has now become the world’s largest beach race, taking place on the Saturday and followed by a half marathon on the Sunday. Flooded with visitors over this January weekend with 60,000 spectators and over 20,000 competitors of all ages and abilities, Egmond aan Zee welcomed Discover Benelux for an action-packed weekend, to show us first-hand why so many are taking to the beach. With night setting as we arrived, Friday evening saw us dine in style at Zilte Zoen

[salty kiss] and we headed to our apartment without having seen the sea. Full of excitement, we arose early the next morning to fit in a run in the wooded dune reserve. Five kilometres at its widest, with crisscrossing paths and trails, the North Holland Dune Reserve is an area of natural beauty and gave us the much-needed respite from the all too urban landscape that we have become so familiar with. The beach race began early on Saturday afternoon and saw multi-world champion Marianne Vos, Tour de France riders Thomas Dekker and Laurens ten Dam, and 4,000 other riders faced with some of the


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