Discover Benelux

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

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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

Discover Benelux | Special Feature | Egmond aan Zee

toughest beach conditions since the race was founded. As a spectator, you were greeted with breath-taking scenes of the silhouettes of cyclists against the horizon as well as glimpses of the intensity on their sweat-drenched faces. The backdrop of the beach serving as the canvas and the tyre tracks adding texture to the image.

After a testing 36km up and down the beach taking anywhere from 1 hour 19 minutes to nigh on four hours, the riders collapsed over the finish line, understandably proud of themselves. Yet for almost a quarter of these riders, the competition was not over as Sunday heralded the 42nd PWN Egmond Half Marathon and their ambitions of completing the ‘combi’ event, where a time is given for both races over the weekend. The half marathon, one of the largest in the Netherlands with a field of 17,000 runners, does not lend itself to fast times due to the hard course. The run begins in the town with 3.5km on road, followed by 7km along the beach and finishes with an undulating return to Egmond through the dunes. With an equally top class international field as the bike race, the anticipation for an exciting event was high.

Leading the Dutch effort, top athlete Adrienne Herzog showed her potential by coming third among the Ethiopians and Kenyans. As a keen runner, my own experience of the event was certainly a positive one, although the combination of soft sand and a strong headwind proved more challenging that I had thought possible.

Stiff but satisfied, we watched the sunset over the North Sea on Sunday evening.

Content with our half marathon times, we marvelled at what a weekend it had been.

Whilst Egmond is clearly a popular summer destination with its family-friendly beaches and quality restaurants ensuring that any stay here is a pleasant one, our experience proved to us that a winter weekend break on the coast can be equally as enticing. Just 25 minutes with the train from Amsterdam, this fishing village with its dunes and open beaches made for a brilliant excursion from the city and left us pining for nature, sea breezes and more racing on the sand!

17,000 half marathon runners spread out over the beach in Egmond aan Zee. Photo: Le Champion

Where we stayed: www.zeldenpas.nl Where we ate: www.ziltezoen.nl What we ran: www.pwnegmondhalvemarathon.nl What we cycled: www.aguegmondpieregmond.nl What bike to ride: wikkit-cycles.com

The long stretch of beach in Egmond aan Zee is the perfect location for a beach race.

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