At the start of this year a committee was formed to organise the best cycling race ever. Almost a year later, on June 8,9, and 10 the result of their hard work was finally revealed to the world. This started off with a team time trial in the Binnenveld. Although the track was already nice, the committee managed to provide a whole extra dimension by making the participants cycle under the oak processionary caterpillar. People loved this element of danger, judging from the amount of reactions we got about it the next day. The hellinproof women’s team rode a decent race and ended 4th out of 7 teams, they worked well together as a team. The men won with a 30 second margin over De Domrenner, who finished second.
The men during the team time trial.
After the Team time trial we moved to the campus for an entertaining sprintcup. Els, Ehlana and Imke did the women sprints and Bart, Erik and Robin did the men sprint. Els managed to get to the second round after an intermediate round, Ehlana and Imke were less fortunate. Robin and Erik also didn’t make it to the second round. Luckily our ”dikke sprinter” Bart was in great shape and became second behind a ”dikke sprinter” who was also named Bart, if you want your future children to become sprinters you should probably name them Bart.
The final sprint of the mens competition
On Sunday a lot of people had to wake up very early to prepare the course of the Wageningse Wielermuur for some exciting racing. The women started off with an individual time trial over 2 laps of the course (4,4km). Susan was the fastest women with only one second between her and second place. Anouk finished 8th and Sigrid 13th. With these results, the women were the second best team on time trail. The men’s time trial was also won by a hellingprof. Niels was 3 seconds faster than the rider in second place, who was coincidentally also called Niels. So if you want your future children to be good time trailist, you should name him Niels. Tjalle finished in 4th and Bas in 14th place. Only the road race was left, and again the women had to start first. This race really
showed how though the course of the Wageningse Wielermuur is, right from the start the peloton broke to pieces, with Susan and Anouk at the front of the first group. One women from Nijmegen, who was second in the time trial, managed to escape the front group and her teammates were marking the counter attacks from Susan. But eventually Susan could ride away on the climb, it was however too late to compete for victory and she became second. Imke finished in 15th place ,Sigrid in 18th place and Ehlana 22nd. Although Anouk rode really strong, she did not finish because first she almost crashed and then she also had a puncture. The women team finished 4th out of 8 in the overall classification, which showed great improvement from last year.
The peloton approaching the ”muur”
Now only the men’s road race was left, chances for Hellingproof were high, with the Domrenner from Utrecht as biggest rivals. The hellingprofs tried to force a breakaway, but there was always a rider from the Domrenner on their wheel. Eventually a break of four was formed. Tjalle was part of this break and there was no Domrenner. On the last ascent of the Wielermuur Tjalle could not follow the acceleration of his breakaway companions and the sprinting peloton was
coming close. Luckily the best sprinter in the peloton was Bart and he was the only one passing Tjalle before the finish line. Bart, Tjalle and Niels ended up 4th,5th and 6th. Bas and Robin were 18th and 20th meaning that they also scored some points for the overall ranking and Erik became 24th. These results meant that we won the GNSK! A huge thanks for the committee, the volunteers, riders and supporters for making this amazing event possible!
