X-Europe-Tour

historic

History

1991 | Tour Ribnitz-Damgarten

This was our first bicycle tour, starting in Ribnitz Damgarten. We stayed overnight in Zingst on the Darß and cycled back the next day to our starting point

1992 through 1996 | Elbtour

While not originally planned this way, our tour in 1992 ended up being the first of several trips along the river Elbe. We started in Hamburg Bergedorf and cycled the beautiful route to Hitzacker. Sven had already decided that we would take a cycle tour vacation annually from this point forward, and so our next tour began in Hitzacker continuing down the river Elbe to Dessau. The following year we went on to Dresden and ultimately to the source of the Elbe.

1997 through 2009 | Tour Atlantik

After reaching the source of the river Elbe, the question wasn’t whether we would cycle again the following year, rather where we would cycle. First we thought about following other rivers: The Danube was too dull, really more for family trips; the Jangtsekiang had been on our list, however route planning proved to be very difficult due to the then planned construction of the three-lake-dam, leading us ultimately to abandon this idea. Then we had the perfect thought: We could simply go on cycling along the Elbe, and rather than starting from the source of the Elbe, we would start at the coast. Our next adventure started 1997 in Cuxhaven at a “Fischbrötchenbude” (fish stand) at the port. We started out with two day trips, and later cycled full five days. Riding approx. 110 km per day we completed approx. 540 km per trip. You find more detailed descriptions about each individual trip under the “Reports” section.

During our second trip someone asked us what our destination was, and Sven responded: Gibraltar. Up to then we had not thought about our ultimate goal yet. Serena Israel, an amazing girl we had met on her sail boat in a Dutch port, had explained to us: “the journey is your destination”. We had really thought about it in the same way, but now we had an actual destination point: Gibraltar. We never really took it seriously, and yet we never lost sight of it either. And after a long ride followed by an excellent meal with lots of red wine, we decided that we would celebrate our arrival in Gibraltar with a big event: We would invite our friends to meet us in Gibraltar where we would treat them to a special celebratory dinner, all they needed to do was to take care of their flights and accommodations.

On May 24th 2009 20 of our friends met us at the Europe-Point in Gibraltar, and gave us an overwhelming welcome, much like the experience the winners of the Tour de France enjoy at the Champs-Elysée. We had an excellent dinner together at a lovely restaurant at the port of Gibraltar. Thanks again to the organizers and the participants; we all enjoyed this wonderful event – so much so in fact that almost every participant from Gibraltar has already registered to join us again, this time in Istanbul in 2022. By the way: there is still some availability for the big party in 2022.

Tour-Plan

Tour-Plan