At the same time Pavedwave (hope you're getting better!) and friends are going to ride Ultra XI, the Dutchies will do one of their own! It's an unofficial event open to anyone. No sign up, on public roads, etcetera. We just couldn't be bothered or find the time to set up a big one this year. For me, it's a bit of both

Some of us are going to start at 10am on Saturday morning, I hope to be able to do that too. If not, I'll start at noon.

Our local forum administrator (Edwin the LDP/driver at Skaiti) lives in the area and has picked a number of good routes to skate on. Most, if not all, are cyclepaths. Ed's an LDPer so I am confident the surfaces will be great.

During daytime he is planning to circle the 5th runway of Schiphol Airport a couple of times (blue route). It's a 22km lap and he's chosen it because one of the nightly venues might have pedestrians strolling through the park during the day, and if the weather is good there will be dogs to dodge as well.

At night there are two options, a circle around a small lake (3km, red) and a longer route heading towards Nieuw Vennep and Lisse and back again. That's about 18km and is marked as the green route.

Here's the map, the purple line is an inline skating route that connects the runway course with the others:



I am hoping to be able to safely use the lap around the Toolenburger Plas for the full 24 hours, because I won't have to carry as much at a time and also because we probably won't all be skating at the same pace and when you stretch out over a 22km lap it's going to be either adapting to someone else's pace or being a bit lonely

I'm posting it up here because I heard there was some interest across the pond and I'd love to skate with you guys again. It's only the Channel that's between us anyway, people swim across it!

This might not all be too clear, that is probably because I am not the guy with the local knowledge in this matter and because it's more of an unofficial get-together-and-skate-24-hours-thing. Feel free to ask any questions



Thanks to WiZzY the Admin for the info and the map!

So! Dutch rankings, and the estimated places on the world ranking in parentheses:

1 (4) Jesse Beau, 325km or 331 counting the 2 laps his GPS failed
2 (7) Paul Brunninkhuis, 290km
3 (8) Arjan Koek, 270km
4 (10) Jochem Boer, 255km
5 (15-20) Edwin aka Wizzy, 202km
6 (15-20) Joost GT, 201km

4 out of 6 Dutchies made their way into the top 10

Congrats guys - I'm going to get news of this up on the front page as soon as I can!

This is fantastic news, a great looking event and I'm so stoked that the Euro skaters are taking it to another level!

xxx

EDIT: Currently unable to log in to SF so will someone who is not on a skateboard trip from the team get this awesome result frontpaged?

i'll try today
xxx

Awesome! Nice hint on the full write-up My new goal is to do 200 miles before 31 December 2011. I am still amazed by how easy it was for me to keep up a high pace. I'm wondering if that's caused by good wind conditions, good vibes or just vigorous training in the form of Skaiti and two trips of 300 and 400km. If it's the training, I am confident I can achieve the 200 miles. If it's sheer luck because of the good conditions, I will need to skate more ultras and train on doing centuries and nightskating.
Now on the write-up, raped by my poor writing skills!


I worked until 6 on Friday. When I got home I quickly packed the stuff I had spread out on the floor the day before and got on the train. Almost had my plans thwarted by a faulty rail road bridge, but the problem was fixed right before I left! Lucky me.
Met up with Edwin and Jesse at Edwin's, who offered us a place to sleep for the night. Stayed up until a bit after midnight discussing various back-up routes (which fortunately weren't necessary, lucky again!)

In the morning we all had a large protein shake which contained about a thousand calories. It lasted me through the first marathon which I did in 2:10-ish, let's keep it at :11. Big thank you to Edwin for that, it was tough not to gag when drinking it (it had bits in it, ew!) but it definitely paid off!

I did the first half of the marathon alone, riding at a pace slower than Jesse's and about the same as Koek and Joost. After half a marathon Jesse lapped me and he went on to set the pace for me. Thanks to that, I was able to do the first 42.2km so fast. Jesse even did it in a little over 2 hours. The last lap of the marathon I went all out, pulling my average speed up to 19.5km/h and achieving an average speed on the lap of over 25km/h. I then had a 30 minute break. By that time the folks from Sickboards arrived with refreshments (mmm bits of melon).

Me and Jesse skated a lot together during the ultra, making devious plans and talking about all sorts of things. It was a pleasure skating with him, as always. He's amazing at setting a pace, and can really push himself and you along to a certain goal. For example:
Near the end of the ultra I was sitting in the grass enjoying the morning sun after achieving my goal. Jesse had started the ultra planning to do 300km, and as the hours passed he wanted to overshoot it a bit to further cement his 4th place in the rankings. He was in his last few laps with an hour to go when I told him that I read on ultraskater.com that the bar for 4th place had been raised by 20km. He mumbled an 'oh jesus' and immediately picked up his pace. He was riding with Paul who's just awesome at getting people stoked on the road and never seems to stop grinning no matter how far or long he's skated. Together they hammered on for another hour, while Jesse was in a world of pain and just wanted to stop. But he didn't, he pushed on and did an amazing 331km. It's probably one of the best examples of him going beyond his physical abilities to achieve his goal, and that's why it's so inspirational to skate with him. If I had listened to him, I would've made 300km myself.

Hah, my story is drifting off! To cut it short, the road quality was superb even by Dutch standards, there were a lot of unleashed dogs out but fortunately no crashes because of them, we were all in pain and almost all of us achieved our goals. It was awesome and I think there's real potential for an international, European ultraskate.

That was funny... in a way Total mileage was 329km by GPS and 334km counting the one and a half lap that my GPS missed. I'll buy a proper GPS device for the next Ultra

And I'll be charging my Garmin on the go with one of those funky chargers! The stripes are cool and a nice conversation starter and all, but it's easy to miss one.