Tours of 200 kilometres
The tours that are organized in the Netherlands are normally between 10 and 120 km or even 150 km. A trained skater will be able to skate these tours depending, of course, of the weather and the condition of the ice. Less frequently it is possible to organize skating tours of 200km. Such tours are serious challenges for trained skaters and this challenge becomes even more attractive if the weather and the ice are bad. Therefore there have been through the time skaters who wanted to take up this challenge and tried to finish such a tour. The first tour of this kind was done in 1676. The report about that tour will be presented below. In the end of the 19th century there are several descriptions of such tours, especially in the north of the Netherlands, in Friesland. This has led to the development of the most famous tour of 200km in the Netherlands: De Elfstedentocht (The eleven cities tour). In this section we will first present stories about historical tours of 200km and finish with the first official Elfstedentocht. Later I will report about the 200km tours in the 20th century.
Historic 200km tours in the Netherlands
The pictures indicate different historic events. Select the story you want to read by clicking on one of the pictures
The Elfstedentocht in the 20th century
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The Alternatives for the the Elfstedentocht
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