“We’ve laid out 7 kilometers of cable. Absurd if you think about it.” Bart Kattenberg can now laugh about it, but he has had busy weeks. He annually organizes the Fiets4daagse in Meppel, but this year he has brought an extra event to the city: the European Week of Cycle Tourism.
The football fields at sports park Ezinge look very different this week. They have been transformed into a pop-up campsite for many hundreds of caravans and motorhomes. Nearly 1500 tourists from more than ten countries come to Meppel for the European Cycling Week. The bikes can be unpacked after extensive preparation.
“It was quite an operation,” Kattenberg looks back. “A logistical operation to get the participants on the spot, they all speak French. It is quite a challenge. The second challenge is to get electricity everywhere, because every motorhome wants electricity. Generators are scattered here and there and we have kilometers on it cable has been laid and thus created 570 standing places at the sports park.”
Those spots are all filled, because the event is popular. “There will be 950 French, 250 Poles. The rest will come from Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, England and Belgium”, Kattenberg continues proudly. The cyclists all come to the different routes that the organization has mapped out. “They are all very beautiful routes. We go to the Drents-Friese Wold, Hoogeveen, the VAM mountain, but also to the south in Staphorst. We also cycle through Giethoorn. Actually 360 degrees around Meppel. With a maximum of 120 kilometers we set out trips every day.” Camp Westerbork and the colonies of Benevolence are also visited.
Now that everything is ready, only the language barrier remains as a point of attention. “I just now see a large French motorhome appear next to me,” says Kattenberg with a smile. “So I have to go back to jail to let those people know in my best French that he has to play.” The vocabulary has been brushed up a bit in recent weeks. “French is now possible, but I do not dare to Polish. That is really incomprehensible,” concludes the organizer.