Billboards, decorated bicycles and lots of flags. When you’re in Hoeven, you can’t miss it. The entire village is dominated by the cycling four days, the largest in our province. This year’s event is extra festive, because the bicycle four days in Hoeven exists fifty years.
On Thursday, the participants will get on their bicycles for the first stage through the West Brabant landscape. Among them are the sisters Lian de Hoon-Mathijssen from Rijsbergen and Ineke Bastiaansen-Mathijssen from Zundert. Both have already cycled 44 times.
“Because of corona, it could not go on for two years in a row. Since November I have been looking forward to getting back on my bike for the four days. You won’t see that anywhere else in the conviviality and the surprises with which we are spoiled along the way. It is such a special event”, says Lian.
“The atmosphere in the village can best be compared with the Four Days Marches in Nijmegen.”
“We are of course smaller in scale, but the atmosphere in the village can best be compared with the Four Days Marches in Nijmegen,” says chair Anita Dielemans of the Stichting Fietsvierdaagse Hoeven. “We do it all with our sixty volunteers and without paid employees.”
In 1972, the first four-day cycling event was held for the camping guests of Bosbad Hoeven. When a few years later people from outside the campsite were also allowed to participate, the event quickly outgrew its scope. More than two thousand people cycle with it every year.
Corona has thrown a spanner in the works for the past two years. As a result, the Four Days Marches will not be held for the fiftieth, but forty-ninth time this year. This was no reason for the organization to postpone the anniversary. Moreover, Hoeven also has a reason for a celebration next year.
“Even people from the Wadden Islands are cycling along.”
So far, about 1,500 participants have registered. An additional 1,000 people are expected to arrive on Thursday. “Most come from the region, but there are also participants from Friesland or Limburg. Even people from the Wadden Islands cycle along. I think that conviviality plays a role in this,” says Anita.
According to the chairman, the weather gods are reasonably good for the cyclists in the coming days: “Although it will be a bit chilly on Sunday, but real cyclists will not be discouraged. Put on your jacket and start cycling.”