#elfstedentocht

Ja, ik heb hoop voor een koude winter

Nee, ik denk van niet, zo koud wordt het niet meer

Ik denk het wel omdat het klimaat meer naar de tering gaat en we dan opeens -40°C in juni gaan meemaken ofzo. Dus ja, maar we gaan er niet blij mee zijn.

As you know I live in Friesland and maybe you have heard of the Eleven Cities Tour we have different versions ice skating, bicycles, roller skates and oldtimers

Today its the oldtimer eleven cities tour

The route looks like this

A thousand Dutch skaters congregated before dawn on the frozen surface of the Weissensee, the long, slender lake that gives this small Austrian mountain town its name. The sky was dark, and the headlamps of the shivering skaters cast a spiritual glow onto the charcoal ice. They had been warned not to remove their goggles, lest their eyeballs frost over in the wind. The conditions, by any reasonable standard, were brutal. But the skaters were in heaven. “The most beautiful thing in life is skating on a floor of black ice, in the cold, hearing the sounds of ice skating in nature,” said Wim Wiltenburg, 53, a banker visiting from Tilburg. “It’s better than sex.”

Dutch cultural heritage:The Elfstedentocht is a 200 km skating race set on natural ice in the province of Frysia. It’s an important Dutch cultural phenomenon and completing the track gives the participant a heroic status. However in order to be able to skate the track the ice needs to be thick enough to cary all the participants. In recent years due to global warming the ice hasn’t been thick enough for a long time. The last elfstedentocht was twenty years ago. In 2012 it got really close, even though there was a lot of skating fun that winter it just wasn’t enough for an elfstedentocht.  

Some of the Dutch fear they might never see another elfstedentocht again… It doesn’t stem them very cheerfull. 

ohhhh boy. ohhhhh boy let me tell you. (you asked the wrong person I am superhyped about this here we go)

Basically, it’s an iceskating tour through the north of holland (Friesland) past 11 cities on natural ice. Elfsteden means eleven cities, tocht is tour. The elfstedentocht was skated for the first time in 1909, the most recent one was in 1997. In total, the tocht has only been skated 15 times, because it has to freeze a motherfucking lot before the ice is good enough. The ice has to be 15 centimeters thick.

In the ooooooold days, the population of Friesland could only travel far distances by iceskates since horses were too expensive for some people. Apparently already in 1749 people were making bets about whether or not someone could skate past all the eleven cities in Friesland (there are more villages but there are only ELEVEN cities oficially acknowledged as cities)

and apparently its super super tough because the tocht is 200 km (!!!), and it takes really experienced skaters 7 hours (but they are maratonskaters and they’re really really good). Also, I had to give a presentation in primary school one time about the elfstedentocht and sometimes people get hypothermia or they LOSE A TOE BECAUSE THEIR TOES ARE FROZEN.

typically associated with the elfstedentocht but with iceskating in general is klunen (which means walking with your skates on land when the ice is too bad) and snert (peasoup?), and koek en zopie (cookies and.. drink? Like you get cookies and hot chocolate because your toes are almost freezing off).

Het water is bevroren!

We’ve been hitting the minuses most of last week and over the weekend (and in a lot of the week coming!) which can only mean one thing. Veel ijs!

The canals have frozen over, thick enough that you can walk on it. Alternatively, if you are a Nederlander, then you will probably be dusting off your own personal ice skates and showing off your moves on the ice.

Before I moved here, I already knew that it was quite a popular sport in the Netherlands to ice skate, or schaatsen, especially speed skating. I had heard about people skating on the frozen canals and ponds, but I guess seeing it in person (and actually walking across the ice myself!) is still pretty magical. Your inner child bursts out of you without warning. My boyfriend was as giddy as anything and is very keen to make sure that we both buy our own skates!

In order for the canals to be declared as safe to skate on, it is said that we are to have at least three nights of -10 degrees Celsius (or less than 14 degrees Fahrenheit for any readers from the US, Bahamas, Cayman Islands or Palau!).

Also, whenever the temperatures start dropping below freezing, a lot of skating clubs start speculating whether there will be any natural ice competitions, and so start spraying concrete tracks with water (letting them ice over) in order to practice! This includes speculation of Elfstedentocht...

Elfstedentocht

Say it with me.

Elf-stay-der-to-gk-t

Also known as the “eleven cities tour”. This ultra rare event is something sought after by many of the Dutch and Frisian folk held as both a speed skating competition (where about 300 contestants take place) and also a leisure skating tour. All skaters must be members of the Association of the Eleven Frisian Cities, and you must have a starting permit. Skaters have to collect a stamp in each city, and at three secret check points, and must finish the course before midnight.

The reason that that this event is so rare is that it is purely determined on the weather conditions and thickness of the ice on the canals (at least 15cm!). It’s held in the North of the Netherlands, in the province of Friesland, and the race/tour takes you across the eleven historical cities of the province. The course varies depending on the quality of the ice, but the cities include: Leeuwarden, Sneek, IJst, Sloten, Stavoren, Hindeloopen, Workum, Bolsward, Harlingen, Franeker, Dokkum... and then back to Leeuwarden!

The first Elfstedentocht took place in 1909, but the last official event was in 1997. Women weren’t allowed to race until 1985, before then they were only allowed to participate as amateurs and were not awarded any wins. There was an almost-Elfstedentocht in 2012, but it had to be called off due to temperatures increasing above freezing point too frequently. Fingers crossed that there may be one this year?! Or as the Frisian would say when there is potential for an ice race, “It giet oan!” (it’s on!).

Ijsvrij

One more beautiful thing that I’ve learnt about the Dutch and their natural ice skating. Being ijsvrij literally translates to being “ice free”. This is where you literally get an extra day off to enjoy ice skating!