Finally the day was there, after two month of planning, many things to keep in mind and a lot work – 16 people where meeting for breakfast in the heart of Hamburg.
The excitement was visible in every face and everyone just wanted to start our journey.
After setting up all the bikes, packing the van for the first time and getting ready for the first stage – it also started to rain.

The first approx. 130 km where really wet and nothing you’d expect from a vacation trip. But the team battled it out with the elements. Sadly I had to resign the first stage after approx 75-80 km, being in the lead for the first kilometers and with a hurting knee, I decided not to exaggerate. There are more stages and kilometers to come. But the route compensated for everything.

As said above, I rode just 80 km of the 120 km of this first stage!


We had some wet cobble stones, empty field roads with great pavement, sheeps and in the end the north sea, the dykes and also the sun bid welcome to use while we arrived at our first camping site.
In less than 15 minutes our eight Heimplanet tents where set up and our home for this night was prepared. A shower, the bikes where cleaned, som warm cloth and we made our last stop for this day and visited a weird italian pizzeria to get some food.

Let’s see what the 2nd stage from Büsum to Skaerbek has to offer. The weather forecast looks pretty good so far….

See more impressions after the jump and also head over to www.rad-race.com for even more insights.
Day 1 on rad-race.com.