The ATB Beach Race Egmond-Pier-Egmond, winter classic over 36 kilometers, under the auspices of the KNWU, can be completed by any reasonably trained cyclist.Among the hundreds of recreational cyclists last edition was a record number of over 3,500 participants.
This has made Egmond-Pier-Egmond the largest and most appealing ATB Beach Race in Europe for many years.
Top mountain bike and road racers of note precede the massive field of participants in an open race across the North Sea beach under often harsh weather conditions. The Egmond aan Zee promenade is the setting for start (10:30 a.m.) and finish, where a huge crowd of people attend the denouement every year. An additional classification will be drawn up for participants in the Businessrace and the combination classification, which involves participating in both the beach race and the PWN Egmond Half Marathon.
How it began.
In a simple worker’s house located in the extension of the Abdijlaan in Egmond-Binnen lived the family of gardener Piet Tervoort until shortly before the war.
In order to still be assured of income during the time when there was little to earn on the bulb field, Egmond Piet was not only a gardener, but also a house and decoration painter, bicycle repairer, “gentleman barber,” help with funeral services and… beachcomber. The latter especially was his great passion. Riding a converted 1930s army bicycle, he was in his element along the tide line – weather or no weather. In favorable winds, after a January storm, the beach was searched by him southward sometimes as far as the foot of IJmuiden’s Noordpier.
Fully loaded, they then made their way back to Egmond via the shelter of the dunes. Without knowing it himself, he was the true pioneer, cycling along the beach as one of the first North Holland beach bikers, whose example would be followed many years later with the advent of the “fat tire bike.
Piet Tervoort is long gone. But his great-granddaughter found some photos in the attic. Partly as a result, the idea of a beach race for mountain bikers from Egmond was born.