A magnificent 27-kilometer lap with over 500 meters of elevation gain was on the program this weekend during the mountain bike marathon in Amerongen. Bas Luca de Vries and Mariëlle Trouwborst were the strongest. De Vries joined fellow escapee Jelle-Wietse Jongedijk and Ruben Nederveen on the podium. KMC teammate Lola Bakker rode with Trouwborst in the lead for a long time but had to let her go halfway through and finished second. The final podium spot went to Julia Besselsen. Rozanne Slik finished fifth.
“We rode with a large group for the first two laps, with people dropping out and then coming back because the pace kept dropping. Ultimately, I managed to break away with Jelle-Wietse Jongedijk at the start of the last lap. I dropped Jelle Wietse in the final, but today was certainly not easy. It was a tough lap because there wasn’t a single flat meter, and I had to steer a lot on the mountain bike trails included in the course,” said de Vries. Gerben Mos was in the leading group for a long time, but lost ground in the last lap and finished thirteenth.