Last weekend many members of Dutch Mountains (re-)discovered the beautiful, but not so sunny, surroundings of Malmedy on their bikes. The mountainbikers had fun in the muddy forrest and the cyclists tried to stay warm during their rides on the road. It was definitely adventurous! Fortunately we could enjoy the pleasant warmth of the hot tub. Since going outside in the evenings was not possible due to the chilly weather, we were forced to stay inside playing games and eating (how bad). On sunday everyone left Malmedy again, back home to Maastricht.
Hopefully everyone enjoyed the first members weekend of the year!

Traditionally, the Dutch road season ended with the NCK in Dronten. For the first time Dutch Mountains was able to send both a men’s and a women’s team to the race. The grand finale of the season became an almost heroic race in rainy conditions.

With Merel driving Polly and sports directors Lars and Lieske both teams rode a strong race on a windy parcours.
Lotte, Ires, Ella and Sophie finished their 34km race with an average of 37,3 km/h (!) and gained a solid 24th place.
Robbin, Dennis, Jannes, Christiaan, Peter and Thom managed to complete the 51 km with an average of 46,2 km/h(!) and managed to place themselves as 39th between the big names.

The finals of the club competition took place last Wednesday! It was still possible for the overall standings to change due to the fact that double points could be won in this final.

We did a proper omnium at the track in Geleen, starting with an one lap time-trial where Frank (who claimed to be ill) clearly won within a time of 37.44 seconds. The next discipline was a elimination race that was completely controlled by Thom, which seemed to have triggered something within him because Thom easily won the third and fourth discipline as well, which were the sprint tournament and the normal race.

The overall winner of the race was obviously Thom, Frank became second and Ivo showed that he is worth being the competition commissioner of Dutch Mountains this year by becoming third.

The women race was less exciting due to the fact that Lotte was the only one who showed up. Nevertheless she was a good competitor against the men.

Eventually, the overall standings did not change, and therefore we would like to congratulate the club champions of Dutch Mountains 2016-2017: Lars Quaedvlieg and Lotte Jansen!