Four days in the saddle: The NRW cycle tour is back

The major cycling event, organized by WestLotto in cooperation with the NRW Foundation and WDR 4, took the participants through the west of North Rhine-Westphalia from July 7th to 10th: from Jülich via Mönchengladbach to Aachen, and finally back to the Starting point in the district of Düren.

Cat Ballou & Sasha

After demanding stages on the bike, the reward awaited on the market squares of the destinations – not for the strained thighs, but for the ears: Cat Ballou, a famous Kölschpop band, was on stage in Mönchengladbach, and the WDR4 band performed in Aachen on Friday and on Saturday the cyclists were able to experience a real superstar: Sasha provided a musical highlight on the last evening of the tour.

culture projects

A special feature of the tour again this year: along the route, the cyclists were able to get to know numerous projects of the NRW Foundation, which are also funded with Lotteries. Among other things, there was Dyck Castle in Jüchen, the Marian shrine in Aachen Cathedral and the Energeticon in Alsdorf. “In this museum, a piece of the history of the region is kept alive. The Aachen region is one of the oldest mining regions in Europe. The Energeticon is a very eventful project that is very rare in NRW in this form,” explained Stefan Neubauer from the NRW Foundation.

More insights into the highlights of the bike tour can be found in our video:

triangle

Andreas Kötter, spokesman for the management of WestLotto, was also among the participants on Saturday. On the third stage, he passed the tri-border region, the border region between Belgium and the Eurojackpot participating countries, the Netherlands and Germany, and pointed out the special feature of the Eurojackpot cooperation: “A lottery as big as Eurojackpot only works together. And the common good of all participating countries benefits from this.” On Sunday afternoon, more than 1,000 cyclists set off back home – in the hope that it won’t be another three years until the next NRW cycle tour.

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