Europeans Gravel Ride Silkeborg to Houffalize 22-30.08.26

Join our colleagues from Silkeborg, the hosts of the European Championships Gravel 2028, in riding from Silkeborg to Houffalize. You will arrive in time to watch and experience the 2026 European Championships Gravel in Houffalize, Belgium. Transport and bike transport for the return is organised.

The UEC 2027 Lahti Gravel team will welcome you in Houffalize with a well deserved sauna an jacuzzi at the event area. And a cold drink of course…

High level itinerary

Departure from Silkeborg on Saturday morning, August 22nd – and we arrive in Houffalize on Saturday, August 29th in the early afternoon. On Sunday, August 30th, we will watch the European Championships in gravel and then it is time to return home. If there is interest, we will arrange a return trip together.

Saturday, August 22nd

After the departure event in Silkeborg, the trip goes across Jutland to Ribe, where we spend the night. The marshland is flat and we cycle behind the dikes – but you never know if we will feel the westerly wind.

Sunday, August 23rd

We cross into Germany at Rudbøl – one of Denmark’s absolutely coziest border crossings. From here we continue down through the flat landscape of Schleswig-Holstein – formerly Danish territory and now extremely exciting gravel terrain.

We spend the night around the town of Heide.

Monday, August 24

From Heide we continue down towards the Elbe, where we rest our legs a bit while we cross with the ferry – and keep an eye on the ship traffic to Hamburg.

On the south side the flat landscape continues, but it is not only marsh and meadows: we also pass through a number of patches of forest before we reach the overnight stop around Bremerhafen.

Tuesday, August 25

How often can you actually write “flat landscape”? – but it is good enough: the first many kilometers of the day do not give many meters of elevation on the bike computer.

Once again we have to take a short ferry ride before we pass Oldenburg. The routes are laid out as far as possible around larger cities, but the many streams and rivers – without bridges – mean that we sometimes have to enter a city to continue.

Today we spend the night north of Osnabruck.

Wednesday, August 26

The fifth day of the tour actually offers a few “bumps in the landscape”: we have to go up through forest areas near the towns of Steinfeld and Tecklenburg, so there are slightly different landscapes to ride in today. We will also ride along some of the large canals – and can keep up with the ship traffic.

Overnight stay in the Münster area – now we are approaching the Ruhr district.

Thursday, August 27

Although the Ruhr district is characterized by large, former industrial cities, there is plenty of good gravel – and we ride on that today, where one of the absolute highlights is when we cross the Rhine. We do this near Düsseldorf – and now we can just as quietly start to see that the landscape is becoming more hilly. We stay on the west side of the hills and spend the night between Cologne and Aachen.

Friday, August 28

Today's route is shorter than the previous days, in terms of kilometers, but there are quite a few more meters of elevation gain, because now we are at the Ardennes. There are national parks on both the German and Belgian sides of the border and there is a clear difference to our routes further north. We reach about 700 meters above sea level and arrive at our overnight stay in Wallonia – the French-speaking part of Belgium.

Saturday, August 29

It was obvious to say that the last stage of just over 50 kilometers towards Houffalize is pure parade riding – but it is a somewhat hilly parade. It is quite clear that we are now cycling around the middle of the Ardennes: by far the majority of the surface is gravel and it goes up and down. There is a clear reason why Houffalize is a gravel mecca – and we see this for ourselves when we arrive in the small town early in the afternoon.

Once we arrive in Houffalize, we have plenty of time to celebrate ourselves – we have just cycled about 1,100 kilometers down through Europe – on gravel!

Sunday, August 30

Today we celebrate others, because we are experiencing the Gravel European Championships up close. The exact program for the day and the event has not yet been announced – but we are there!

After the European Championships, it is time to return home. If there is interest, we will arrange a return trip together.

The bikes will in any case be transported home in the accompanying car.