CYCLIXZittau to Liberec: Three Countries Before Dark
Day one of the European Peace Ride. 107 km from Zittau through Poland into Czechia, a crash in the front group, and a medical car that was there before anyone understood what had happened.
European Peace Ride 2026
The European Peace Ride is not a race. Two hundred riders, three days, three countries, one peloton, and nothing at the end to win. It runs on the bones of the old Friedensfahrt, the Peace Race that linked Warsaw, Berlin and Prague for most of the second half of the twentieth century, and it still goes over some of the same roads.
The 2026 edition was the sixth. It started in Zittau on 11 September and finished at the ice sports park in Chemnitz on the 13th: 454 km on my computer, roughly 5,000 m of climbing, one crash, one 19 per cent cobbled wall, and a long wet Sunday.
The whole three days, filmed from the bike:
Here it is, day by day.
If you want to ride any of it yourself, the three stages are on the routes page with GPX and FIT downloads.
Liberec to Dresden: The Climb Comes First
Day two of the European Peace Ride. 171 km and 2,350 m of climbing, starting with a 400 m wall out of Liberec that was not in anyone's mental plan for the day.
Dresden to Chemnitz: Rain, Then the Steile Wand
The last day of the European Peace Ride. 175 km in the wet, a 19 per cent cobbled wall at Meerane, and both groups rolling into Chemnitz together because there was nothing to win.