European Peace Ride 2026 on Cyclix

Peace Ride Stage 3: Dresden to Chemnitz

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The longest stage on paper and the easiest in the legs, right up until km 130. Rolling Saxon farmland and small towns for most of the day, with one piece of cycling history stuck in the middle of the last third.

How it rides

The opening 30 km climb 250 m out of the Elbe basin through the Tharandt forest, which is the only sustained climbing of the day and gets it out of the way early. After that the route settles into a long rolling traverse west across Saxony: Freiberg, Hainichen, Mittweida at roughly km 73, then north-west to Rochlitz and back down south-west through Penig and Waldenburg. None of it is flat and none of it is hard. The profile is a constant low-amplitude sawtooth, and the way to ride it is to stop looking at the gradient and settle into a rhythm.

Peace Ride Stage 2: Liberec to Dresden

Sat, 12 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The hardest of the three by a wide margin, and the one that will catch you out if you only read the profile summary. The event briefing said the climbing waits until the last third, after the Elbe. That is true of most of it. It is not true of the first nine kilometres.

How it rides

Warm up before you start. The road climbs out of Liberec immediately: 9.2 km, 392 m of ascent, 4.3 per cent average, up the flank of the Ještěd ridge. The top, at 767 m near Kryštofovo Údolí, is the highest point of all three days, and you reach it before you have properly settled into the day. Riding it cold in the morning is unpleasant. Give yourself a few kilometres of something flat first if you can.

Peace Ride Stage 1: Zittau to Liberec

Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The shortest of the three stages and the most varied. You start in Germany, spend the long middle of the day in Poland, and finish in Czechia, and the border crossings are the least dramatic part of it: a change of road surface and a change of signage, nothing more.

How it rides

The first 35 km north along the Neisse are flat and fast, a warm-up with the Polish border sitting just across the water the whole way. After Radomierzyce the route crosses into Poland and the character changes. It climbs gently through Bogatynia and Działoszyn, drops, then climbs again past Platerówka, and none of it is steep enough to hurt but none of it lets you settle either. Leśna, at roughly 60 km, has a market square and is the obvious place to stop.