1,000 km from Brittany to Germany: Hannah Ludwig’s journey

Germany’s Hannah Ludwig, who was supposed to compete in the Bretagne Ladies Tour this week, which was ultimately canceled due to the health situation, decided to go home… by bike! 1,000 kilometers in five days, from Brittany to her home in Trabel-Trarbach, Germany. The German rider from the CANYON-SRAM Racing team recounts her adventure.

Source: C.P / Photo credits: Thomas Maheux / Canyon-Sram Racing

Germany’s Hannah Ludwig was supposed to start the Bretagne Ladies Tour (October 28 – November 1) this Wednesday, but it was ultimately canceled due to the health situation in the region. However, the 20-year-old Canyon-Sram Racing rider only learned the news upon her arrival in Brittany late last week. After an 11-hour car ride with her mother, disappointed but full of ideas and a touch of madness, she decided to make the return trip to Germany by bike…

Having arrived with her mother in Brittany four days before the start, to reconnoiter the course and prepare as best as possible for the Breton event, the two-time U23 European time trial champion had the unpleasant surprise of discovering the event’s cancellation. She had been particularly looking forward to the time trial scheduled for the third stage. “We left home Friday morning at 8:30 am and drove 11 hours to Sérent, France,” says Hannah Ludwig. “I was really looking forward to the race and had decided that I wanted to come earlier to prepare as best as possible and see the time trial course. When we arrived at the hotel parking lot, we received the email from the team stating that the race had been canceled, just as we were parking. At first, I was sad because I was looking forward to it. I wasn’t angry because there are much worse things that could happen. I really wanted to do this bike race and see what I could do in the time trial, but in the end, it’s just a bike race.“

Not really motivated by the idea of turning around and doing another 11-hour drive back to Germany the next day, Hannah Ludwig decided to make the return trip… by bike! A 1,000-kilometer journey to her home in Trabel-Trarbach, with her mother driving the support car. “I didn’t want to sit in the car the next day,” explains Hannah Ludwig, “so I decided to ride home. I still have the Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta as the last race of my season, so I was wondering how I could best train for that? If I take five days to get home, then a good rest and some speed work, I should be ready for Madrid. I then asked my coach who agreed. So I sat down that evening and planned the route,” Hannah Ludwig details.

The German, who is currently on her last stage, recounts her journey. “I start at 8 or 8:30 every day, so I have some flexibility at the end as the days get shorter. When I’m within 50 km of my target city for the evening, I book the hotel. At first glance, it was 900 km total to get home and I planned to do it in five days, in the same format as the Bretagne Ladies Tour. But when you sit down, look closer, and choose the more bike-friendly routes, it turns out to be over 1,000 km,” Hannah Ludwig laughs. “It’s still a challenge. Riding 8 or 9 hours, arriving, and washing my bike and kit, it’s not super easy.”

And what a challenge. Before this trip, Hannah Ludwig had only ridden more than 200 kilometers three times. “The first 50 km is the hardest when I’m doing a 200 km race. On Saturday, the first day, I checked the map and thought ‘Oh, only 10 km done’. Then I looked again and I had only done 32 km… ‘this is going to be hard’, I told myself. But after getting through the first 50 km, I know I can do the rest of the ride.”

This kind of journey and adventure is not a first for Hannah Ludwig, who participated in the One More City race in 2019 to raise funds for breast cancer research, her longest bike trip to date covering 720 km in four days from Amsterdam to Strasbourg. “I was riding with a great group of people. We had horrible weather but it was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed myself. This trip is a bit different, you’re alone and there’s less motivation than for a good cause, but I often think back to that ride and it helps pass a few kilometers,” Ludwig said. “On the bike, I feel surprisingly good most of the time. It’s after the ride that the leg pain comes, and that’s really, really hard.”

Over the first four days, Hannah Ludwig covered 224 km, 215 km, 205 km, and 232 km per day, for a total of 876 km. “This is the seventh time in my life that I’ve ridden more than 200 km,” says the German. “There was rain, tailwind, headwind, dry days, and freezing days. On the first day, I only met one cyclist. On the others, I met several. I met a really nice guy at a station, another who rode alongside me on a climb exclaiming ‘Go, Tour de France, Tour de France…’ It was quite funny,” Hannah Ludwig recalls.

Her answer when asked if she ever thought about stopping and getting in the car to go home? “Every day at the beginning, I wondered what I was doing! I didn’t know if I would come out of it really fit or completely exhausted, and that wouldn’t have been the best training for the Madrid Challenge. But I had also chosen this option because the weather is a bit better here than at home and I really like training on different roads. I also knew that I could stop at any time, the car was there, but it’s been a nice challenge, which I’m enjoying.”

“I have to admit that yesterday was really hard,” Hannah Ludwig recounts. “I was so tired in the last fifty kilometers. I had to tell my mom to go ahead and leave me alone for the last ten. The fatigue from the previous days caught up with me and I was suffering. But in the end, I made it,” Hannah Ludwig smiles. The German was surprised by the reaction of her fellow cyclists and fans. “To be honest, I’m surprised by the reaction because I don’t think it’s that special. It’s just one of my silly ideas that sometimes I can do, and sometimes not. But I’m happy that people like it.”

After four days crisscrossing French roads to reach Germany, Hannah Ludwig is only a few kilometers from her goal. “Today is the last day and I had planned for it to be the shortest day,” says Hannah Ludwig, who will cover a hilly 150 km route starting from Metz, passing through the French-German border and all the way to her home in Traben-Trarbach. “I know most of the roads in the last half of the ride, which will make things easier. And I’m going home. I know I’ll be able to succeed.”