Racing roadbikes in Germany

In Germany there are two ways you can race your bike:

1. Jedermannrenenn: gran-fondo-style mass start events (sometimes in multiple starting blocks)
2. Lizenzrennen: licensed races for which (the license) you need to apply from the german cycling federation (BDR — Bund Deutscher Radfahrer)

Jedermannrennen:

These are granfondostyle events with thousands of starters. In the past they have been organized in conjunction with a professional UCI-race (Eschborn-Frankfurt, Deutschland Deine Tour, Münsterland Giro, Euroeyes etc.)

They almost always have closed roads, rest stops with water, medical (and technical) service and food and multiple start blocks such that everyones needs are catered to.

AFAIK there is no official calendar for these races and the best way to find them is to scan the german cycling news websites as well as https://www.cycling-cup.de/index.php and https://www.jedermanntermine.de/

There are also RTFs (Rad Touristik Fahrt) and Radmarathons, which are often smaller events organized by the local club, on open (low traffic) roads also with rest stops. And as long as there is a start and an end point there will be people who race these event which is however not the core spirit of an RTF.

Jedermanrennen are prohibited from paying prize money.

Lizenzrennen

There are two classes for racers in Germany:

• Elite-Amateur (best 650 in the rad-net leaderboard)
• Amateur (everyone else)

The leaderboard can be found here:

rad-net.de -

You get points by placings; Amateur results give lower amounts of points(eg. standard amateur points for a win 15p) , Elite results give higher points (standard elite points for a win 60p). And don’t ask me why WT and PRT coureurs are in the amateur leaderboard.

You do however not instantly move up the leaderboard if you move above the treshold, you have to wait until a predefined date (Stichtag). (Always be checking your category on your rad-net profile)

Stage races give many many points, some races do not give points; choose wisely if you want to move up. Point schemes are marked with MEL-XX (men-elite), the lower XX the more points are awarded.

There are several ways you can enter a licensed race:

• purchase a one-days license (25€ on lizenzen.rad-net.de) with which you’ll be able to start in Amateur races (however some organizers hate the involved paper work, so double check if they’re cool with it)
• get your racing license from your club (more details below)
• be UCI-CT “pro” which allows you to enter Elite-Amateur category races

Since your club techincally pays for your license and not you personally you should find a club that has some road racers. Since the list of cycling clubs (https://www.rad-net.de/vereine.htm) is too big to scan through I suggest looking at local race results (https://www.rad-net.de/rad-net-ergebnisse.htm) or using google (“rad verein”/cycling club + your location) or even strava on local segments to see who the fast guys in your area race with.

If you found a club that suits you, you should join and find the “Lizenzwart” who deals with managing racing licenses, and contact him about getting your license.

Finding licensed races:

All, yes all, licensed races are listed here:

rad-net.de -

Using your rad-net login you can in most cases sign up for the race on the website, show up (with your license and the money) and race. If the organizer does not follow this procedure it will be outlined on the race announcement (some want wire transfer of the starting fee etc.)

Some races also pay prize money; which is also given in the race announcement in the following scheme: V500/12, which means there is 500€ prize money (not counting primes and “materialistic” prizes) for the first 12 places.

For completeness I should also mention the Rad-Bundesliga which however goes beyond the scope of this article. (rad-bundesliga.net/)

Disclaimer: I cannot guarantee that any information in this article is the truth; everyone who wants to race their bike in Germany is responsible for doing their own research.

Follow me on strava and instagram here:

instagram.com/wbuchmueller/ strava.com/athletes/wbuchmueller

Also if you need to buy bike parts, you can use this link at no extra cost to you: https://amzn.to/2Mmhuce