SUP 11 CITY TOUR Paddling through history

The Eleven Cities Tour is a historic ice-skating race that began in Holland in 1909. Every year when there is enough ice, thousands of people race 220 km through eleven cities in a single day. Inspired by this rich tradition, Dutch wind-surfer, surfer and stand up paddler Anne-Marie Reichman Totah dreamed of making the same tour by stand up paddleboard. In 2009, on the 100th year anniversary of the original event, the SUP 11-City Tour officially began as a small invitational. Since then, the tour has become an open event that is attracting more and more SUP enthusiasts every year.

Words: Anne-Marie Reichman Photography: Ritske Merkus, Jason Kelley, Anne-Marie Reichman , Mayo...

I was born and raised in Friesland, the northern province of the Netherlands, where the Eleven Cities Tour happened close to home.Thousands of enthusiasts skated the 220 kilometers through the Eleven Cities in one day. Both the pros and the amateurs would start in the morning, 12 kilometers from my house, and had to make the finish line before midnight. Millions of people would come to Friesland to encourage the ice skaters from early morning until the late and dark hours of the night; the spectating was an entire happening in itself. My family and I would get up early and follow the updates closely by TV and radio until the time was right, and we would head towards the Eleven Cities route by ice-skate to support all our heroes.…

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Kayak Session (Digital) - 1 Issue, SUP World Magazine 2015

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