15 April 2020

Consequences cancellation Eleven Cities Bicycle Tours 2020

 

To ‘the participants’ of the Eleven Cities Bicycle Tour 2020

Bolsward, April 2020

Subject: consequences cancellation Eleven Cities Bicycle Tour 2020

 

Dear cycling lover,

On 23 March, the Dutch government decided to cancel all events planned until 1 June to prevent further spread of the Corona virus.

On this same evening, we decided to cancel this year’s edition of the Eleven Cities Bicycle Tour. Apart from the government’s decision, we do not feel it is safe to organise a bicycle tour under these circumstances. In addition, the limitations that we face do not allow us a sound preparation of the tour. We announced this decision. With this, we indicated that we would answer the question if and in which way we could compensate those who had already registered for the tour. This letter provides this answer

Our regulations (https://www.fietselfstedentocht.frl/en/the-tour/regulations, third point from below), state:

“The board reserves the right to change the route, the start and finish locations and starting time or to cancel the tour or end it prematurely, if necessitated by weather conditions, calamities, public order, safety of the participants and public or other grave circumstances.
In this case, there is no right to restitution of the registration fee or compensation for damage and expenses.”

According to this stipulation in the regulations, we are by no means obliged to offer you compensation. However, not doing anything does not make us feel any better. At the time of this decision, we had already made great progress in the preparations for the Eleven Cities Bicycle Tour. This also means that we have already incurred the necessary expenses. Based on an inventory of these expenses and the fact that you are entitled to a ticket for this tour, we have made the following decision.

“Anyone who is entitled to a ticket for this year’s tour (2020) will receive a ticket for the tour of next year (2021) for an (extra) fee of € 10.00.”

In November of this year, we will send you an email with instructions what to do to become eligible for a ticket for 2021. In brief, these instructions will tell you to transfer € 10.00 before a certain date. If you fail to do so before this date, we will assume that you do not want to participate in the tour of 2021. After this date, we will offer the tickets that become available through the usual open registration procedure.

Lastly: it is the second time in our 109 years of existence that we cannot organise the Eleven Cities Bicycle Tour for public health reasons. The first time was in 2001 during the foot and mouth crisis.

We hope to be able to organise the 84th edition of the Eleven Cities Bicycle Tour on Whit Monday 24 May 2021.
Will you be joining us then?

 

Yours sincerely,

Stephan Rekker, chairman
Sietse la Roi, secretary

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