It's autumn on the Lower Rhine, but once again the sun has prevailed on a cool morning and chased away the fog over the green fields in the flat west of the republic. It is the last day of September, and on a country lane near Bergheim there is suddenly a report of a death. An elderly gentleman in a red Marcel Wüst jersey has joined a group of riders dressed in green from Krefeld. The conversation turns to Manfred Nepp, who is a legend in the region with 1173 victories across all age groups. The group rolls along and a fellow rider from Düsseldorf says: "He's dead." "What do you mean Manni is dead?" asks the older man. He asks the guys from Krefeld, but several of them don't know Nepp, the Krefeld legend, and the ones who do know him don't know anything about the news of his death. But it's true, and that in turn throws the experienced rider mentally off track. He is just as old as Nepp, 82 years old. If everyone died, it would soon lead to depression, as there weren't many left. At the next refreshment stop, he finishes the break quicker than his fellow athletes in green and rolls on.
RTF Büttgen has a long club tradition
Autumn is approaching and another season is coming to an end. Those who roll up to the start line this Saturday morning at the Radtourenfahrt (RTF) in Kaarst-Büttgen are looking for one more experience of the signposted road bike tour, organised by volunteers from the clubs. The RTF, which starts at the Büttgen cycle track, is traditionally one of the last events in the Bund Deutscher Radfahrer's annual calendar of popular sports events. VfR Büttgen is organising this tour for the 41st time. The tradition is long. But what about the future? Here on the Lower Rhine, they are trying to offer the tried and tested - and yet make organised sport more attractive to new, and preferably younger, people. An arduous endeavour.
Just as it is getting light, when the moon is still full and the sun is only just visible in the sky, the first ambitious cyclists are already rolling southwards along the country roads. They look rushed in their group, real sport in the early morning, but they still have a long way to go. The early starters have set off on the marathon, a 200-kilometre brevet. "This is new, we simply put it out to tender and didn't know exactly whether it would be popular," says Norbert Hilke, who is responsible for cycle tourism at VfR Büttgen. The idea: the Brevet riders follow the signposted route for 45 kilometres, after which they are guided by the digital track. At the turning point, there is coffee and bread rolls at the bakery, which is included in the starting price of 15 euros. A new offer, which is always a risk for the traditional club sport. "We then asked ourselves: Why isn't this being taken up?" says Norbert Hilke. For a long time, hardly anyone registered. "But yesterday I made the printout and suddenly there were already 40." Eight more participants spontaneously joined in the morning. "We're very happy with just under 50," says Hilke, sitting on the beer bench right next to the cycling track.
Finding volunteers is difficult
For 57-year-old Birte Mötter and her partner Achim Boes, 64, tours like the one in Büttgen are part of their regular rituals. Mötter came to cycling through Boes, and now she doesn't want to miss the RTF either: "I think it's great for me, it's a bit like a folk festival, you drink together afterwards, you can talk to other cyclists and use and get to know signposted routes," she says. Seeing new things, experiencing new things - that's what an RTF offers. But also the tried and tested. Because the two from Duisburg were also together in Büttgen last year. They liked it so much that they will of course be back again. Their own club no longer has the strength to organise a tour.
You hear it from many places and see it when you take part in RTFs more often: This pearl of organised club sport, where the clubs present their most beautiful routes in combination with hearty refreshments, is ageing. It is difficult to get younger athletes to take part. But it is even more difficult to get people to volunteer, which is a prerequisite for a day like this. People are needed to set up and dismantle beer benches, make sandwiches at the refreshment points or organise new bread if the number of participants is larger than expected. It is not uncommon for RTFs to be cancelled due to a lack of staff for the organisation. In Büttgen, however, they are determined to prepare the event for the future.
They are proud at VfR that they have been able to hold their event even during the pandemic, of course always with the appropriate hygiene measures, says Hilke. More than 400 people were always there, so continuity pays off. "Corona hasn't broken our backs," he says. But he can't say for sure how to get hold of the young people who will be needed for this event at some point in the future. Hilke talks about a "manoeuvre critique" that he wants to do and that they also did in the club last year because they want to understand how they can secure the future of their tour. The marathon was an idea, obviously one that worked.
Tradition meets innovation, but the two men at the folding table with the cash register, the handouts and the safety pins were already sitting next to each other last year, albeit in the gym next door and not at the entrance to the cycle track. Early on Saturday morning, Marek Piekarsky and Ulrich Philippi, whose average age is 77, take care of the registrations for the RTF. They also have to answer questions about the digital transformation, as the association has digitalised its processes in the past popular sports season, switched to an app and created many a puzzle. An elderly lady stands in front of a pinboard and scans the QR code on the board with her smartphone. She then tries to log in to the BDR app, but doesn't quite get anywhere. Not everything works straight away, but the men from VfR Büttgen know how to help her and she will also be out on the course later, with a race number on her jacket.
Ulrich Philippi is sitting here, even though he has already done quite a lot in the months and weeks and days before to make Saturday morning a success. The man will soon be 84 and is responsible for signposting the route. He incorporates the findings from the previous year, he hears from the others what needs to be changed, then it's time to coordinate with the authorities. Finally, the day before the RTF, Philippi drives the routes in his car with a club mate to attach arrows to road signs and poles. That is the essence of the RTF: you just have to follow the signs and sit down in the nest, so to speak, discover what a club has to offer and then perhaps somehow get involved in organised sport.
Against the dusty image
Unfortunately, something went wrong with some of the arrows. In any case, at the first refreshment station, at the school building in Rommerskirchen, Jens Böhm, also one of the busy people in the club, is already informed. He tries to find out where exactly the participants might have missed signs. Which is not so easy to say when they have taken various routes back to the right course. It's a good thing that there is still paper on which the route is roughly described - or a route that is stored on the bike computer.
Böhm runs a primary school and is committed to the sport. Last year, he made an effort to introduce the VfR and its autumn RTF to new target groups - and to attract these new target groups to Büttgen. Alexander Worgitzki, 37 years old, stands next to him. He is a member of the VfR and also spreads vegan sandwich spreads and hummus on the snacks here, thus also combating the "dusty image" that RTFs have. "I've been a member of VfR for a long time and wanted to get involved as a volunteer. Organising a station like this is something different," he says and then shows a participant where she can find the stamp for her control card. Not to forget: Even today, club athletes still collect their routes at RTFs, now digitally and by the kilometre. In the past, they were recorded on paper and with points.
The Krefeld cycling club Staubwolke Fischeln has brought 15 participants, all in green, to Büttgen. The green-clad athletes bring their RTF season to a close with their Lower Rhine neighbours, followed by coffee and cake. Markus Besch, 57 years old, is the chairman of the Fischeln team. He is standing at the vegan catering area, surrounded by his fellow club members. They are between their mid-30s and late 70s. Besch says that there are many newcomers to his club, which is great. "Because you realise that it's difficult to motivate people," says the club official from Krefeld. His club does not organise an RTF, but it does organise a race. Taking part in the neighbouring event in Büttgen is part of the Krefeld club's annual routine. "You've noticed that they're trying to make the whole thing more attractive," he recognises, "you're a bit bled dry."
They are doing a lot to combat this haemorrhaging in Büttgen. They don't just offer vegan spreads, the brevet and social media work. They also organise track training sessions after the RTF, offer a gravel RTF and a women's ride led by Finja Smekal. Nevertheless, in addition to the beer benches, there is also the question of whether there is no bratwurst stand. This kind of thing can annoy the volunteers who scurry around here. The cycling culture evening that they had offered on the Friday before the RTF was not a success and was cancelled at short notice. You try a lot, not everything works. But at least the organisers counted 650 people across all the routes of the RTF day.
Even if nobody knows the average age, it's definitely true: the majority of them are old, white men. And that will probably be the case again next autumn. However, VfR Büttgen work all year round to ensure that things continue and that new people join the team for a new season.
