The most important information about stage 1 of the Deutschland Tour
- Date: Thursday, 21 August
- Start: Food, Target: Herford
- Distance: 202.6 kilometres
- Stage profile: flat
- Issue: 40th edition
- TV/Livestream: ARD & Eurosport 14:10-17:00, discovery plus 14:00-17:00
- Deutschland-Tour 2025 - the route: all stages at a glance
- Results of the Deutschland Tour 2024
Fabian Wegmann's assessment of stage 1
"We leave Essen in a northerly direction. Including the neutralised phase in the Ruhr region, the professionals will cover 215 kilometres today. The organisational and planning effort in a conurbation is huge. You need a barrier and a marshal at every junction. The course is relatively flat. After the break that many racers take after the Tour de France, we want to give them the opportunity to roll in on terrain that is not too difficult when they return to racing. Towards the finale, there are a few waves, the course gets harder and leads over a loop in Herford. At Stuckenberg, which we cross on Vlothoer Straße, there is a bonus sprint; from now on, this will be available on every stage, with time credits of three, two and one second for the first three. The classification lies around five kilometres before the finish - with a difference in altitude of only 70 metres, but up to nine percent steep. The sprinters will hardly be the first to pass - but that could change again by the finish. Then it's straight ahead on the harmless descent and finally around a thousand metres flat to the finish, where the three best finishers of the day will receive further time bonuses of ten, six and four seconds."
Hot spot: The Stuckenberg (Vlothoer Straße) in Herford - bonus seconds and perhaps the decisive attacks.
Fabian Wegmann: Sporting Director of the Deutschland Tour
Fabian Wegmann knows how difficult it is to reconcile the wishes of the riders with the requirements of a race organiser and the safety requirements. The 45-year-old from Münster, once a successful professional with the Gerolsteiner and Milram teams with three German championship titles, was involved in the planning of the route and presents the five days of racing.
