Monstertijdrit: Course, Route Profile & Map

Course & Elevation

The course is a closed loop of around 28 kilometres near Zeewolde, ridden four times. There is no elevation profile in any usual sense: the full 112 kilometres gather roughly 38 metres of climbing, and the route sits between six and four metres below sea level throughout. What looks like an easy assignment on paper is in practice an unbroken power task, because there is not one section where the terrain gives you the rest.

The Flevopolder is land taken from the sea, and the course shows it: dead-straight roads, wide fields, lines of trees as the only structure in view and almost no shelter. That is exactly where the race gets its character. The organiser describes the course as flat, open and long, and the experience there is that the wind can decide the race as much as the legs do. Late October adds the polder at its rawest.

The Monstertijdrit has been run since 1987 and has changed venue several times: from a large loop around the Markermeer, via the Hollandse Brug, to the local circuit at Almere from 2003 to 2016, and since 2017 with start and finish at Zeewolde. It is ridden on open roads, self-supported and without a follow vehicle; drafting is prohibited, and riders start individually from the slowest to the fastest predicted time.

Pacing Strategy

There are no climbs here to hide a bad plan behind. Your target power is set from the first kilometre and stays unnegotiated for three to four hours. The classic error is lap one: with fresh legs and no gradient to act as a brake, almost everyone rides well above the power they can still produce at the end.

The race is decided in the headwind sector, and specifically on laps three and four. That is also where the biggest trap sits. Into a headwind your speed drops, and the reflex is to push more watts to rescue the average. In the tailwind sector you then let it run. On a lap course that combination costs more time than it gains. The correct response is the opposite: hold power into the headwind and accept the speed, then keep working deliberately with the wind behind you.

The second loss is positional. If your neck and hip flexors give up after two hours and you sit up, you lose more on open polder roads than any power number can win back.

Training plan for Monstertijdrit: 12-week build

Expect roughly three to four hours for the 112 kilometres depending on your level and the wind, and longer in hard conditions. The demand is about as even as cycling gets: a continuous aerobic effort just under threshold, ridden solo, with no group, no descent and not a single point where the terrain hands you a rest. Anaerobic spikes barely occur, but neither does any relief.

The race is decided in the second half, on laps three and four. What you need there is not more peak power but the ability to sustain an already high steady output while fatigue and position work against you. Train that with long sweetspot and threshold blocks, ridden explicitly on the time-trial bike in race setup rather than on the road bike. Aerodynamic endurance is a training goal in its own right here: neck, shoulders and hip flexors have to survive three hours, or fitness alone will not help.

Conditions belong in the plan. A late-October race in the Flevopolder means wind on completely unsheltered roads, plus cold and wet. Deliberately ride sessions in strong wind to learn to hold power steady instead of chasing speed, and test your autumn kit, gloves and overshoes included, at race pace beforehand.

Finally, fuelling. Three to four hours of self-supported time trialling means taking on carbohydrate and fluid in an aerodynamic position without sitting up. That is a skill, and it needs practising as much as the power does.