The virtual ice Skates museum

Touring and marathon skating (2)

Skating along the eleven Friesland towns
The highlight of these activities is found in the famous so-called Elfstedentocht, a tour of 195 kilometres along the eleven medieval Friesland towns. It is known that already in the 18th century this tour offered a challenge to the Dutch. But not only the Dutch were attracted. The at his time well-known English skater C.G. Tebbutt wrote in his book Skating (1897) that he and two companions completed the tour in 14 hours. At that time the individual achievement as such was sufficient to tickle ones vanity as there were no journalists waiting for the first to arrive. This changed in 1909 when the tour was given an official contest character. Nowadays this tour is the biggest well-organised skating event in the Netherlands attracting thousands of people. It is accompanied by tv-crews from various countries following the skaters with their cameras even on the ice sitting at the rear of a motorbike.

The reward for fulfilling the tour is the Eleven Towns Cross, an unsightly medal of ca. 22 x 22 mm, that is cherished by its owners as if it were a costly diamond.

Due to the unpredictability of the weather, the relatively short periods of freezing weather and the importance to keep the canal surfaces open for shipping, the Elfstedentocht has been held only fifteen times in the past 100 years. The first in 1909 and the latest in 1997, which is too less for too many. As a result of the generally increased prosperity more and more people are prepared to travel and put their skates on elsewhere. Thus in the 20th century at the beginning of the seventies the idea was born to organise alternative Eleven Towns Tours yearly. The first was held in 1974 in Norway but in the meantime Austria, Canada, Finland and Germany have been guest countries as well.

Marathon skating
In the Netherlands another special (and very popular) kind of speed skating emerged from touring: marathon skating. This means circling a 400-meter track between 40 and 150 times with a maximum of 100 skaters (at the same time). Though marathon skating is done in teams an individual ranking system exists. Points can be earned at sprints after certain distances, by giving full laps to other riders, and by finishing within the first ten. Further rankings exist for the strongest team, for fighting spirit and the best sprinters. As a result of all of these elements a marathon race can become an exiting event.

Ancient skates for touring
All types of (wooden) ice skates have been used for touring skating, at least in ancient times. All ice skates of the Holland and Friesian models were originally touring skates, but were occasionally used as speed skates. Making them was a job for the local blacksmith in co-operation with the carpenter and the harness maker. Some blacksmiths made better ice skates than others and thus lots of models were developed. Often they were named after the villages where the blacksmiths lived. In Holland famous blacksmiths lived in Bergambacht, Ouderkerk and Waddinxveen; in Friesland in Akkrum, Warga and IJlst. As the models of successful blacksmiths were imitated quite often families of ice skates originated in these neighbourhoods. Those ‘families’ nowadays are known as Holland skates, Friesian skates, West-Friesian skates, Groningen skates, et cetera. This makes the collecting of Dutch skates from the period until circa 1910, when the individual craftwork disappeared as the advent of industrialisation won out over traditional craftsmanship, very interesting.

Modern skates for touring
In the second half of the 20th century a few special models for touring were developed such as the Combi Skates, Norwegian Touring Skates and the Swedish Hobble Skates.

11-towns cross

ancient Friesland touring skates

case with special maps for touring by skates

modern touring skates

Dutch handbook for
skating marathons
and tours

further to

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