The Servatius Bikepacking Weekend: Event Recap

Words by Jair Dan, photos by Fred Meijer and Ewout Meijer

Last year, my partner and I rode a year-long bikepacking tour along the Continental Divide in the United States—through the deserts of Baja, up and down the mountains and jungles of Mexico and Guatemala, and next to the snowy peaks of the Peruvian Andes. While the landscapes were stunning, the people we met really made the trip. Everybody we encountered from the bikepacking community was warm, friendly, interested, and encouraging.

With that sense of community in the back of my mind, I signed three of my friends and myself up for the Servatius Bikepacking Weekend event in the Netherlands. I wanted them to experience that same sense of community. The event is described as a “self-supported gravel adventure where you will enjoy beautiful gravel roads, dirt tracks, adventurous campsites, good food, cold beer and amazing company.” It was exactly what I was looking for.

During the lead-up to the event, it became clear that although we were meant to ride 280 kilometers in three days over hilly terrain, I was going to be the only one in the group to have cycled at all in the last half year. Initial excitement made way for anxious pre-ride chatter. Who was going to make it? Who wasn’t? Were the bikes ready? Will the worn-out tires make it? Not only did my friends not ride in the half year before, they had never ridden 100 kilometers or climbed 1,500 meters in one day. The morning of the event was a last-minute scramble to get our stuff together as we got down to the starting line. Once we started the ride, the anxiousness quickly made way for giddy excitement. We were finally on our bikes. The first day turned out to be the toughest one.

The start was in Maastricht, the Netherlands, from where we rode through agricultural fields to the woods of the Belgian Ardennes. The terrain varied from pavement and smooth hardpack to (a little) chunky singletrack. Skinny 35mm tires with no tread left didn’t stop some of us flying downhill. One friend lost a couple of rack screws and a pannier hook on one of the rougher tracks—nothing some zip-ties couldn’t handle. The weather wasn’t on our side, and it drizzled the whole time. The mist did add some mystique to the dense forests. In the end, we barely took a break to make it just before group dinner at 7 p.m. Although the ride is self-supported, the event organizes a communal campsite and dinner at the end of each day. We crossed three borders on our way to our campsite in Germany. We were the proud lantern rouge.

On the second morning, half of the group woke up slowly, while the other half was more eager to get going. I quickly learned that on this trip, everything was going to be at party pace. We left the campground as the last group. The start of the ride was quiet. We were focusing on warming up our sore muscles from the day before. The ones faring worst were most quiet. Starting last meant we didn’t encounter many other riders that day. Again, we crossed borders three times: from Germany to Belgium, back to Germany, and then into Belgium again. What’s amazing about riding in this region is that you never have the slightest clue which country you are in. The Southern Limburg dialect (in the Netherlands) sounds German but is Dutch, the Belgians there speak Flemish, French, and German (dependent on the village), and the Germans, well, they speak German. We switched between bonjour and guten tag numerous times.

The second day had more pavement than the first. It wasn’t too bad though, because it helped us make up some miles. We reached the high point of the route at 688 meters up around lunch. It was raining steadily, and we were hoping to get to the campground a little earlier to socialize under some shelter. But alas, group Lantern Rouge rolled in last again. That night’s campsite was in Eupen, Belgium. The devastation of the big flood in 2021 was very visible here. You could see where the river had swept through, flattening buildings and destroying streets in its way. We camped at a derelict campground that was also impacted in the flood.

On the final morning, we woke up in good spirits. The weather had turned in our favor with blue skies. Realizing the group did two 100-kilometer rides in a row, the remaining 80-kilometer ride sounded like child’s play. We even managed to ride out with other bikepackers, which was fun. The event had attracted a diverse group of riders, with bikepackers from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and even Spain. The majority of today’s ride was in Southern-Limburg, the Netherlands. That region is less forested than the Eiffel or Ardennes, but has a beautifully cultured landscape. On a sunny day, it’s akin to the rolling hills of Tuscany or Central France. We were enjoying the riding very much, basking in the sun and rolling through farm fields. Unlike the days before, the border crossing was more obvious. The moment you enter the Netherlands, the amount of other recreational users skyrockets—it’s a populous country.

We sat down at a terrace for lunch in Gulpen. The Netherlands are famous for cycling, and rightly so. Everybody having lunch at that terrace got there by bike, ranging from the ubiquitous e-bike, to road bikes, and our adventure bikes. After lunch, we set off right away, as we were planning to reach the finish by 4 p.m. We wanted to join the celebratory drink with the rest of the group. Group Lantern Rouge made it just in time!

The drinks at the top of the Sint Pieter, with a view of Maastricht, were a perfect ending to a perfect weekend. The mix of long and challenging riding with the communal campgrounds and dinner were awesome. It was nice to share the day’s experiences with others. On the bike, it’s good to push yourself a bit. It forces you to live in the moment. We blocked next year’s event in our agenda right away, before we even finished our drink. See you next year, Servatius!

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