Whether it’s over the mountains of the Black Forest and the Vosges or through the Rhine Valley, the five stages of the Tour Eucor cover all tastes and ability levels. At 8 am on June 5, 2018 the 120 cyclists will start the tour at Karlsruhe Palace, taking them to the Eucor university cities of Karlsruhe, Strasbourg, Mulhouse, Basel and Freiburg. The destination for the cycling students, employees and alumni of the five universities is Ehrenhof at KIT Campus South from about 5 pm on June 9.
“Being active and out and about together, experiencing the European idea of life – that’s what the Tour Eucor has been about for us for many years,” says Benjamin Litz who is responsible for coordinating the tour this year with two other students from KIT. Depending on their sporting ambition, participants can choose from six tours with varying degrees of difficulty: with steep climbs to the Grand Ballon in Alsace or the Black Forest Belchen, or a more relaxed ride along the Rhine. “Having fun and meeting people from other nations comes first for us though. So having lunch together and, if possible, spending breaks together is all part and parcel of each stage,” says Litz. Before the start of the tour, Professor Thomas Hirth, Vice President for Innovation and International Affairs at KIT and at Eucor – The European Campus, will welcome the cyclists.
Among the sporting highlights on the second day this year is the Grand Ballon in the Vosges which leads the two most ambitious groups to a height of 1,343 meters. What’s more, five of the six groups will climb the Black Forest Belchen (1,360 meters) on the way from Basel to Freiburg. Further highlights include the Schelten Pass, Thurner and the Route de Lac de Blanchemer.
The six groups can be tracked live on the website of the KIT Tour Eucor student club www.tour-eucor.org.
Follow our Instagram page for impressions from each day: www.instagram.com/toureucor
Reinhold Würth is the patron of this year's Tour Eucor. The KIT Honorary Senator is the Chairman of the Supervisory Board at Würth Foundation which promotes a large number of projects in arts and culture, research, science and education.
The Tour Eucor has been organized by a group of 14 people from all Eucor universities; a team of 14 volunteers from the KIT Department of Economics and Management will be in charge of food and luggage transport.
The Tour Eucor 2018 in numbers:
- 120 participants from five universities
- Between 600 and 900 kilometers covered depending on the ability level
- Seven escort vehicles
- Provisions including: 60 kg of pasta, 42 kg of ravioli, 3,175 liters of water, 27 kg of iced tea powder, 1,260 effervescent tablets, 2,294 muesli bars, 67 kg of bananas, 67 kg of apples and 70 cakes.
Eucor – The European Campus
Eucor – The European Campus – is a confederation of KIT and the Universities of Basel, Freiburg, Strasbourg and Upper Alsace, forming a tri-national higher education network that currently includes 115,000 students and 15,000 researchers. The aim of this cooperation is to bring together the strengths of each university in joint research projects and give students free access to the range of courses offered by the other universities. There are plans to expand the confederation into a research and science network with an international presence to facilitate joint appointments, joint staff and joint applications for research funding, and to intensify the establishment of integrated study programs. Eucor – The European Campus builds on long-standing cooperation between the Upper Rhine universities. In 1989, they joined forces to form a cross-border network under the name of Eucor.
More information on the Tour Eucor: www.tour-eucor.org
More information on Eucor – The European Campus: www.eucor-uni.org
Further material:
The Tour Eucor on Instagram:
www.instagram.com/toureucor
Live tracker: www.tour-eucor.org
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