What is Rhine-on-Skates?

Rhine-on-Skates is a guided inline skating tour on smooth German roads along the river Rhine in the UNESCO world heritage site Upper Middle Rhine valley (Rhine Gorge), passing vineyards, castles and the famous rock of the Loreley - an experience of unique scenery!

Date:

• 2012, 25th August (Saturday)
• Start probably at 9:00 a.m..

Route:

• Start and Finish: Rüdesheim am Rhein (... and in the evening: party!)
• Total length: 135 km (84 miles)
• There will be several breaks with water and food supply, probably in St. Goar (30 minutes), Koblenz (> 1 hour, pasta!) and St. Goarshausen (30 minutes).
• It is possible to skate only parts of the route e.g. between the break sites; each section will be approx. 30 - 35 km.
  • e.g. skate from Rüdesheim to St. Goar, leave the convoy there, have a long lunch break, cross the river by ferry, finally join again and skate with the convoy to Rüdesheim,
  • or skate "as long as it goes well" (e.g. starting in Koblenz) and travel either back or further by train (there is a station every few kilometers),

What else to know:

• We will be skating as a convoy, escorted by police in front and behind, accompanied by ambulances and buses for stragglers. Breaks will be in St. Goar, Koblenz (long lunch break) and St. Goarshausen. In addition, there will be short gathering stops in between. At the breaks in St. Goar and St. Goarshausen there will be drinks and bananas available.
• Please wear full protection gear - a helmet is obligatory!
• Everyone who can skate and brake safely and is sufficently fit (speed will be 20 km/h for longer passages at the end of the convoy, slightly faster at the head of the field) is welcome to join.
• Register until June 10th to save money! :-)
• How to get there, where to stay - scroll below on this page!

Registration

• Registration form
• General Conditions of Participation and Terms of Business.

Registration fee

Registration date	fee/person	Remarks
Until June 10th	35 Euro	additional processing fee possible, see below (*)
June 11th until July 20th	42 Euro	additional processing fee possible, see below (*)
July 21st until August 10th	48 Euro	credit card only (Eurocard/Mastercard or Visa), incl. processing fee
August 25th	60 Euro	cash only, at the start in Rüdesheim

(*) In the first registration phases, you can chose between several methods of payment. For each phase, there's one method without processing fee (However this does not cover fees that may be incurred from the your account holding bank!), for other methods, you will pay up to approx. 2 Euro/person additionally. The complete sum will be shown in the payment section of the registration process.

What others write about Rhine-on-Skates ...

"We had a thoroughly amazing time, as we always do at this unique event. Organisation was brilliant and everyone was so friendly."

(steveh about Rhine-on-Skates 2011 on serpentineroad.com)

"Don't forget the great opportunity to skate on quality German roads - the 135km round trip riverside jaunt that is the Rhine-on-Skates! Rhine -on-Skates is an organised skate tour conducted at a steady pace with regular food and water stops from Rudesheim am Rhein to Koblenz and back (i.e. 68km there, 68km back). The route is along the banks of the river Rhine which means it's flat - there's only one real hill during the entire 135km - and the area is UNESCO world heritage listed and packed full of picturesque castles, forests, river views, etc. Hundreds of people take part each year and if you comfortably complete the LFNS or LondonSkate on a regular basis then the Rhine-on-Skates should be within your ability. For full details see the Rhine-on-Skates English home page at: http://www.rhine-on-skates.de/english.html "

(Text about Rhine-on-Skates 2010, taken from the newsletter of www.lfns.co.uk, with minor modifications)

... and photos and more:

Many photos, videos and (mostly german) reports from Rhine-on-Skates 2003-2011 are linked on our photo page!

(Mail us an URL to your photo page, and we'll place a link!)

How to get there, where to stay

We start at 9:00 CEST (7:00 UTC / GMT), in D-65385 Rüdesheim am Rhein, "Auf der Lach" (for GPS fans: N 49°58.712', E 7°55.848' - N 49°58'42.8", E 7°55'50.9" - 49.97855 N, 7.93080 E)

How to get there

Rüdesheim am Rhein is on the right side of the Rhine river. You can get there by train from Wiesbaden, Koblenz, Frankfurt, ...

• Watch out: There are other places called Rüdesheim - our Rüdesheim ist the one with the post code 65385 (Rüdesheim (Rhein) or Rüdesheim am Rhein).
• Maps:
  • Interactive Google map
  • Maps on our German language page
• Timetables for public transport in Germany at deutschebahn.com (train station: Rüdesheim am Rhein)
• Airports: Frankfurt Airport (IATA code: FRA) and Frankfurt-Hahn Airport (IATA code: HHN) are the closest airports. FRA is closer to Rüdesheim than HHN and has by far better train/bus connections to/from Rüdesheim.
• Check the english forum serpentineroad.com (Events section) for discussions about Rhine-on-Skates.

Where to stay

We recommend staying in Rüdesheim am Rhein. Alternatives are the neighbouring towns. Bingen am Rhein is connected by ferries (until midnight!), Assmannshausen, Geisenheim, Eltville, ..., Wiesbaden by bus or train.

• Tourist Centre Rüdesheim, Phone: +49 (0)6722 90615-0
• Accommodation in Rüdesheim (ruedesheim.de), hrs.de
• Camping site Rüdesheim (about 1 km from start/party location, does not accept reservation, however has enough space for us - many skaters meet here!)

Contact (English speaking)

• anmeldung [at] rhine-on-skates [dot] de

Further information in English ...

Sorry, we're still too lazy eh busy to translate all German pages ...

• Further information in english language will hopefully be available later on.
• Until then:
  • Try reading our German pages.
    • Dictionary: Use this excellent german-english online dictionary to translate single words: dict.leo.org
  • translate.google.com or babelfish.yahoo.com provides a rough translation:
    • translate.google.com-version of rhine-on-skates.de
    • Babelfish-version of rhine-on-skates.de
    Note: The automatic translation is not really perfect, but better than nothing; e.g., Bingen (name of a city) is being "translated" into being gene ...

If you want to be reminded as soon as more English text is available, please register for the WNS Newsletter by sending a mail to inlinemzwi-subscribe@yahoogroups.de (mostly German, important Rhine-on-Skates updates also in English), or follow @rhineonskates on Twitter, or join our Facebook group.

Francais

• Veuillez trouver l'information en français sur le forum belge de RouliRoula. Veuillez cliquer ici: http://www.rouliroula.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=297
• rhine-on-skates.de en francais ("traduit" avec fr.babelfish.yahoo.com)
• rhine-on-skates.de en francais ("traduit" avec translate.google.com)