03/21/2024 GENERALI VeloCity Berlin

The route description of the GENERALI VeloCity Berlin 2024

Cycling through Berlin on closed roads

The race starts with a view of the shimmering golden goddess of the Victory Column. With the Straße des 17. Juni, the field has plenty of space to start the race. It can be ridden quickly, which is why the participants only have a short time for the first highlights along the way. After the elegant detour around the Victory Column, the race continues at Ernst-Reuter-Platz onto Otto-Suhr-Allee and Spanndauer Damm. Charlottenburg Palace rises majestically on the right, while the flags of the Berggrün Museum fly on the left, perhaps with one of the many exhibitions on Picasso or Matisse. The course is still fast and the athletes are now on Charlottenburger Chaussee until they have to take a sharp left turn to the south at the Teltower Schanze at kilometre 10.

^{Shortly before the start of GENERALI VeloCity Berlin 2023.}^{SCC EVENTS / Sebastian Wells}

Tour de France stage at GENERALI VeloCity Berlin

Now it gets narrower - the field has to sort itself out - and more idyllic. Avenue trees and old houses from the 1920s line Teltower Straße. You are soon not far from the famous Olympic Stadium and reach the Havelchaussee. The wooded route through the Grunewald forest leads briefly past the Havel with its bays and marina and then to the only real climb on the course: to the Grunewald Tower (also known as the Kaiser Wilhelm Tower or Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Tower) on the Karlsberg. In 1987, this was even a mountain classification in the then Tour de France, when it started with a prologue and two stages (!) in West Berlin. From here, the route takes a right turn and follows the Havel again.

The green lungs of Berlin on two wheels

The ride continues through the Grunewald forest until the peloton - and perhaps the first runaways - approach the A 115 city motorway. Before reaching the motorway, a cycle lane turns sharply left into Kronprinzessinnenweg, where a 1:100 scale model of the Avus Südkurve is located right next to the route. The Avus was a motorway and race track, in use for car racing since 1922, and the first road ever to be approved for cars only. The south bend that was to be built here was not built - the Avus was turned into the city motorway. The route continues along this motorway to Hüttenweg and then on to Onkel-Tom-Straße. The street takes its unconventional name from a Zehlendorf pub whose owner was called Thomas and who liked the novel of the same name.

Cycling idyll at the race in the capital

When Onkel-Tom-Straße meets Argentinische Allee, the cyclists find themselves back in an urban setting. They are heading towards the Free University of Berlin! In front of the university on Thielallee, the fields split at kilometre 30 ... for the 60-kilometre lap, the route goes left, for the 100-kilometre riders who still want to get to Brandenburg, it goes right. If you are riding the 60 kilometres, follow Thielallee northwards and then turn right into Königin-Luise-Straße.

You are now in the suburb of Dahlem. The route passes directly by Domäne Dahlem, which once supplied Berlin with milk and is now an agricultural museum. On the right is a thatched underground station - built on the orders of Kaiser Wilhelm II himself - which was intended to emphasise the rural character of the area. Grunewaldstrasse and Attilastrasse reconnect to the shared route on Manteuffelstrasse.

Trip to Brandenburg – at GENERALI VeloCity Berlin

For the 100-kilometre riders, the course leads south along Thielallee, directly past the Rostlaube and Silberlaube buildings of the FU Berlin (the nicknames of these university buildings have long been official), out towards Brandenburg. Drakestraße heads straight south until a right turn into Karwendelstraße, which continues through Finckensteinallee (Federal Archives). At kilometre 38, you leave the city of Berlin and enter Brandenburg. The GDR wall once ran right along the current state border.

Today, a memorial plaque with the inscription "Here Germany and Europe were divided until 31 March 1990 at 10 a.m." commemorates the former border. The Wall Trail now follows the course of the Wall and invites you to take a hike steeped in history. With Kleinmachnow, the bacon belt of Berlin awaits the peloton before the route becomes really rural and passes through the state of Brandenburg.

^{Participants on the 100-km route can enjoy the Brandenburg wide open spaces.}^{SCC EVENTS / Sebastian Wells}

Speed on the bike across a flat landscape

The Potsdamer Allee now continues westwards - and if you were to follow it, you would come to South Potsdam and Babelsberg to the famous film studios. But the route turns off after kilometre 45, not far from the Güterfelde Soviet Memorial, where an obelisk commemorates the Soviet prisoners of war who perished in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The route continues southwards, and now there is plenty of nature, time to breathe a sigh of relief.

The flat Brandenburg landscape allows the cyclists to go for speed. The cyclists reach Stahnsdorf, home to one of the largest sports clubs in the state of Brandenburg (RSV Eintracht 1949) with 3,000 members. In Ahrensdorf, the southernmost part of the course, the athletes turn the corner and the route slowly heads north again. Just over half of the 100-kilometre loop is now complete.

We ride (again) to Berlin

Passing Großbeeren, the participants reach the Bundesstraße 101, an absolute race route, so that the riders get back to Berlin quickly - around 73 kilometres have now been covered. The route now takes them through Marienfelde until they are back on the same route as the 60-kilometre race. The peloton leaves the former Tempelhof Airport on the right, which today serves as an EXPO area for sporting events such as the BMW BERLIN-MARATHON and the GENERALI BERLIN HALF MARATHON, which, like the GENERALI VeloCity Berlin, are organised by SCC EVENTS.

The site where the airlift planes once landed is now a recreational area and park that has so far resisted every development proposal by referendum. An alternative community garden, the Allmende-Kontor, and other projects have found their place here. Kiters and skaters enjoy the wide area.

^{As with the GENERALI VeloCity Berlin 2023, this year's course will also run along the capital's closed roads.}^{SCC EVENTS / Sebastian Wells}

Past many Berlin highlights towards the home straight

Berlin highlight follows Berlin highlight: German Museum of Technology, Tempodrom, Anhalter Bahnhof, Checkpoint Charlie. Nearby is the WELT balloon, which, filled with helium, rises to 150 metres. Fixed to the ground with a steel cable, it offers a spectacular view over Berlin. The Michaelbrücke bridge leads to Strausberger Platz. However, the active cyclists should now concentrate on riding. The monumental Karl-Marx-Allee (formerly Stalinallee) invites you to accelerate once again.

You are already on Alexanderplatz with its television tower and a notorious hotel (the towering Stadthotel, later the Forumhotel, where the West's celebrities were interrogated). The course circles the city centre, the former East Berlin, on Torstraße with its small shops, cafés and galleries. Right at the beginning of Torstraße, the cyclists are greeted by an imposing building: the former Jonass department stores' was the first "credit department stores'" in the 1920s, offering the opportunity to buy things on instalments. The TV series "Das Haus der Träume" and the novel "Torstraße 1" brings it back to life.

Final spurt with a view of the Brandenburg Gate

The cyclists don't have much time for this, however, as a right turn takes them further and they fly through Tucholsky-Straße, race past the Friedrichstadt-Palast and reach the Spreebogen, where the political heart of Berlin beats with the Bundestag and the Chancellery, finally back to the Tiergarten, past the Victory Column once again. And off to the finish. The finish takes place in front of the Brandenburg Gate.