The #TourofHolland gives us the opportunity to introduce the geologically most puzzling mountain of Europe: the Col du VAM! The Dutch province of Drenthe is world-famous for Pleistocene ice age erratics: blocks of gneiss and granite that were transported from Sweden and Finland by giant glaciers.

During the Holland Tour, the peloton will pass the Geulhemerberg! See @melanieduring.com's clip about the treasures hidden along the climb! www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkM7...

And check out our 2-minute clip, with @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social about the Alblasserwaard's history, made last year for the Tour de France Femmes! www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZSZ...

The Holland Tour is racing through our backyard! See this blog we wrote last year about the geology of the Alblasserwaard, the scene of today's stage :) And don't forget to listen to @josebeentv.bsky.social 's reporting at Eurosport! www.geo-sports.org/2024/stage-2...

So, some background for the start of @lavuelta.bsky.social…and oddly, the best way to do that is by telling you about the geology of Milano-San Remo 😃. The first days will be about the Po Plain and the Ligurian Alps! Enjoy! www.geo-sports.org/2024/geology...

The Tour de France Femmes is climbing the Alps! Did you know the Alps are made of cheese? @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social explains in this clip! youtu.be/7wkFVQaMdo8?...

The Classica San Sebastian will race along the Basque North Coast! @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social made some clips about the beautiful geological goodies of the Basque Country! The trace fossils in the Black Flysch for instance! youtu.be/BWGPKmuo6Zw?...

The TdFF races through the Devonian of the northern Massif Central today. Marj and @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social imagined racing a Tour stage back then, 400 million years ago, in this ‘23 clip! 🐟 youtu.be/VFXoz3pSPec?...

And why is the Jura such a strange, croissant-shaped mountain belt in front of the Alps? Marj will tell you! youtu.be/CMeyN5AMGAU?...

Racing through the Jura today! In ‘23 and ‘24 we made two clips about its geological wonders! Like dinosaur footprints! youtu.be/N7hmLLasZrk?...

Clearly, geology raised its ugly head again - literally - to make the Ventoux. And its structure has funny ways in influencing the race 🤓🤠

One more Pyrenees stage! And luckily, we have one more Pyrenees clip! How the deepest rocks end up on the highest peaks! youtu.be/0t4EifLi-zU?...

While watching the ride to the Pyrenees, it's always striking how abrupt the transition is from the flat lands of the Aquitaine basin to the steep mountain slopes. Two years ago, Marj Naudé explained where this sharp change comes from! youtu.be/H7YIk3DnCug?...

Pyrenees! Mine country! Time for the 2024 story of Metal & Rock! youtu.be/tImHaE0i9w4?...

While riding over the Cantal volcano 🌋 - Europe’s largest, it’s time to tell the story how a volcanic eruption led to the invention of the bike! @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social @uugeo.bsky.social youtu.be/mLzFcPAZNAA?...

A ride through the volcanic fields of the Massif Central today! Time to tell the story of Mary again! Take it away, Marj! youtu.be/6LPwKGLCHFU?...

OK, so we decided not do skip a GeoTdF year, but this stage is so boring that it's begging for some geo-info! We're riding along the North Sea coast towards Dunquerque. But even as recent as 20.000 years ago, there was no coast here! During the last ice age, the Channel was dry!

OK, so we won't do a detailed GeoTdF this year, but we couldn't help ourselves...the geology of the Ventoux is quite clearly correlated with scenes during the climbs. For example, the famous 2016 incident that left Chris Froome running up with a broken bike - clearly geologically pre-determined.

Unfortunately, we won't make GeoTdF clips for Dutch (NOS) and UK (ITV) television this year. Our grants ran out, and science & teaching life got the better of us. But it's not for lack of ideas. Just looked into the Ventoux. Wouldn't be a problem at all to make a 2 minute Geo-Cycling video there :D

Patrick de Wever and friends from the Geological Society of France have provided the Geology of the Tour de France 2025! (In French) 👇🏽👇🏽

geo-cycling coming up in Ireland!

In Irish cycling, the 5-day Rás Tailteann starts tomorrow in Drogheda, and inspired by @geotdf.bsky.social I'm aiming to do a daily post looking at the geology crossed or passed by the riders. This year the route passes lots of interesting geology - I hope I can do it justice! 1/4

The Giro will set the first foot in Italy today! Although, geologically speaking, Puglia is the African plate of course! Read up on the geology of the Giro d’Italia in out blog, and we’ll give you the highlights during the race in the next few weeks! www.geo-sports.org/2024/the-geo...

The Giro d'Italia started in Albania, but the riders who are used to Italy will feel geologically right at home! Just like the Apennines, the Albanides (and the Dinarides to the North and Hellenides to the South) are made of rocks that were once part of the continent (Greater) Adria!

The Giro d'Italia started in Albania, but the riders who are used to Italy will feel geologically right at home! Just like the Apennines, the Albanides (and the Dinarides to the North and Hellenides to the South) are made of rocks that were once part of the continent (Greater) Adria!

10 more days to apply to this great opportunity at Utrecht University: Come join us as a new Assistant Professor in Seismology! Spread the word :) www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

Geology of #LBL! @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social explains how the riders in the Ardennes do not climb up mountains, but out of valleys! Check it out in our video 👇🏽 @uugeo.bsky.social #geology #scicomm youtu.be/w4WDYuYwfgk?...

The Dutch Amstel Gold Race is of course our favorite race of the year! That's why we have two clips about the geology of the Amstel! @melanieduring.com made this one for the Tour de France Femmes last year, but it is about the Geulhemmerberg! Enjoy! #scicomm #geology www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkM7...

Geology of the Amstel Gold Race! Brought to you by Marjolein Naudé 😃🚴‍♀️⚒️ #scicomm #geology @uugeo.bsky.social youtu.be/eZpLfavOB3A?...

The Dutch Amstel Gold Race is of course our favorite race of the year! That's why we have two clips about the geology of the Amstel! @melanieduring.com made this one for the Tour de France Femmes last year, but it is about the Geulhemmerberg! Enjoy! #scicomm #geology www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkM7...

No Paris-Roubaix without a geology story! Marjolein Naudé explains in this clip how the Hell of the North froze over and made the muddy, dusty mess we all love so much! And read more in our blog: www.geo-sports.org/2024/geology... youtu.be/R00JSTLw-f0?...

Tour of Flanders day! 🤠🤠 Last year, we made this clip about the Geology of the Tour of Flanders: why are those hills so steep? Check it out below, and have fun today! youtu.be/Sq-AvUHGKf4?...

Milano-San Remo day! For hours, the peloton will cross the Po Plain - an up to 8 km thick pile of sand and clay dumped from the Alps and Apennines. River terraces form steps in the flat surface and make natural rice fields for risotto rice! Read this and more in our blog! @uugeo.bsky.social

For those of you who are Tired Of All This Shit, we bring you: The relationship between volcanism and the invention of the bicycle! We made this clip, with @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social, for last year's Tour de France stage over the Cantal Volcano, and its highest remaining peak, Puy Mary ❤️🤠

Ooh...the #TourdeFrance 2027 will start in Scotland and then go to Wales...that's gonna be some awesome geo-racing! Maybe we should consider making a few clips about that again then 🤠!

Strade Bianche day! The famous white gravel roads of Tuscany promise another epic battle on the bike. But where do the white gravels come from? Tuscany’s subsurface consists of marble: bright white crystals of calcium carbonate. These are famously mined in western Tuscany, in the Carrara quarries.

Also Australia is shaking: the intraplate faults of the Flinders Range, last month the stage for the Tour Down Under, are moving.

Earthquake action in Tour Down Under land 😬

Geology of the Tour of Oman! - The peloton may think that they're riding through desert mountains this week, but for a geologist, they're riding through the deep ocean, and the mantle below that ocean! Oman is one of the favorite geo-destinations: the world's most beautiful 'ophiolite'. #Geoscience

The pro-cycling peloton is racing the Al'Ula Tour in Saudi Arabia this week, territory of spectacular cliffs of sandstones, deserts, and young volcanoes. The cliffs around AlUla formed in shallow seas, ~500 million years ago, but to the South Polar, as part of the supercontinent 'Gondwana'.

There was a 'decent one' (M 4.5) last week!

Well, here we go again with a GeoTdF cycling season! No longer on the dark side, but under the blue blue sky!

And off we go with the 2025 geo-road cycling season 🥳🚴‍♀️🤠! The Tour Down Under brings the peloton to Adalaide, in the middle of the Australian plate. If you were afraid of earthquakes, you'd think this would be a safe place, as most earthquakes occur at plate boundaries. But you'd be wrong 😑.

We're looking for a new junior writer to join our editorial team. Full details of the role and how to apply can be found here: www.rouleur.cc/pages/junior...

Today is the day of the Dutch Championships Headwind Cycling, where pro riders get beaten by the mailman! It will be a mild edition, with only a 6-7 Bft westerly wind, but the race parcours is chosen such that there is zero protection: the 9 km long Oosterschelde dam! A dam with a history.

We kriehen sturm! 🌬️ Forget the Tour de France: the Dutch Headwind Cycling Championships will be held on Dec 7! An 8 Bft storm will blow on the 9 km long Oosterschelde dam, and 300 racers will battle it on city bikes. We'll be there with the Geology of Shit Weather! www.zeeland.com/en/live-work...

They were all posted here on @bsky.app, but if you wanna scroll through our #SciComm Geology of the Tour de France 2023 and 2024 videos and of the spring classics, with @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social and Marjolein Naudé, also check out our Youtube channel: youtube.com/@geo-sports?...

In the last couple of years, we’ve had a lot of fun telling about the geological backgrounds behind cycling races. Last summer, we wrote this article about the project in Geology Today. With @josebeentv.bsky.social, @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/1365...

Normandy, Brittany and Mont Ventoux...just as we ran out of funding for clips 😭. Ow man, there's so much to tell there!