Picture: Derk Thijs ascending the Alp d’ Huez

For the Rowingbike Tour de France an intermediate Snek was added to achieve the highly desired low gearing. However, this system shifted very poorly and it was never sold. It’s a small miracle the shifting system made it through the Tour de France, back in 2001. It did eat two steel propulsion cables a day on mountainous days :-)

The Rowingbike Tour de France was a turning point in several ways: it resulted in new technical developments and it encouraged quite some potential rowingbike riders to actually buy a rowingbike.