My colleague Wim ter Brake and I, we recognised the cycling sport as a vehicle for the promotion of this festival, named by us after the homonymous bicycle road race De Hel van het Noorden*. During the first edition soundbites of this cycling event could be heard blaring over the Schouwburgplein (the City Theatre Square) in the city of Groningen (the Netherlands), along with authentic looking white painted cycling texts on the asphalt. Go Poulidor! one could sometimes come across during the Tour de France, even when he was already dead. A slightly amazed Raymond van het Groenewoud featured on our first poster. The second year would also prove to be the top of the climb for this festival, because after that edition things started to slow down … (i.e. it was taken out of competition / picked up by the broom wagon)

* This refers to the Paris–Roubaix cycling race, a one-day professional bicycle road race in northern France, starting north of Paris and finishing on the Belgian border. This classic race is famous for its rough and hellish conditions thus earning the title De Hel van het Noorden, l’enfer du Nord or The Hell of the North.