The Netherlands wins inaugural European Bike Mechanics Championship

Friday, 11 October 2024 Jonathon Harker

Sadly (for UK readers) Blighty didn’t make the top three spots in the 2024 European Bike Mechanics Championship, the inaugural year of the competition.

Doubtless this cruel injustice will be overturned in due course, but for now it is the Netherlands basking in workshop glory.

Hailing from three separate Shimano Service Centers in the Netherlands, Jelmer Bijvang, Berend Bervoets and Kevin Smit (Team Netherlands) were announced the winners of the first-ever European Bike Mechanics Championship. Demonstrating their technical prowess, clear communication and teamwork, their ability to quickly identify and fix complex mechanic issues impressed the judges over the course of the Championship.

First Place: The Netherlands (Jelmer Bijvang, Berend Bervoets and Kevin Smit)
Second Place: Italy (Tommaso Pastorino, Federico Sardu and Davide Bardelloni)
Third Place: Germany (Patrick Rittmann, Klaus Molitor and Erik Stratmann)

Shimano was pleased to host the competitors, who travelled from across Europe (and Brazil – with the championships holding as shaky a grasp of the notion of Europe as Eurovision), as part of the 2024 European Mechanics Championship, which took place 5-7 October 2024 in Mechelen, Belgium (BE). This exciting event shone a spotlight on those who toil in the workshop and keep cyclists across Europe (and the world) moving.

Team Italy and Team NL faced off in an exciting final task that tested their knowledge. Team NL’s Coach and Shimano Benelux’s Retail Store Concept Manager, Kenny van Hummel, said: “I was truly impressed by our guys at the Bike Mechanics Championship this weekend. What stood out to me was their ability to balance speed with precision. They moved efficiently through the tasks, but never at the expense of accuracy, focusing on each step and detail of the challenges before them.

“The past few days have been incredibly exciting, and I’m proud of how our team performed. Berend [Bervoets] was so confident and said it already, ‘We’re going to win this,’ so we weren’t going for anything less. Now, the guys take home with them the experience of competing at the highest level, where they will continue to provide a high-quality level of service back at their Shimano Service Centres.”

The mechanics, who travelled from 14 countries to attend the Championship in Mechelen, competed in a series of technical challenges designed to assess their skills and knowledge in specific areas of bike servicing and maintenance.

The competitors faced seven demanding challenges, with multiple subtasks:

Drivetrain Setup: Installing a SHIMANO CUES front crank, choosing and installing a cassette that is compatible for the CUES drivetrain; fine-tuning the front and rear derailleurs using E-TUBE PROJECT Cyclist to customize SHIMANO ULTEGRA Di2 shift buttons.
Wheel Maintenance: Servicing a freehub, replacing the freehub body and performing a brake bleed.
Shimano E-Bike Systems: Installing a SHIMANO EP5 Drive Unit, and mounting the correct chainrings and cranks, and using E-TUBE PROJECT Professional to diagnose battery errors.
Hub Gear Maintenance: Disassembling, cleaning and reassembling SHIMANO NEXUS internal hub gear.