LOTTO Thüringen Women Challenge

Old-school cycling, the kind from the other side of the Iron Curtain -the race was born in 1986-, meets the reasonably healthy modernity of today's women's peloton in the one-day race that succeeds the Tour of Thuringia.

The Lotto Thüringen Ladies Tour had to be cancelled in 2025 when the organisers lost the state government subsidy that funded the event and had nearly carried it into the Women's WorldTour. Now an ember of that race returns, a tribute starting and finishing in Gera, one of the regular host towns of this race in eastern Germany.

The route isn't built to blow the peloton to pieces, but it makes for an interesting semi-classic. On the closing circuit the Ferberturm is climbed six times: 1,600 m at five and a half percent, with the last summit seven kilometres from the line. A good chance for resilient sprinters or for the puncheurs.