Utrecht gets longest rainbow bike path in the world

Van Rens is realizing the colorful bike path with eight paint colors, totaling over 2,000 liters of paint. For this project Hogeschool Utrecht, Utrecht University and UMC Utrecht joined forces. With the rainbow bike path, the three institutions want to show that everyone is welcome to be completely who they are.  

A rainbow bike path with eight different colors on 2,600 square meters. "As far as we know, this has never been done before, especially on such a large area" says project manager Altwin Ponstein of Van Rens. "Normally we work mainly with white and yellow road markings and sometimes a red or green area. For this project, Veluvine, our regular material supplier, had to customize most of the colors. The color brown they had never made before." For each color, the factory ran a day to realize enough paint. 

Colorful and safe cycling

The rainbow is built up by color. We start with the color strip green and after a week all colors are applied and the rainbow is visible. "We work precisely and with small equipment, after every 60 meters we have to top up the paint to get a nice tight whole" says Hans Willems, project manager at Van Rens. "After applying the color, a layer of anti-slip granules goes over it to prevent the bike path from becoming slippery. We provide - together with the material supplier - a five-year quality guarantee for adhesion and skid resistance. Every year a skid resistance measurement is carried out to check whether the markings meet the skid resistance requirements. "Because safety comes first; slippery roads are the last thing we want."  

At the end of this week, when the rainbow is up, the Progress Pride flag will be realized off Building 97. The rainbow flag with an additional triangle of white, light pink, light blue brown and black. "This is truly handwork, so many colors on a 4-by-6-meter area cannot be done with machines," Ponstein said. "A unique project that pioneers, brings out craftsmanship but most of all makes a statement to let everyone be who they are."