Ride through the dunes to Hoek van Holland

Bicycle: 64 km 

Riding time:  3:55 h
Total ascent: 272 m
Avg speed:  16.4 km/h
Max speed:  32.0 km/h 
Route: Den Haag - Hoek van Holland - Leiden
Weather: Sunny and clouds but getting colder

Day 2 on the new bicycle. Yesterday when I came home I saw a message from one of the meet-up organizers proposing a ride for today from Den Haag to Hoek van Holland. Since I wanted to ride anyway and riding in a group is also more fun, I signed up. 

Well, we weren't finally a group, just the two of us, but it was still nice enough.

We met up in the centre of Den Haag in front of the Peace Palace, the seat of the international Court of Justice. 

And then rode through the city out to the dunes. 

Only minutes after taking this picture (on top of a dune which I had climbed with some difficulties with my new bicycle), we were both fined with a quite steep fine for riding on a pedestrian-only-way. I hadn't even noticed the sign at the beginning of the lane. Well, at least now I know that riding on pedestrian ways is not tolerated in the Netherlands...

Well, there was nothing to be done, so we continued our ride along the dune to Hoek van Holland. Which is in a strange position. It is just at the end of the Rhine, opposite of harbour of Rotterdam, the largest in Europe. 

But on this end it is a small beach village (well, actually I didn't see the village itself at all, only the "chiringuitos" on the beach). We had lunch in one of the places sitting in the sun and I probably did start to get a sunburn... which however most likely will be the last one of the year and then returned on nearly the same way back to Den Haag, obviously this time avoiding the pedestrian walkway. 

I had hoped to be able to see Crazy Rich Asians in Den Haag, which is no longer on show in Leiden, but the only screening was around 18:00... and we had ended our ride around 14:00.

So I continued on towards Leiden on a bicycle path I knew well straight from Den Haag to Leiden. 

Ride home with my new bicyle

Bicycle: 57 km 
Riding time:  3:27 h
Total ascent: 64 m
Avg speed:  16.5 km/h
Max speed:  30.6 km/h 
Route: Amsterdam to Leiden
Weather: Sunny but getting colder, 12 C


Today I went to Amsterdam to pick up my new bicycle at Vacantiefietser, where I ordered it more than 3 months ago (it didn't obviously help that I was out myself about 2 months, so it was actually there waiting for me since late July). 

After fitting it out in the store with all kind of gadgets one might need (bags, lock, water bottle...) I started my ride home.

Magically my garmin started to work again,  but as it had not been responding to any attempts in the last few days, I didn't have the route on the device. However I had planned out an easy route in Strava the night before (well, I just did let Strava do it all), I could follow the Strava route on the mobile phone and record it on Garmin. 

Specially the first part of the ride out of Amsterdam towards Haarlem was really nice. Although one is riding out of a big city into another city, it is mainly through green. Later on it was for many, many kilometres always along the same river, so very easy to follow. But a bit boring maybe. (Not that cycling in the Netherlands is terribly interesting, landscape wise). I did come by this museum to the power of steam engines and the eternal fight of the Dutch against the water: 

... but I didn't stop to visit and instead continued on.

Coming closer to Leiden, my Strava route foresaw to continue straight, however then I was on known territory and I opted for the detour around Kagermeer, as I was really hungry and had always seen nice restaurants on the lake shore. Well, I tried one, probably the nicest looking of all and had a "schnitzel", but frankly enough it wasn't good at all. Just no flavour whatsoever.

I had gained however sufficient strength for the remaining ride back home, through the fields into the sunset:

Surprisingly the new bicycle isn't very fast. I had thought that it would be much easier / faster to ride than my brompton, but maybe because of the weight (it is REALLY heavy) or maybe the brompton already is quite fast, it wasn't a quick and effortless ride, as I had hoped.

It is however also true that I haven't been cycling for the last 2+ months (with a few exceptions) and my last adventure on the brompton was also very tiring and very short. So maybe it is not the bicycle but the legs on top of it...

Lazy and wobbly - around Leiden

Bicycle: 11 km 
Riding time:  0:45 h
Total ascent: 32 m
Avg speed:  14.3 km/h
Max speed:  26.3 km/h 
Route: Just a bit outside of Leiden
Weather: Sunny autumn, still warm enough to ride in short skirt and half sleeves 

I didn't come very far today, however while saving the ride in Strava, I saw that my last ride (back in Osaka at the beginning of September) was even shorter, so I figured as my first ride back in the Netherlands it still deserved a - short - blogpost.

The ride was plagued by my laziness. Actually weather had been fine all week since I am back in the Netherlands, but yet, no evening I was energetic enough to leave the house. Actually I got totally sucked in by some very funny Youtube videos about Japanese kids. Like this one:

I know... no excuse... 

So tonight finally I was energetic enough to leave work early enough and get on the bike. However even before leaving I noticed that there was not really enough air in the wheels... but as said, laziness struck, so I didn't do anything about it.

I guess this, plus the fact that I have practically not been riding for the last weeks since end July (with one major exception for the all night ride through Tokyo mid August) contributed to the fact that I found it actually quite hard to ride. I hope that it is mainly due to the wheels. It was actually also quite wobbly on the bike, like not enough grip. But no hurry to do anything about that as on Saturday I will go to Amsterdam and "collect" (well the correct verb is BUY) my new bicycle. Then brompton can go for repair and maybe I will bring it back to Japan next time I visit... Let's see. 

Ride on the fortifications of Leiden

Bicycle: 14 km 
Riding time:  0:48 h
Total ascent: 12 m
Avg speed:  17.2 km/h
Max speed:  27.0 km/h 
Route: Fortifications of Leiden * 2
Weather: Sunny and very warm and a bit humid, 24 C

I took the opportunity that my husband was studying Japanese to get out for a quick evening ride before dinner. Again I had not specific idea where to go, until a few hundred meters after leaving home, I discovered that I had forgotten all my water supplies, so I decided to stay as close as possible to home, but still to continue riding. Thus transforming this ride into a a zig-zag line around the moat of Leiden.

I took this picture at the point of return (I didn't do the ride twice in the same directly but once forward and once backward), just to see how the road from the other side looks like.

I think the anti-clockwise ride was slightly better, more straightforward.

Here a picture from a place actually quite close to home... but when I took it I still had more than half of the ride in front of me. In Leiden they always decorate the bridges very nicely with these pink and white flowers.

and a picture of the only surviving windmill in the centre of Leiden, DeValk, which is a huge windmill. Normally a windmill would only start at the level where there is the balcony on this one. But with windmills in the city, they needed to construct them higher and higher to harvest the wind which was otherwise blocked by the houses.

Ride for 2 pictures from Leidschendam

Bicycle: 29 km 
Riding time:  1:47 h
Total ascent: 29 m
Avg speed:  16.1 km/h
Max speed:  31.7 km/h 
Route: Leiden - Vlietland - Leidschendam - Leiden
Weather: Sunny and warm, 21 C

When we asked our friend who was staying for the weekend with us, what he'd like to do today at breakfast, he mentioned that the ride in bicycle yesterday evening was nice... So off we went for an other ride, this time a bit farer out. 

Our first stop was a beach on Vlietland, where we left my husband sleeping on a blanket, while we continued South towards Leidschendam. We didn't have that much time, as our friend needed to get on a bus at 13:45 at Lammerschans, so the two of us "speeded" down the channel to Leidschendam, took two pictures ...

... and back we came to Vlietland, where my husband was already awaiting us along the river to ride more back to Leiden and the bus that would pick up our friend for him to return to Brussels. Japanese style tourism ... but on a bicycle. 

Finally we arrived to Lammerschans from where his bus departed 30 min before departure so had all the time to say our good byes, fold up the poor brompton again and put it in the basket and then riding slowly home with the strange baggage. 

Quick ride out to Kagerplassen

Bicycle: 15 km 
Riding time:  0:57 h
Total ascent: 28 m
Avg speed:  15.7 km/h
Max speed:  28.1 km/h 
Route: Leiden - Kaagerplassen - Leiden
Weather: Sunny and warm, 21 C

This weekend we had a friend from Palermo, now living in Brussels come over for the weekend. When picking him up at the station, Matteo suggested to put the brompton in the box on the handlebar of my city bike. I didn't believe that this would work, but actually it fitted just about, but good enough to ride to the station, unpack there and then have 3 bikes, so that we could ride back home.

In the morning we then did a walk through Leiden, including a few of the hofjes. In the afternoon while everyone else was sleeping happily away on their siestas, I prepared the sweet for the dinner invitation, which freed me up for a short ride in the evening. Our friend also wanted to come along, so we left my husband in the kitchen to prepare the dinner (definitely what he prefers... he would have kicked us out anyway) and went for a quick ride out to Kaagerplassen up to the end of the road, where we relaxed a bit looking at the water and all the passing boats. Before heading back home, where just in front of the house I discovered that my poor husband had been trying to reach me for the last hour as he had run out of olive oil... luckily this lack had a quick fix and the dinner party could start as planned. (Well, I arrive a bit late from the shower, with all guests already here. Still need to get used to Dutch punctuality. In Spain it would have been quite impolite to arrive at the hour of the invitation. Hosts are never ready by then). But no such considerations for hosts in the Netherlands ;-)

Afternoon ride to Boskoop

Bicycle: 50 km 
Riding time:  2:55 h
Total ascent: 64 m
Avg speed:  17.1 km/h
Max speed:  28.8 km/h 
Route: Leiden - Boskoop - nearly Bodegraven - Alphen - Leiden
Weather: Sunny and quite warm, 20 C

Today I decided to stop working quite early (around 16:00) after a week travelling (to Madrid) and working long hours nearly every day. And then set off for a ride out. I hadn't really a specific idea where to go, until about 10 m after I left home when I thought, that I could try for Boskoop. I had never been there, but the cities name obviously sounds juicy. 

I looked at the street signs and found easily some for Alphen aan den Rijn and decided that on the way I would find further signs for Boskoop. 

Here is where I turned away from the Rhein and off towards Boskoop: 

The way to Boskoop was very well indicated. Around Boskoop the number of tree nurseries went up spectacularly and it seemed that the city council had instated a law mandating a well groomed and designed front garden or face death penalty (or at least eternal ousting from the neighbourhood association). Each garden was a show room and many houses on the back end had a tree nursery attached. 

Per Strava it was 20 C on average, but that must be an average which does not account for the local climate in Boskoop where it was really hot, and that although it was probably already past 18:00 when I was there. 

In the centre of the village is an interesting bridge: 

Then I looked at my map and decided not to continue to Gouda, also because it was getting later and it was still quite hot, so I thought that returning would be a good idea. I had thought to ride to Bodegraven and then along the Rhein back, but finally turned briefly before through a nice landscape including this long and shaded avenue:

I would say that the entire ride until Alphen was very nice. In Alphen itself I got lost (not for the first time, grrrr....), although I tried following the street signs for Leiden, but somewhere I must have assumed straight when it was right. 

While riding (well, while stopping during the ride) I was messaging my husband where I was and at some point I told him that I'd be home before 21:00, to which he replied "Okay, we'll meet after the theatre at home"... um... I had totally forgotten about it. But at that moment I was in Alphen at yet an other vertical lift bridge ...

... and nothing I could do about it anymore to arrive in time for the 20:00 theatre performance. 

So here just a bridge performance: 

Which was probably better than the theatre performance anyway from which my husband returned with nearly an hour delay (there was a discussion about the piece afterwards) and quite annoyed at it (hopefully not at me). 

When I finally found the way home from Alphen, I just stopped one more time to get a picture of this  factory slowly falling apart, inappropriately named "Nieuw Werklust"

Just riding

Bicycle: 17 km 
Riding time:  0:54 h
Total ascent: 19 m
Avg speed:  19.1 km/h
Max speed:  ??  km/h (Strava says 74.5 km, but I am positive that thats's wrong)
Route: Straight line out of Leiden and back along the railway tracks to Den Haag
Weather: cloudy but no rain at all, 14 C


After a day working - read: sitting in front of the computer - an hour out in the open and just riding. No goal, just a quick evening ride. When I planned where to go, I wanted an uncomplicated route, easy to follow for just mindless riding. And this straight line did definitely meet that requirement.

As I wanted to be back home around 21:00 (but had started only a bit after 20:00) I turned back at quite exactly 30 min into the ride and came back. The way back didn't have the benefit of tailwind anymore... But still, I made it back in a little bit under 30 min. Total time out: 58 min, total time riding: 54 min. Probably a new record of riding time vs. stopped time.

Picnic on Zoetermeer and then some cycling

Bicycle: 64 km 
Riding time:  4:28 h
Total ascent: 153 m
Avg speed:  16.0 km/h
Max speed:  29.2 km/h 
Route: South to Zoetermeer for some picnic and then later in the afternoon up to the North to Brassemermeer
Weather: Sunny and nicely warm

Today in the morning my husband prepared a cold rice salad, a very Italian family dish, which we didn't eat in ages and then we packed it all up (plus a kg of cherries) and set of for Zoetermeer to have some picnic there. I didn't really know if or where there is a picnic place on that lake, but it seemed likely enough that there should be some.

And hell there was, with beach and everything:

Where everything included a lot of people doing barbecues. On the way to this spot, we also came through a nice village:

After resting on the beach in the shadow of some trees, we returned back home, as my husband needed to travel on to Bologna... So more time for me to cycle.

After a rest at home, I restarted my ride, without a really clear goal, but just thought that going North might be a good idea. So I went. At some point I decided to follow the "Molens & Meerroute"...

... and was "rewarded" by multiple windmills with cows:

... of windmills with cows and sailboats (yes, up there on the right of the windmill is a sailing boat):

It was also a ride to inaugurate a new cycling pants I just bought this week. 

A circle around Leiden

Bicycle: 25 km 
Riding time:  1:31 h
Total ascent: 39 m
Avg speed:  16.6 km/h
Max speed:  44.3 km/h (can this be true???)
Route: Once around Leiden
Weather: Sunny, a bit windy, 21 C

On Saturday I had come back from a long and nice ride in Gelderland with quite some buttock pain and a bright red spot. In the evening I was hardly able to sit on a normal chair and yesterday just riding out to a park on Kagerplassen was not the most enjoyable cycling experience (also because I had to ride on the brompton, as my Citybike doesn't want to keep the air in the tyre... But today it felt better so I decided to get out an give it a try. Wearing my second cycling shorts, so that I don't get the same irritation in the same spot. 

I decided for a ride around the city, both with the idea to be able to return home should the buttock situation get worse and also to get home in case husband was getting home for dinner.  It's not a perfect cycle, and looking at the map below now a posteriori there was definitely room for improvement in this round. Did really miss that river only narrowly. The South and East part of the ride was nice. The North part was simply along a rather major city road, so nothing specially.

I also forgot a lot of stuff today at home: helmet, gloves and water. Only the water could be helped on the road:

But I am happy that I am back on the bicycle without major pain.

Probably no more cycling for the next days, as it is off to Madrid (for work) on Wednesday morning and tomorrow I guess I need to prepare my suitcase... 

Cherry tour around Geldermalsen and then to Utrecht

Bicycle: 87 km 
Riding time:  5:06 h
Total ascent: 138 m
Avg speed:  16.6 km/h
Max speed:  28.1 km/h
Route: Geldermalsen - Culemborg - Leerdam - Geldermalsen - Utrecht
Weather: Sunny, not a single cloud and really warm, 26 C

New all time record for me, 87 km cycling in one day! And actually apart of my buttocks I am feeling pretty fine. Luckily enough they only started hurting in the train back and the last km back home was a pain. The problem seemed to have been the stitches in my cycling shorts. I hope Nivea will do its work.

I met up today in the morning with a group from Meetup at the station in Geldermalsen for a leisurely ride through the Gelderland, a region which seems to be very well known for its fruit fields. Not only cherries as today, but also apples and other fruits, like currants and raspberries.

We pedalled at a perfect (for me) speed through the fields, and after protest of some of the participants stopped at a cherry vending place, where we all bought like half a kg cherries. Mine are already save in my belly. The last I ate in the train back from Utrecht.

The organizer of the ride had thought up a nice route through of about 50 km through a somewhat different Dutch landscape. Less (or maybe even no) polders, much less dairy farming, and a lot of fruit trees.

Close to the cherry spot and actually already quite close to Geldermalsen, we ate in a very nice relaxing garden restaurant on the shores of this river-cum-lake. Food was Dutch. But that can't be helped.

At about km 45 there was an other fruit farm, where they also had many fruit trees and bushes for show and tasting. Like these red currants. A long time I haven't eaten them... probably since picking them last in the garden of my parents many, many years ago. (Not even sure if those bushes are still there... need to check next time I go).

And after about 49 km we were back at the station, where the ride officially ended. However 3 of us thought that it was a great idea to continue just a bit further (well, "just" an other 30 km) to Utrecht. So we left half of the group at the station and rode to Utrecht at pretty much the same leisurely speed, following one of us and his Google Maps. Google Maps brings you (at least in the Netherlands) safely on official bicycle lanes to your destination, BUT it does not necessarily choose the nicest routes. Pretty much the same what Garmin does, when you just give it the destination. I recently downloaded an other app, Komoot, where apparently it is possible to plan a trip following the knooppunt system, which normally runs on much nicer cycling paths. (I am getting totally spoiled here. How am I ever going to be able again to ride in a country like Japan, without a perfect cycling infrastructure???) But no time yet to really look into it. And even if I had, I am still having the problem that my Garmin does not want to connect to my iPhone via bluetooth. Strangely enough it connects perfectly fine to its mobile internet to UPLOAD rides, but not to DOWNLOAD anything. Mysteries of technology (or technological ignorance).

Riding into town we came by this perfect habitat of mussels...

... and this very cute houseboat.

Getting close and closer to Utrecht but not quickly enough for one of the three of us, how had her husband returning today around 18:00 from a business trip, and she still needed to get home. Lucky me ;-) my husband only comes back tonight from his business trip, so I could continue riding at the perfect speed.

At Utrecht station I arrived just perfectly in time for the next train to Leiden. Actually I felt perfectly fine as long as I was on the bicycle and could have easily continued for an other 10 km or so... But Utrecht Centraal it was.

So really a PERFECT DAY. Nice weather (a bit hot, but not too hot), lovely people, great ride, new personnel distance record (the previous one was riding from Bentenjima to Irago in Japan, which however was also coupled with ascent record (for me), good cherries, reasonably nice landscape, and no hills, which I obviously appreciate. 

Silverroute

Bicycle: 29 km 
Riding time:  1:40 h
Total ascent: 29 m
Avg speed:  17.2 km/h
Max speed:  28.1 km/h
Route: Leiden - Voorschoten and back on the Zilverroute
Weather: Sunny, 15 C

After yet an other exhausting work day (today not that many TCs... but a lot of other things to do) some nice evening ride. I started without a real plan where to ride, and just thought that I would follow some signs I found on the road. Well, that explains the strange form of the ride today.

At about km 2 I actually wanted to ride to knooppunt 2 (which is likely around km 7.4) but didn't take the right turn and ended up going somewhere else, on a nice bicycle "highway". At some point of that highway I arrived to a very nice looking river (km 4.5) and I decided to follow that, only to find out pretty quick that it would lead me straight back to Leiden. So I turned back and found an intriguing sign for the "Zilverroute":

There is a number of these routes around Leiden. Windmills, Silver, Limes, Landscape, ... and for some some more. I have yet not had any luck finding them on the internet and suspect that they are only published in some book. They are also not on the ubiquitous knooppunt maps.

So I decided to try and see where this Zilverroute would lead me. And it resulted in a very nice ride, specially in the South-West direction. On a real bicycle highway, but through green fields and houses.

At some point the tour started turning back to Leiden, and I returned as well. I think that in Voorschooten at some point I must have lost the route, as there wasn't any indication for a long time, until out of the blue the indication was there again. In Leiden I again continued on the route, but the last time I saw any indication of it was at km 23.5. I obviously had decided by then to return to Leiden. So no idea if the route just stopped there. At km 26 I found again signs, of the same type of cycle routes, but now for windmill route. So there I knew for sure that I was no longer on the Zilverroute... but at least I am back home. I am also wondering what I was actually supposed to see special on a "Silver" route. It could have been any landscape route I guess, but Silver?

Tomorrow cherry route...

Short evening ride exploring new paths in well trotted territory

Bicycle: 18 km 
Riding time:  1:04 h
Total ascent: 22 m
Avg speed:  16.4 km/h
Max speed:  35.4 km/h
Route: From Leiden to the South end of Kagerplassen
Weather: Sunny, 19 C

After a day full of teleconferences (6 in total) I only managed to start my evening ride shortly before 21:00, so it wasn't so long, but still nice to get out and riding around a bit.

From about km 2 to 4 I was chasing some (very slow) racing bike riders who pedalled away relatively leisurely, and I kind of raced behind them. Still kind of okay speed, but not doable for me for a long time. But it brought me 3 new personal records in Strava on a path I had ridden before.

Well, after a while they became faster (I like to assume that that was the case and not that I became much slower... although that is probably more likely what has really happened), so I broke off an had a brief stop at a lake that I had always only seen from the bike lane but never really approached its shore.

Then I decided to ride to Kagerplassen and actually decided to ride to slight different place, i.e. on the other side of one of those many rivers... but forgot that there is no bridge and the ferry at this hour in the evening is no longer working. So I just drove around a bit at the Southern end of the lake, taking in some very Dutch landscape ...

... and even riding between cows.

no fence there.

Riding back I rode through a few new lanes in a residential area and came finally back just before 22:00.

More tomorrow, hopefully, if meetings allow for it. 

Slightly larger round around Kagerplassen

Bicycle: 36 km 
Riding time:  2:08 h
Total ascent: 42 m
Avg speed:  17.0 km/h
Max speed:  30.6 km/h
Route: Leiden - close to Lisse - Kagersee - Leiden
Weather: Sunny but windy, 20 C

First ride with 45! A nice evening ride to the North of Leiden, a little bit of a bigger round around the Kagerplassen and riding into Lisse, the city of the tulips. Today no tulips though... nor any other flowers on the fields. Too late! Way too late!

Just some windmills...

... some apparently (!) on the field sailing boats (very common sight in the Netherlands, where the water often is higher than the surrounding fields ...

... and a small cruise ship on the Kaperplassen:

Apart from that really nothing special to report. Just out and riding. 

Idroscalo in Milano

Bicycle: 12 km 
Riding time:  1:08 h
Total ascent: 62 m
Avg speed:  10.1 km/h
Max speed:  22.3 km/h
Route: One ride around the idroscalo
Weather: Sunny, 26 C

We came to Milan over the weekend to visit a bunch of relatives, but mainly our appointments with relatives are in the evening, as eating is obviously one of the main activities. Yesterday afternoon we went to an exhibition in the centre and afterwards kind of both thought that for today something more in the countryside would be nice. But real countryside is too far and we don't have a car anyway. So my husband thought of the idroscalo because of this song:

So we went to the idroscalo, originally built as a waterairport cum water sport lake, now only used for water sports and relaxing on the shore and in the small wood.

After relaxing and having a - not so good - quick lunch at one of the bars at the lake, we hired some bicycles ...

... and set of for a round trip around the entire lake - ex-airport.

It might be an ex-airport, but it is just besides the current airport of Linate. So lying in the grass one can see the airplanes taking off. Luckily they don't fly overhead so it is reasonably quiet in the park. In the far distance one could even see the Alps.

Nowadays the lake is used for many different types of water sports, from swimming, playing in water, kanoeing etc, but the one that looked most fun was a waterski "lift" without a motorboat:

Midway through we stopped at one of the bars, got a granita, relaxed a bit and then continued, only to find the last few meters before closing the loop blocked off by the park policy, as there was an emergency helicopter that had just landed. So instead of riding just a little bit out of the park back to our starting point, my husband preferred to ride back the entire way, and I would obviously never protest against a few extra meters on a bicycle.

In Milano city one sees a lot of bicycle shares, mainly from 3 different operators:

• Ofo
• Mobike
• BikeMi

BikeMi is for sure the oldest of these bike sharing offers. I remember having seen it a few years ago when I last came to Milan. It is apparently quite similar to Bicing (in Barcelona) and uses fixed docking stations. Not really sure if it is only open to residents as is Bicing and if you need a subscription. 

The other two, Ofo and Mobike, are both Chinese companies that started quite recently and are flooding now the European markets. I haven't tried any of these, but in Milan both bicycle types seem to be quite ubiquitous. 

But we got very old style park bicycles for our ride. 

A new round around Kaagersee

Bicycle: 29 km 

Riding time:  1:31 h

Total ascent: 49 m

Avg speed:  19.1km/h

Max speed:  33.5 km/h

Route: Leiden - Kaagersee - Leiden

Weather: Sunny and nicely warm, 18 C

After two days without riding, I had time again tonight to have a nice ride around Leiden. This time I nearly repeated a ride I had already done in mid-May, once around the Kaagersee. Many parts of this ride I had already done several times before, so I didn't need to stop a lot to get oriented. This probably contributed to the "high" average speed of 19 km. I think probably the highest average so far riding in the Netherlands. 

A part of the ride is on a windmill roundtrip, which I still haven't found detailed information on (probably need to buy some book...), well, there are a lot of windmills around:

The Kaagersee is a region dominated by water and without a lot of bridges, so this farmer needs to bring his big tractor back home on a very small ferry that is totally occupied with his tractor, "swimming" back to his home, which obviously is a windmill:

The way back from Kaagersee isn't specially nice as it follows for a long part a highway. But I didn't want to try to ride through Sassenheim, as I thought that it might be typical paved (i.e. bumpy) village roads. But the way towards the lake is always nice.