Mini Meet-up team ride from Amsterdam to Uithoorn... and home to Leiden

Bicycle: 55 km 
Riding time: 3:31 h
Total ascent: 63 m
Avg speed: 15.3 km/h
Max speed: 25.6 km/h

Route: Amsterdam RAI - Uithoorn - Leiden

Weather: Sunny and getting warmer and warmer, 24 C

About a week ago I saw in meet-up a team event for today, a ride from Amsterdam to Uithoorn following the Amstel river. I signed up, but the meeting organizer never informed us about the meeting location. So finally yesterday afternoon I proposed to meet at Amsterdam RAI, a convenient place quite close to Amstel river. Finally we were only 2, others already excused themselves yesterday, the organizer was somewhere else, actually not too far, but she apparently never checked her messages though even we waited for her a bit longer, she never came... So well, we were only two, but set out to Uithoorn. 

The ride along the river Amstel was quite nice, with villages full of splendid looking houses facing the river:

Also a lot of other cyclists took the opportunity for a day out. There are essentially two types of cyclists.

1) the racers

2) the tourists

The racers, well race. Are equipped apparently well (not that I really understand anything about it), but they all seem to be serious about racing and not so much interested at all in their surroundings.

While the tourists, well they are there to have a nice day. Not necessarily to do actually tourism, but to just travel at a leisurely pace along the river. 

The surprising thing about this ride was Uithoorn itself. I had no idea about the town, but after all the nice towns along the river and by the fact that this was our proposed end destination, I expected a small, nice Dutch city. I could not have been much wronger. The city of Uithoorn is small, but anything but beautiful. Not only is there a big chemical plant along the river at the entrance to the village, but also quite a lot of abandoned office buildings, houses missing in the city centre and a very ugly shopping district. Really surprising. No idea why the meeting organizer (who finally didn't even make it to the appointment) decided on this town as the final destination. Maybe simply by distance. And one has to admit that the ride along the river was definitely nice. We had something to eat (well, in the line of the rest of Uithoorn, not very good) on the river bank and then parted. My co-rider returned slowly to Amsterdam, while I continued onwards back to Leiden.

I had planned out a tour on Garmin for my return. Initially following the river and then at some point over to Alphen and back home.

Cycling along there were some very narrow cycling lanes, half occupied by sheep looking puzzled at all these frequent cyclists. Probably asking themselves why there is such a change in cyclists from day to day and what those people do on those days, they do not come to their pasture.

It got hotter and hotter, so at some point I stopped at a picnic table on a playground with marvellous shadow to cool a bit down. And then continued my way down to the river.

The ride was quite nice until getting into Alphen. I had planned out the ride on Garmin, but not with a lot of attention to the details. So I ended up cycling through what must be the less appealing neighbourhoods of Alphen. Even came by 2 (!) jails. And it continued to get hotter and hotter and I had packed only one bottle of water.

Luckily enough finally at Koudekerk I found a nice garden restaurant, where I had something to drink an icecream (not terribly nice) and was able to use the restroom and fill up my water bottle again. After some break there I restarted my final kilometers back to Leiden.

So far in my few rides in direction Alphen I have not yet really found a nice place. One day I really need to ride through Alphen proper to see if the ENTIRE city is so dull as the parts I have seen so far.

But the area behind and in the greater surroundings of Alphen is really nice. To be explored in further trips.