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.