Meet-up ride: Haarlem to Den Haag

Bicycle: 71 km 

Riding time: 4:09 h
Total ascent: 241 m
Avg speed: 17.2 km/h
Max speed: 37.4 km/h 
Route: Haarlem - Noordwijk - Den Haag - Leiden
Weather: Cloudy and tailwind, 17 C

Today Hans from the Den Haag Meet-up group organized a ride from Den Haag to Haarlem... well, at least that was the initial intention. But seeing the wind forecast he very wisely inverted the direction to be Haarlem - Den Haag, which gave us a nice tail wind while riding over the dunes. 

We met up at Haarlem station, actually most participants arriving on the same train. Just when we came out of the station it started to drizzle lightly... grr... it also looked very grey. But well, there we were, nothing to be done than start riding. Which we did after Kasia and I clad ourselves in our protective clothing. 

We passed quickly through the main square of Haarlem and already there the drizzle stopped (so probably after 5 minutes or so). Hans then guided us expertly out of the city on on the dunes. Kasia and I after a while stripped out of our rain clothes again, never to wear them again for the rest if the ride. 

The ride then was over the dunes, which offer a surprisingly varied landscape. Open sandy zones, but also forested areas. 

Shortly before Noordwijk we were hold up by a half marathon (or at least some running event) with thousands of participants:

Shortly after, in Noordwijk we had our lunch stop at a nice beach restaurant, and although it was really windy, we got a good table right in a corner protected from the wind, so that when the sun came out, it got actually nicely warm there. Otherwise, although we at 14th of July... it was more like an autumn weather. But not too bad for riding a bicycle, specially as it never rained again. 

We had a relaxed lunch together and then a few of us - me included - went for a short walk along the beach and getting our feet wet. But the water was cold. There were nearly no swimmers in the water, only a few surfers, but well dressed surfers.

Then we continued on paths that I know better from my frequent evening cycling tours, always along the sea and to Den Haag. Somewhere along the ride, when we had anyway stopped to regroup, I "assaulted" some passing hikers, and we got a nice group picture taken:

As always with these Meet-ups it is nice to ride a bicycle, but it is even nicer to just chat with the other people on the ride while being on your bicycles and more or less leisurely riding along. In 7 one can easily chat with everyone for some time, get to know new people. So really a great invention! 

Arriving in Den Haag Hans guided us to the very centre where we had a last drink all together, before slowly splitting up. I had decided to cycle back to Leiden and Kasia did come along as well, with a half idea to maybe cycle the entire way back to Amsterdam... but then we had the wind against us. It wasn't super hard, but definitely a noticeable difference. 

Tomorrow more, but then only around Leiden (around Kagerplassen).

Actually today was my first ride in like 10 days, as the weather this week wasn't very good, yesterday I was too lazy and last weekend we went with other friends from an other Meet-up to do canoeing in Utrecht, which was a lot of fun and surprisingly wasn't so hard as I thought... 

Meet-up ride around Den Haag

Bicycle: 84 km 

Riding time:  4:40 h
Total ascent: 129 m
Avg speed:  17.8 km/h
Max speed:  33.8 km/h 
Route: A round around Den Haag and from/to Leiden
Weather: Sunny and clouds, 18 C


On this long weekend this was my second day in the saddle... this time on my big idworxs bike... which I haven't really yet started to like... and hell is my "carriage" sore. Such a hard saddle. Tomorrow back to the brompton, narrow saddle but more padding. 

Today I signed up to a Meet-up in Den Haag organized by a guy with whom I rode already twice last year, including a very nice ride out to Brielle. The topic today was a ride just once around Den Haag, and was per description about 37 km... So how did it get into a 84 km adventure? Well, Leiden isn't Den Haag, and I had decided yesterday that 37 km are a bit too lazy, meeting time was late enough (11:00) so that I'd ride out directly from home and ride on the big bike, that's so uncomfortable brining on the train (because so heavy). 

So there I went. I had plotted out yesterday with this web site:
https://en.routeplanner.fietsersbond.nl/ (okay, I know, already over a year riding in the NL, and just found about this page yesterday while on the train to Eindhoven...) a route directly from home to the meeting point, helped by the very small gridded postal codes in the NL, and a setting on the app to go along knooppunten. One can then download the entire route as GPX data and drop into the NEW FILES folder on the garmin. All done! (well, except the ride though). The first part of the ride, I knew very well, just along the train lines on a reserved cycling path far away for many kilometres from any cars, my "don't think about anything, "racing" path". Then into Den Haag, where I actually got semi-lost because of one turn on a parallel (or so it seemed) path from the real one... but it turned out the two where diverging quite rapidly. But well, I found the group and we set off.

This time we were a group of 6, no one with a racing bicycle, like last time (very intimidating to see those guys... but finally also riding with them was actually quite fun ... at least for me... maybe not for them ;-). 3 I already knew, the organizer, an other Dutch guy and a then obviously the same Polish lady with whom I rode yesterday. Plus 2 new guys, a Spaniard and a Briton.

It is amazing how quickly one (well me, today, at least) looses orientation, when just following someone else. I am not someone to loose orientation easily, but if you know that you just need to follow the leader, sense of orientation... bye-bye. At some point we stopped for a short break and I was honestly thinking we were oriented in direction on Rotterdam, and that we'd be pretty close to the sea. Well, I could not have been more wrong. A bit later on we sat down in a nice Italian restaurant with a terras outside, in a nice small old city and were sitting there quite some time, just beside a sluice. I liked the place and someone told me that along that canal one could ride all the way to Amsterdam and that Leiden was in that direction (obviously) as well. Only when we were leaving and I was saying, well "Leidschendam can't be very far from here", the organizer looked at me in mild bewilderment saying "this IS Leidschendam", not knowing how often I had already ridden from Leiden along that very canal to Leidschendam, had come to that very same sluice, crossed it, had a looked at the church, and then turned back.

Here proof of some of my previous excursions to Leidschendam, including one in winter where the canal was slightly frozen (and I had come by bus):

So does this mean my sense of orientation goes South when I follow someone else? Or that all Dutch villages just look alike (at least to me)?

Well, we had nice lunch and then headed back to the centre of Den Haag where we bid our farewells and I continued on my ride back to Leiden.

The meet-up ride was about 42 km, and starts in the below Strava at km 21 until km 63. But for me it was obviously longer and unfortunately at about km 75 saddle soreness kicked in. However if it wouldn't be for that I had a feeling that I could have ridden on, at my pace, to about 100 km without problems. Just need to get a saddle with more cushion. Not sure why this female saddle, specially measured for my buttocks is so uncomfortable on them. I vaguely remember that the bike fitter mentioned that one should sit on the bones... I do have my doubts. And my bones have no doubt at all, they are opposed to this idea with all their stubBONEss. 

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 ;-)