Day 4 Ossendrecht - Baarle-Nassau (Leiden -> Venlo trip)

Bicycle: 85 km

Riding time: 6:15 h
Total ascent: 110 m
Avg speed: 16.7 km/h
Route: Ossendrecht - Baarle-Nassau
Weather: Cloudy, a bit sun and one rain, 17 C

Today I mainly pedaled through forests. Which is surprising in a country like the Netherlands where there aren't many forests. Maybe the LF path was especially going through forests, or simply here in the South there are more forests. 

For being the Netherlands there were also some non totally flat areas. I know that in Limburg there are real (small) mountains, but it was more surprising that in a region so close to the sea not everything was totally flat. Actually in the village where I started (Woensdrecht), there was even a street announced on cycling signs as having a 5% ascent. Not that I tried it out though. 

Somehow Komoot or Garmin initially sent me in the wrong direction, back on the path I had come yesterday, but after a while I got suspicious of the route as it just didn't correlate to my expectancy. So retraced my pedal strokes and cycled back to the convent to take the correct route. 

From there onwards it was mainly through forests. Later on also through Belgium, There were still some remains of recent boarder controls (due to Covid-19 boarders between Belgium and Netherlands (and other countries) had been closed.) but now everything was open again. 

I stopped at a ice-parlor-farm (something that exists also close to Leiden, but maybe is a Dutch thing), loaded up my water supplies and had an ice cream, while I could see the rain coming closer and closer. This ice parlor was located in a farm house that was designed by one of the Amsterdam school architects. 

After some rest there, I continued on, although the sky looked darker and darker. Luckily shortly before it started raining I found this public rest place, which was located right besides the medieval gallows hill. But for me it meant a safe place to hide from the rain and eat my sandwiches. 

After crossing more forests I finally made it to Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog, one being Dutch and the second being Belgian, and together being really just one village, as one can see nicely from my evening ride to dinner, where in 3 km of riding I managed to cross the boarder 6 times! But it was worthwhile for an authentic Belgian beer:

While my black brompton made it in February this year to 3 prefectures in Japan at the same time, the green one made it to two different countries today:

 

 

Meet-up Ride - Den Haag - Hoek van Holland - Maasvlakte - Brielle - Schiedam

Bicycle: 76 km 
Riding time: 4:38 h
Total ascent: 235 m
Avg speed:  16.4 km/h
Max speed:  33.8 km/h

Route: Den Haag - Hoek van Holland - Maasvlakte - Brielle - Schiedam

Weather: Sunny but not too hot, 23 C

Today was the time for my first self-organized Meet-up. We did the ride that I had planned a few weeks ago for a ride from Den Haag, that we had to cancel due to very strong winds and rain that day (instead I did though that day with an other person from Meetup a ride from Eindhoven to Nijmegen, which was the only part of the Netherlands without severe weather that day - and back wind). 

With Meetup you get people signing up, then signing out, then other people signing in, so until the last moment one cannot really be sure how many people will turn up. However as I enjoy cycling also alone, that's not really a problem and today 2 more turned up, then was planned for, which made us a nice group of 6. 

Only Garmin didn't want to collaborate at all. In Den Haag station, when we were just about to set off it didn't turn on correctly and then it didn't turn off at all. Luckily from Den Haag to Hoek van Holland it is a straightforward ride, which we found easy enough with the help of some street signs an one co-rider who had been riding there before. 

Along the way we stopped at the beach and even held our feet into the - relatively - cold water. 

We were a mixed group, with a German 50% majority (is that a majority?), a Spanish, a Dutch and a Chinese. And also from the bicycle perspective we were very mixed from a Swapsfiets (without gears and front break!) to a mountain bike, some racing bikes and touring bikes. Nicely mixed group, all riding together to one common goal.

After this stop at the beach we continued on to Hoek van Holland and had lunch there in a chiringuito on the beach.

This first part I recorded directly on Strava as Garmin wasn't collaborating at all. During lunch I managed then to restart the device, so intended the record the rest directly on Garmin, but somehow the piece between Maasvlakte and Brielle didn't get stored... grr... (but it was still a nice ride). Isn't it strange how not having an electronic copy of a nice experience feels bad. Why?

While the ride in this first part is over the dune (and with some side winds today), the second part is through the biggest port of Europe (at least initially), with a lot of industry, which make for quite some change. But even out of that industrial area relatively quickly one is again in the countryside and on we went to Brielle, our second (well, third, if you count the beach) stop of the day with a nice ice cream. From Hoek van Holland we took a ferry over. The Swapfiets rider found out that riding on a little bit more on the ferry would bring her closer to Brielle so a subgroup (4 of us) left the ferry in the harbour, while the other two continued a bit mot on the ferry, bringing them closer to Brielle and we met up there. They were faster, notwithstanding the Swapfiets. 

In Brielle we did a small touristic ride of the city and its fortifications and then followed in the "wheel-steps" of a ride Schiedam - Brielle - Rotterdam that I did last year with this same Meet-up group organized by Hans. I remembered that first part from Schiedam to Brielle as specially scenic and varied, and it didn't delude. 

When we came to the hand driven ferry one of the co-riders recognized that this place was actually quite close to Delft, where he and his 2 friends are living, so after (important!) crossing over with that mini ferry, they left towards the left while I ferried (on bicycles) the other two to Schiedam along the route. 

Here the third part of the ride from Brielle to Schiedam:

While the middle part got unrecorded, as somehow Garmin wasn't up to it today.

More Meet-up rides to come :-) 

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...

Two lakes - Zoetermeer and Vlietland

Bicycle: 38 km 
Riding time: 2:20 h
Total ascent: 82 m
Avg speed: 16.1 km/h
Max speed: 34.6 km/h

Route: Leiden - Zoetermerr - Vlietland Park and back to Leiden

Weather: Gray and humid, but not raining, probably around 17 C

Today an other ride outside of Leiden. I had planned the ride on Garmin, but then it would not transfer from the computer to the device. I tried multiple times, but to no avail. So I set off without Garmin and just followed the knooppunt maps. Not really a problem. And I didn't even get lost.

It was notably cooler than the other day and totally gray. Every now and then I thought that it would start raining, but actually it never did. It felt however a bit like cycling in the middle of a cloud.

Once outside of Leiden things quickly get very much into country side. Some of the paths were really small and on one stretch even some sheep were lying on the cycle path peacefully munching on the grass. And not disturbed at all by a cyclist passing through them at mere centimetres.

Apart from the typical Dutch animals in landscape (cows, sheep, horses and goats among others), today there was a colony of ducks...

... and a solitary pheasant. 

Although the weather was not so perfect as the other day, the ride was quite nice. The area is much less cycled (or maybe only today because of the weather) and yes, somehow the landscape, always flat, is a little bit different. Also bike lane conditions is generally good, but only one stretch of road in Stompwijk that was very roughly paved. 

First ride - forgot the water

Bicycle: 13 km 
Riding time:  0:54 h
Total ascent: 38 m
Avg speed:  14.5 km/h
Max speed:  25.2 km/h
Route: Leiden - Warmond - Leiden
Weather: Sunny, 14 C

Long time, no ride... But today I set out to have a ride out of the city, exploring for nearly a first time the surroundings of Leiden by bicycle.

And well, as with all first experiences there were a lot of things that could be improved:

• forgot to bring something to drink! Really an error of a rookie, but I am just WAY too used to the vending machine paradise of Japan  
• Also forgot to charge the Garmin device. Probably hadn't charged it since my last day in Fukuoka back in November. 
• Forgot Strava login details, so needed to record the second part of the ride with MapMyRide app. Does work, but is inconvenient as one needs to manually import it into Strava. 

Essentially the water problem did cut this first ride quite short. I didn't really have a specific objective, which is probably very clear by looking at the below map which seems to be erratic at best, but this was simply because I decided to follow a sign for a scenic ride (I think something about boats), which is a bit erratic. When I came to Warmond I realized more and more that something to drink was missing. But no vending machines. No conbini. So I checked Google maps and found a supermarket not too far... but alas, it was 5 after 20:00... and it had closed at 20:00. So nothing to drink in the water desert of the Netherlands. So well... I rode back home. 

But still, good "re"learning and more rides to follow shortly. Then with appropriate supplies.