No hills/no gravel - Day 3

Route: Wolfheze - Schoonhoven - Leiden 
Distance: 135 km
Elevation: 215 m
Duration: 6:18 h
Weather: sunny and slowly getting warmer, 9 C

After two days in the “hilly” region around Utrecht and Arnhem today I cycled all the way back home. I had taken the day off, as I need to use up my PTO days before relocating to Japan (likely early May) and weather forecast was fine. Sunny and even a slight tail wind. 

This was the only hill I saw (and didn’t climb) for the entire day:

Apart from that it was a quite ride through the vast river delta of the Netherlands  seeing some old town, but mostly on the distance:

I had a few stops along the way and 2 (!) soups to combat hunger and a bit of cold. But, yeah, pretty ride, but also pretty uneventful.

Hilly & Gravely - Day 2

Route: Ede - Hoenderloo - Wolfheze
Distance: 84 km
Elevation: 485 m
Duration: 4:29 h
Weather: very sunny but cold, 8 C

Today started very close to the center of the Netherlands!

And from there the day took a turn for the better. Cycling through forests and heathers (although without flowers… who knows when those things are flowering?)

On this log in the sun I had my second breakfast … 

… and shortly after I even found this dixi in the middle of the nature…

… not too far actually from my lunch (pannekoeken). Because in this area of the Hoge Velowe there aren’t a lot of villages nor a lot of places to eat. So Hoenderloo was the obvious place where to have lunch. And  actually I arrived there just before 13:00, so also good timing. I even had time to dial in for a few minutes to a zoom call, that my Tokyo cycling friends has organized and saw a few of them. Hoping to see them in person in the next months! 

After lunch the hills waited, but actually it wasn’t as strenuous s as I had feared. Somehow yesterday seemed harder. Although today I actually made a bit more elevation. Not hugely more though. 

I actually don’t have any photo of a hill, so you need to take the Strava data as proof. Instead I have pictures of flat landscapes:

Partially the ride came through an area where I had organized a 2 day ride last year summer. 

Today I passed the same old radio station a bit farther in the distance:

In summer there were also everywhere these beautiful but deadly flowers. Today no risk to be killed by a flower. 

Hilly & Gravely - Day 1

Route: Utrecht - Austerlitz - Rehnen- Ede
Distance: 83 km
Elevation: 397 m
Duration: 4:39 h
Weather: sun and clouds, 8 C

After a long time of only riding around Leiden (albeit quite big loops), I saw that this weekend weather was going to be really nice (well, for being February always) I decided to do a 3 day trip a bit farther away and in a landscape different from the normal polders around Leiden/Amsterdam.

I knew that behind Utrecht there is the Utrechtse Heuvelrug, a hilly area, but I actually never had been there. So goal for today! 

I didn’t start though in Leiden, but got the train to Utrecht, otherwise it would have been too far to enjoy the hilly part.

The first stop was a pyramid! In Austerlitz! 

But as you can see, it isn’t a “real” pyramid, nor OS this THE Austerlitz, which Google just told me is somewhere in the Austrian K&K empire. 

But well, the village closeby was actually named after the original Austerlitz, when it was founded by the French, so yes, there is some connection. 

Until here my way was in the forest, but mainly along normal roads, but quite soon after I entered into the Heuvelrug proper and had a very nice, winding way with very light gravel.

And yes, there was a bit of up and down. Nothing too steep, this is still the Netherlands, but not as flat as around Leiden. 

For being February there were a good number of other cyclists around. So I can understand the warning in Komoot that in summer this park can be too busy with too many cyclists at different speed to be enjoyable to the faster ones. But today that was no problem.

Actually I had put the ride into Meetup in case someone wanted to come along, but somehow a 80 km +, 400 m day in February didn’t sound attractive to other people on Meetup. Who knows why?

I for my part can’t complain, but it is also true that I feel my legs way more than after a 80 km flat ride. Probably the added weight of the overnight bag doesn’t help either.

For the night I am staying in a hotel run by the Salvation Army, which however feels (and looks) like any normal hotel, with the exception that they ban alcohol and cigarettes. 

Dinner was quite nice, definitely better than in many other Dutch places.

TdE - Day 46 Hoogstraaten - Leiden

Route: Hoogstraaten - Breda - Dordrecht - Rotte - Leiden
Distance: 123 km
Elevation: 215 m
Duration: 5:57 h
Weather: Sun and clouds, tailwind, getting a bit colder, 17 C

Overall Route: Leiden - Vennbahn - Trier - Mosel til Koblenz - Rhine til Mainz - Main - Tauber - Altmuehl - Donau - Black Forrest - Alsace - Canal Rhine - Rhone - Saar - Luxembourg - Ardennes - Flanders cycling classics - UCI World Championship - Leiden
Distance: 3,091 km
Elevation: 15,749 m
Duration: 46 days, including a rest week at my parents
Weather: Phenomenal! Mainly sunny, a few days with some clouds. More days that is was actually slightly too hot for me to ride than days that it rained (I  think proper rain only on 2 days, and a bit of drizzle maybe on another 2). 

In total over these past 6,5 weeks, I have ridden a bit over 3,000 km (3,091 km to be precise) and racked up a total elevation of over 15,000 m (15,749 m to be precise again). 

I haven't made the calculations, but that is probably more elevation than in the entire rest of the year. Poor flat Netherlands... (picture from quite close to home... just to illustrate the flaty flatness of the NETHERlands):

On my last day of this tour around Europe I put in another long day, with over 120 km... but I was massively helped by a nice and steady tailwind. Plus the weather got better again, no rain, just some decorative clouds. However clearly autumn is coming... the temperatures are dropping. The first day that I did not ride in my T-shirt but instead in the Castelli ROS jacket... albeit mostly with the arms zipped out. 

Probably the nicest part of today's ride was at the beginning, still in Belgium (!) where I had a nice winding river with a bicycle path alongside ...

.... that also continued beyond the border. 

Further on I followed simply what Komoot had planned as a direct route, which, as we are now in the Netherlands was all on either very good, or at least good cycling paths, although mostly along highways, so not really nice areas of the country. But the purpose of the straight line from Tienen to Leiden wasn't to see specially nice parts, but to get back to Leiden by Tuesday evening, in just 2 days for over 200 km. 

And this goal was achieved and something even waited for me back home:

Oh yeah... the first washing machine in over a month!

TdE Day 2 Fietsen door bomen & water (Hilvarenbeek - Diepenbeek)

Route: Hilvarenbeek - Postel - Fietsen door bomen - door water - Diepenbeek 
Distance: 104 km

Elevation: 154 m
Duration: 5:13
Average speed: 18.8 km/h
Weather: sunny and quite hot, 26C

Today in the morning I woke up to my cycling shirt drying gently in the air.

Mukesh might be able to trek for days on end through the Himalaya, but cycling 120 km in the flat of the Netherlands didn’t do any good to his knee. Admittedly it was his first 120 km. So he decided to do the responsible thing and to stay close to train lines where he could return when needed. So he headed back to Tilburg and then on to Den Bosch and finally to Utrecht. In the end he pretty much did the same km as I did, but less than what he would have needed if he had had to go to Maastricht. 

I in turn did continue South. Overall the day saw a lot of forests. And this was a blessing as again it was quite hot, so the shade was very welcome. Already a few km after the start I turned into the forest of Landgoed de Utrecht. 

And a bit later I was cycling on this beech avenue. 

After 20 km I crossed my first international border into Belgium.

In Belgium pretty soon I got onto this Kanal which was nicely in the shades of big trees. Unfortunately after several kilometers the way was blocked and a detour was indicated.

The detour nearly, nearly brought me back to the Netherlands, but I managed to stay on the right side of the road.

Checking the detour I recognize that I didn’t need to follow the entire detour, but could shorten the ride a little bit. This also brought me too the small village of Postel, which seems to be a huge tourist magnet. I don’t really know why there were so many people, but definitely there were a lot of Harley Davidson and other motorcycle riders. There were also several restaurants and stalls with french fries (well I guess they are called BELGIAN fries here!). But I took something sweet at what seemed to be a very famous bakery. Even had a small queue building up outsid of people who came to buy bread.

This was a welcome break. 

From Postel I continues on a normal road which had something like a cycle path attached to it, but at least from my spoiled Dutch background, not a very good one. Kind of cycling in the ditch parallel to the road and with car drivers thinking that as the cyclist is beyond a white line , that line would be sufficient to protect the cyclist from any harm of passing cars. Anyway, it wasn’t soooo bad and luckily quite soon I rejoined my originally planned route, which followed some very quiet canals in the forests.

When my water supplies started to run low, which really means for me that bottle number 1 is getting nearly empty (because I am a real water addict and mightily fear running out) I turned into a very small village along the way and found a nice lady who refilled my bottle. Alternatively there were however some “Biergarten” along the way as well.

My next break I want to take at around 50 km and just before the “Fietsen door bomen” I found a steakhouse. Although steakhouse isn’t really a good description for this magically very peaceful and quiet garden restaurant. I didn’t want to have a steak for lunch with the heat and the other 40 to 50 km to cycle. But a carpaccio and a small salad were ideal.

Well rested and a bit cooled down I came to my first official highlight of the day (although one has to admit that riding along the canals was already great. They seem to be less used, less well maintained than in The Netherlands which makes that they have lusher vegetation around or so it seemed.) Anyway, the first official highlight of the day what is this bridge construction in the middle of a forest that allows cyclists or pedestrians to get to the top of the canopy and then rush down again. “Fietsen door de bomen”: 

 

The first time I did it slowly, stopping for pictures. The second time in one go to enjoy breezing through the trees up and down. Very gentle slope indeed. 

In Wijchmaal I hit a cycling road through the more forest and followed it for 20 km. The cycling road actually is even longer, maybe 40 km. 

Along the way and right about the 75 km marker there was an other very relaxing cafe in the forest on the way, where I stopped for a homemade lemonade and a rhubarb cake. 

At the place where we finally left that cycle way, there was even some blooming heath: 

Admittedly I didn’t manage to capture it nicely. Essentially because it was a bit off limits for cyclists. 

Not too much later, and only 10 km from my accommodation for tonight, I reached the second official highlight of the day: “Fietsen door het water”

I had been here before (I think in 2019) with Matteo and a friend, but - crucially- without a bicycle.  On foot! Which actually was okay as well. 

From there it wasn’t too far to my B&B of the night in the nondescript village of Diepenbeek. One thing I noticed yesterday in Belgium is the lack of welcoming front gardens. Many people have big gardens in front of the house, but either just fill them up with pebble stones, or an often well manicured lawn, however without any flowers, trees or other vegetation. 

Compare that to houses in The Netherlands which often have very lush gardens, like this excellent specimen from Bilderdam:

 

TdE Day 1 Leiden - Hilvarenbeek

Route: Leiden - Gouda - Nieuwpoort - Gorinchem - Tilburg 

Distance: 123 km

Elevation: 149 m

Duration: 6:58

Average speed: 17.7 km/h

Weather: sunny, 25 C

Yesterday was my last working day, and already today my six week Tour d’Europe (TdE) started. Although in the morning I needed to try to send some parcels with all my office equipment back to my company, which DHL had not picked up yesterday. So the tour started with some delay, and the parcels are still at home because the DHL point at Hema could not take these parcels in. 

I had posted the ride on the Den Haag Meetup page, just in case someone wanted to tag along. And yes, an outdoor guide (Trekking and rafting in the Himalaya!) , Mukesh, wanted to come along. So we met up with a bit of delay at Leiden station and started the ride which should bring me about 2600 km through Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, France and Luxemburg, if all goes per plan. Today it started with the first 120 km. 

From Leiden to Boskop, a route that I cycle frequently, but this time through some Boskop gardens. Then on into Gouda and after that we had our first stop at a bakery in Haastrecht. After that continued along a nice, winding small river, through a part of south Holland which is relatively remote, because it is not well served by trains. 

 After crossing the Lek by Schoonhoven, we had lunch in the small, old and very relaxing village of Nieuwpoort. 

We continued to Gorinchem and it became little by little hotter and hotter and my water supplies were running short so we needed to make a small (5km?) detour into Gorinchem where there is a public water fountain, before continuing through the landscape and for the first time in this trip leaving known roads! 

Still quite hot I wanted a break and a cool drink and we found a brewery in Almkerk. I got a big apple juice and Mukesh a locally brewed beer. Sitting in a nice garden in the shades of some trees was very relaxing and when we restarted also the actual temperature had come down sufficiently to be comfortable again. 

Continuing on we came to an other ferry, this time crossing the Bergsche Maas. Luckily it was open. I hadn’t realized in the planning stage that there was a ferry. 

We slowed down. Not sure if Mukesh was tired or if he thought I was tired. Anyway we cruised through the landscape and hit finally the Wilhelminakanal shortly before Tilburg. I knew that part from a previous ride I had done from Leiden to Tilburg (back then passing through Dordrecht) but what was really nice was the Kanal after Tilburg. 

A few km before our hotel we had to turn inland and around 20:30 we arrived. Didn’t have time for a shower before dinner but that allowed us to have a nice dinner in a surprisingly nice village. 

TdE - Rough Plan

This summer between jobs I have nearly 7 weeks off and decided to use them for a cycling trip through Europe. As I am not heat resistant, Northern Europe is the chosen destination. 

My initial plan was to go with my parents (by car) to Austria first, spend some time in the village where my father grew up and then ride slowly back from there to the Netherlands. However as my father has a form of dementia and after a recent experience with him going on vacation to another place (Bayreuth) where he had spent many years in the past, my mother decided that it wasn't such a good idea to go on vacation. It seems to be much easier for him to be able to sleep at home where he knows everything. So with the starting point in Austria gone, I can now just start at my door steps. I haven't modified the overall plan too much... only that I added a lot more cycling kilometers to the plan. We'll see how it goes. Plans are there to be changed. 

Overall the tour will be very roughly speaking 2700 km. Assuming a week at my parents place, that would mean about 66 km every day. That is definitely doable... at least here in the flats of the Netherlands. But every day??? We will see. Worst case in all countries I pass it is somehow possible to put the bicycle on a train. Not everywhere super easy, but possible in general terms. No stress! 

Tour d'Europe - Part 1 Leiden to Colmar

Tour d'Europe - Part 2 Colmar back to Leiden

In Google maps this is just a VERY rough tour. I actually use Komoot to plan my rides. Although Komoot doesn't really know about already pre-existing cycling routes. For these I have recently found a very good web page:  https://www.biroto.eu/de/ where it is possible to download (and then upload to komoot) GPX files of a lot of official cycling routes. 

Roughly the idea is to head South towards Belgium pretty straight on, and then get on the Amsterdam - Venice cycling route, which follows the Vennbahnweg, later on the Mosel and the Rhine. Then a few days stop at my parents place before continuing to head South towards the Danube where I'll catch the Danube cycling way heading up to the spring of the river. Then over the black forest to Freiburg and Colmar and then up North again following Eurovelo 5 which kind of runs parallel to the Rhine up towards Luxemburg, Belgium and into Brussels. The last kilometers from Brussels back to Leiden are not yet planned at all... but at that stage I should be pretty comfortable with the day to day planning and also know much better how much time is left. If I am pressed for time, Brussels - Leiden are about 200 km, so easily doable in 2 days. If I am not, I can explore further Belgium. Maybe take in some famous cobbled climbs (likely pushing up the bike though)... or maybe ride a bit to the South to famous Roubaix and let my Spezialized Roubaix sense the air of proper Roubaix? 

Tour d’Europe (TdE) Test rides (D-12)

Route: around Leiden

Distance: 40 km + 39 km + 45 km

Elevation: 71 m + 95 m + 43 m

Duration: 1:58 + 1:49 + 2:19

Average speed: 20.6 km/h + 21.5 km/h + 19.7 km/h 

Weather: dry, cloudy, around 19C

Before departing next weekend for a maybe six weeks tour through Belgium, Germany, France and the Netherlands, I had some test rides close to home already with the fully loaded bicycle.

I am saying fully loaded, but actually there’s not that many stuff that I will bring around. Only one bag behind the seat post of 17 L. Plus a small triangular bag (not shown in this picture) for food.

I just recently went to Tubeless wheels, so I wanted to try out how it rides, and how it rides with the fully loaded bag already strapped to the bike.

And I rides to reasonably well. 

Going South - Day 2

Route: Veghel - Eindhoven 

Distance: 89 km

Elevation: 84m

Duration: 4:37

Average speed: 19.3 km/h

Weather: 18 C, cloudy but dry, sun only getting out when already in train

As my original plan to sleep in Eindhoven and then ride South from there into Belgium and Ride through the trees didn’t succeed yesterday, I was free for new plans today. And plans I made! 4 different options. Option 1 & 2 involved riding to Maastricht (or stopping a bit earlier in Roermond). Options 3 & 4 I came up this morning and were more centered in nice (or at least potentially nice) landscape and less in distance and getting as much to the South possible. This landscape decision was definitely a good one. Very varied landscape. Some riding along canals, some through agriculture landscape, a lot through nature reserve with either forests or heathlands. 

And not a single polder!!!  It wasn’t all landscape either. There was a nice, small (and private) castle as well.

 

It wasn’t a fast ride as there was quite some gravel involved but a very scenic ride. And definitely something I am going to repeat with people from the meetup group. At the right moment in time a small Biergarten appeared in the middle of a forest:

And , hey, I went as much to the South (and actually a few meters more) as current Corona restrictions allow: