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... 

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...

Slightly larger round around Kagerplassen

Bicycle: 36 km 
Riding time:  2:08 h
Total ascent: 42 m
Avg speed:  17.0 km/h
Max speed:  30.6 km/h
Route: Leiden - close to Lisse - Kagersee - Leiden
Weather: Sunny but windy, 20 C

First ride with 45! A nice evening ride to the North of Leiden, a little bit of a bigger round around the Kagerplassen and riding into Lisse, the city of the tulips. Today no tulips though... nor any other flowers on the fields. Too late! Way too late!

Just some windmills...

... some apparently (!) on the field sailing boats (very common sight in the Netherlands, where the water often is higher than the surrounding fields ...

... and a small cruise ship on the Kaperplassen:

Apart from that really nothing special to report. Just out and riding. 

A new round around Kaagersee

Bicycle: 29 km 

Riding time:  1:31 h

Total ascent: 49 m

Avg speed:  19.1km/h

Max speed:  33.5 km/h

Route: Leiden - Kaagersee - Leiden

Weather: Sunny and nicely warm, 18 C

After two days without riding, I had time again tonight to have a nice ride around Leiden. This time I nearly repeated a ride I had already done in mid-May, once around the Kaagersee. Many parts of this ride I had already done several times before, so I didn't need to stop a lot to get oriented. This probably contributed to the "high" average speed of 19 km. I think probably the highest average so far riding in the Netherlands. 

A part of the ride is on a windmill roundtrip, which I still haven't found detailed information on (probably need to buy some book...), well, there are a lot of windmills around:

The Kaagersee is a region dominated by water and without a lot of bridges, so this farmer needs to bring his big tractor back home on a very small ferry that is totally occupied with his tractor, "swimming" back to his home, which obviously is a windmill:

The way back from Kaagersee isn't specially nice as it follows for a long part a highway. But I didn't want to try to ride through Sassenheim, as I thought that it might be typical paved (i.e. bumpy) village roads. But the way towards the lake is always nice.

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.

New 40 km record thanks to getting lost

Bicycle: 45 km 
Riding time: 2:32 h
Total ascent: 67 m
Avg speed: 17.8 km/h
Max speed: 30.2 km/h

Route: Leiden - circle around Brassemermeer and back to Leiden

Weather: Sunny and warm, 20 C

After several days not on my bike today, I finally managed to escape from work early enough to get into the saddle. I decided to do a bit of a longer ride in a direction that I already knew, but this time riding once around the Brassemermeer. I had looked on the knooppunt map and thought that one could ride around pretty close to the shore... This did not count with the fact that one bridge, wasn't a bridge, but probably a small ferry. No idea if it didn't ride any more in the evening, or if simply as I expected a bridge, I hadn't even looked for it. Well, that first error was responsible for the extra km between km 15 and 21. Easily visible on the map below in the big square on  the upper end of the lake. But it was a nice ride, and no hills ;-) I even very briefly made it to North Holland!

At about km 22 I took this picture, of one of the typical (nowadays oversized) Dutch brick churches. Thinking that this would be more or less half the way and now back home.

Well, I didn't count for an other routing error between km's 33 and 38 on the map below. No idea what has happened there, but at a certain point, the road was simply going in the wrong direction. But well, again no hills ;-) Only more km's for my legs. But the weather was really nice. Initially a bit warm, but later on getting fresher. But never even close to cold.

The ride in itself was really nice, with most of the bicycle lanes nicely asphalted, normally far away from major traffic and through, well, nice Dutch landscape riding home in the sunset.

As I didn't stop a lot on route (the first third approximately I already knew), then I wanted to just cycle on and on the return I thought I knew my way... but apparently didn't even managed to achieve a all-time personal record of the fastest 40 km.

First ride around Kagerplassen

Bicycle: 38 km 

Riding time:  2:15 h

Total ascent: 48 m

Avg speed:  16.7 km/h

Max speed:  34.2 km/h

Route: Leiden - Kagerplassen - Leiden

Weather: Sunny, 17 C

After a first short ride yesterday evening, kind of the first this year. Not really, but kind of. Today I did NOT forget to bring a bottle of water. I was so used to the ubiquitous vending machines in Japan, that I totally forgot to bring something to drink. And riding without drinking isn't really good. So today,  armed with a bottle of water I set out in the same general direction as yesterday exploring the Kagerplassen. 

I first rode out straight to the lake itself on a very nice small road running along the water, until I came to a dead end. Well dead end yes, but at least there was ice cream on sale:

After a very nice stop on this kind of terrace on the lake, I rode a little bit back. I tried a first road to the left, but after a few meters was stopped by breeding birds, which seem to be able to breed only in solitude:

So even a bit further back, but then found a road that would lead me up. There were quite a lot of racing cyclists around on that path, and I have to admit it is a really nice ride around the lake, at least until about km 25. After that the cycling road is alongside a major highway. Well separated from it, we are in the Netherlands after all, but still no longer in the idyllic countryside. 

This concluded my first longer ride in the Netherlands this year! Looking forward to many more.