


Donnerstag, 16. August 2012

Day 11: Kleve - Utrecht

At last I could sleep until my alarm rang (stupid thing ;)
Went and had breakfast with a few other people and it was back on the bike after packing. Had to get back to my track somehow, so I followed main roads as I saw no shortcuts. Reached the track at some point and continued along a small river which was the border to the Netherlands. Crossed the border at some point and was nearly instantly on a hugh biking path. Only shortly, though, as it was then of to Anne, who I had met at Jon Frenches Vieweidfest. They live on one of the few hills in the country, of course. Uphill again.  Had a half an hour chat about the journey and then on through Nijmegen.
I found out that in Dutch towns if you have a bike you are somwhat of a half god. The only times you HAVE to stop is at a red light, otherwise everything and -body stops for you. Also the cyclepaths are massive, 3m  or more just for bikers. The whole day I have had the felling that I have been on some big bike path. And there are bikers everywhere. Helped a few people carry their electro-bikes around another building site and had a race against two boys on race bikes. I overtook them but they then used my slipstream which brought them a lot of kilometres very fast as my speed at that point was near to 30km/h again, with headwind. 
After that along the Deichs near the old Rhein river. Lots of black and white cows and headwind. Also the clouds were getting more numerous and the sun was more gone than there. Had some lunch from Aldi and refilled my waterbottle with some lemonade. Turned out to be a bad idea as when I opend it next time, nearly the complete bottle exploded. 
Along the top of the Deichs nearly all the time with the opposing wind and lots of bikers and cars comming past or the other way. Drated racebikers, to fast and nearly no place to hide from the wind behind them. My knee started aching a bit. I think I overdid it in the morning keeping nearly constantly above 25km/h for long times. Slowed down again in the afternoon.
This is acctually the first country I can remember going to and not have a clue what the signs mean. Also they don't understand german here which acctualy surprised me. Living so close to Germany I would have thought they could speak it. 
At one point I was feed up with my aching bum (again), as I had crossed half of Holland already and still didn't have a plan on where to stay. My GPS found the equivilent to a youthhostel (stayokay, in the Netherlands) a bit of my track. Thought I would try it as to Hoek van Holland it is only about another 100km. Arrived after more bikeroutes and got a stay for the night with free internet but no evening meal :(

Track at GPSies and pictures at Picasa.

Time in saddle: 5 hours 
Distance: 109,6 km
Daily average speed: 21,8 km/h

Total time in saddle: 66 hours
Total distance: 1171 km
Average speed:

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