I picked up the bike Thursday evening and immediately chickened out of riding it the next morning, because it felt like the bloody coldest morning I’ve had here yet. For which of course I got made fun of by my nice friends on Facebook — and never mind that the real reason was that I wanted to try the route first on a non-work day. So, despite even lower temperatures on Saturday, I went ahead and biked to campus for the first time. First, though, I went for a short warm-up run to the grocery store. An elderly man there remarked it was quite cold for cycling, recalling he’d never ridden below 18 °F (-8 °C). I had just faced something like 5 °F (-15 °C), with wind chill in the negative F, so I beat him by a fair margin.

The three-mile ride to campus was not too bad as far as the cold went. In fact, there was one nasty hill that had me sweating as on a summer’s day by the time I reached the top. The downhill return would have been fun if the road surface were in better condition. As it was, it was something of a challenge to dodge cracks, potholes and patches of ice at 20 mph on an unfamiliar bike, with a freezing wind battering my eyes to tears.

Yesterday morning, with the temperature up to 11 °F (-12 °C), I took a slightly different route to avoid that hill and also to avoid the moderately heavy traffic on Saturday’s route. The attempt was successfull on both counts, although the quieter roads do mean poorer road conditions now that there’s been some snowfall again. The additional twisting and turning also increases the likelihood of me getting lost, especially cycling home in the dark — which didn’t take long to actually happen. I added an extra mile and a half to yesterday’s homeward journey by missing a turn and not recognizing an intersection later on where I could have fixed my initial mistake with minimal damage. I suppose it’s a good way to get to know the city a bit, but I’d rather do that in warmer weather. Note for tonight: check the map extra carefully before heading home.

The rest of the pictures are here.

At 31.2 km (19.4 mi), the total trip was perhaps a tad too long after yesterday’s three hours behind the plate, but I’ll live. My legs can rest again as I sit behind my desk for the rest of the week putting the finishes touches on my third paper.

As you can see on the map, today’s trip went almost straight to the north. It wasn’t a specific course; I just sort of followed the Leiden-Haarlem railroad to the towns of Warmond and Voorhout, then headed back to Leiden on the other side of the tracks. All in all, the ride was just over 21 km/13 mi: long enough to feel you’re doing something, and not too long that you get back feeling tired. I didn’t take any pictures this time, so you’ll have to trust me on the nice scenery along the way!

Last Sunday, the sky was clear when I woke up and the weather forecasts were good. My schedule for the day was empty, so the decision to go for a ride was easily made. Unfortunately, there’s hardly a patch of forest around here, but that was easily solved. I took my bike onto the train and travelled to the city of Amersfoort, in the centre of the Netherlands, right amidst several forests. (It’s also the place that I was born and lived in for the first nine months, but that was a coincidence. I went to Amersfoort because it’s surrounded by forests and there happens to be a bike route passing close to the railway station.)

This ride is called the Nieuwe Vuursche Route (have fun pronouncing that one) and it actually runs full circle, but I only did about two thirds. By the time I got to the town of Baarn, I felt like I’d done enough cycling for one day. Besides, the weather was deteriorating and it was getting quite late already, so I got onto the train and returned home.

From Amersfoort’s train station, the route first went west to the village of Den Dolder, running mostly along another railway (not the one I travelled on) and straight through the first bit of forest. The next part followed a regional road for a few kilometres, and even though there was a separate bike trail, that wasn’t too much fun. The good parts returned when the route got off that road (in the lower left of the map) and turned north. From there, it was all forests and hardly any cars in sight until the final one or two kilometres before Baarn.

The route was pretty easy to follow. It’s an “official” one, so it’s signposted all the way. The tricky part is that the signs aren’t too large and some of them were really easy to overlook. That caused me to miss a turn northwest of Den Dolder, bringing me into the village of Maartensdijk. The sky had gone cloudy by then, so I didn’t have the sun to point out that I was going west instead of north.

By the time I was back home, my odometer showed 47.3 km (29.4 mi), of which 39.2 km (24.4 mi) were part of the Nieuwe Vuursche Route (including the diversion to Maartensdijk). Unfortunately the weather didn’t turn out quite as good as I’d hoped (it was overcast most of the time), but the route itself was everything I could have wished for. I’ll finish this post with a few pictures to give an impression. (My new Picasa web album has a couple more pictures, plus larger versions of these.)

Exiting Amersfoort, the route followed a narrow bike trail on top of a small dyke.

The trail ran parallel to the railroad between Amersfoort and Den Dolder (just invisible on the left).

This is after Den Dolder, on one of the straight stretches north through the forest. The trail was barely wide enough to pass oncoming cyclists. The dirt to the left is a track for horses.

The ride carried on north across narrow leave-strewn trails.

Mushrooms thrived in many places.

West of Baarn, the ride went through this beautiful park.

Starting from the B as usual, I did a counterclockwise round-trip past the villages of Leiderdorp, Hoogmade, Rijpwetering and Oud Ade. From the latter, I initially went north towards the Kagerplassen (Kager Lakes), because my map showed a trail running all the way along the lakes back to Leiden. I couldn’t find the trail, so I tracked back to Oud Ade and took an alternative route back.

This area is part of a larger stretch of land known as the Green Heart, a thinly populated area centred between the cities of Rotterdam, Den Haag, Leiden, Haarlem, Amsterdam and Utrecht. The land there has traditionally been much better suited for agriculture than for urban building. So far it has mostly resisted the expansion of the surrounding cities and I hope it will continue to do so. The pictures below should be sufficient reason.

A pasture southwest of the village of Hoogmade, with the village itself just visible in the distance.

The church of Hoogmade.

A dandelion and a red flower whose name I don’t know.

Another dandelion.

A mother sheep with two lambs feeding next to a ditch northeast of Hoogmade.

A duck in the Kagerplassen, a few seconds before it noticed me and took off.

For some more pictures, check out the Kagerplassen Route album in my photo galleries.

The blue trail is the ride I did last time, and the purple trail is today’s extended edition. The part within Leiden was also different this time around, but not enough that I felt like redrawing the picture. Starting at the B, I went from Leiden to Wassenaar and Scheveningen, then up north to Katwijk and back to Leiden.

Things were fine exactly to the point where I moved onto the new (purple) part, at the northern edge of Wassenaar. I’d stopped to check the map and make sure I was taking the right turn, and when I pushed off again, my bike felt all wobbly. The cause was quickly identified: a flat front tire. Just my luck!

Fortunately, I had brought a repair kit, unlike the last two times I went for a long ride, so in a way I really was lucky. I flipped my bike upside down and freed the inner tire from the outer. Next task: to find the puncture. But how to do that without a bucket of water to run the tire through? After doing nothing for a couple of minutes except sort of hoping the problem would magically fix itself, a friendly passer-by suggested that I might be able to hear the air hissing out if I inflated the tire a bit more. Sure enough, that worked and I found a tiny puncture.

And another one.

And a third.

Strangely enough, the outer tire looked fine. I examined it inside and out and couldn’t find anything that might have punctured the inner tire once, let alone three times. Anyway, having found the holes, it wasn’t much more work to repair the tire. But would the repairs hold?

I still wanted to do the entire ride, so I just took my chances and went for it. I made it through Wassenaar without the tire going flat again. On to Scheveningen and the trip’s half-way point… still nothing. By then I’d stopped worrying, leaving more room in my head to enjoy the ride. And enjoy I did! Scheveningen and especially Wassenaar are very wealthy towns, and the road I followed apparently is a favourite place for people to build their villas.

After the half-way point at Scheveningen I went into the dunes, following a bike trail that meanders all the way up to the town of Katwijk. The wind was still blowing strongly from the southwest, pushing me along hard. After suffering headwinds for the first twenty kilometres (12 mi), I was looking forward to that! It’s too bad that going fast also means the fun is over pretty quickly. Still, it was great while it lasted.

I went for a snack in Katwijk and walked around on the beach for a while, where the wind was even stronger than in the dunes. A couple of birds were enjoying the wind too, as well as the two fries I accidentally dropped. Oh well, good for them.

On the way back to Leiden my legs were beginning to hurt, and by the time I got home I was ready to just lie down and not move for a couple of hours. I guess that was to be expected after 43.6 km (27.1 mi). Unfortunately, I couldn’t quite go straight to bed. For one thing, it was only 6pm, which is really a bit too early. For another, I had to repair my front tire again. One of the patches had come partially loose, probably when I hit a bump in the road about a kilometre before I got home. That was annoying, but of course not all that bad, as it could have happened earlier just as easily. I just replaced the patch, taking extra care to seal it properly this time. Let’s hope the tire is still full tomorrow. Fingers crossed, everyone!

Starting from the B, I headed west out of the city and rode around part of the Valkenburgsemeer (Valkenburg Lake). From there I zigzagged to the small village of Rijksdorp, just north from the town of Wassenaar, which is one of the Netherlands’ most wealthy places. I carried on westwards into the dunes and turned right just before I got to the beach, following a truely wonderful bike trail through the dunes to the beach town of Katwijk. After a brief stop at the Katwijk beach, I made my way back to Leiden, with a detour past the Old Observatory. The entire ride was 32.7 km (20.3 mi) long; that’s my longest tour since last July’s Flower Bulb Route, and the longest ride I’ve ever done in any winter. I guess that’s the advantage of the current one being a few degrees warmer than normal.

The dunes northwest of Rijksdorp, with the beach and the North Sea behind me. The dunes extend about two kilometers from the beach.

The bike trail as it winds its way through the dunes. I followed the trail for about ten kilometers (six miles), but it runs for at least another ten in the other direction. There’s hardly a flat or straight part anywhere, making for a fun ride–especially with the strong tailwind I had today.

Sunset at the Katwijk beach at around half past four. The structures just visible on the left part of the horizon are probably part of the Rotterdam harbour, over thirty kilometers (19 miles) away. This harbour is the largest in Europe and was the largest in the world until 2004.

For some more pictures, check out the Dune Route album in my photo galleries.