Time for a RANT

Of course everyone says how well provisioned Holland is for cycling. And it's generally held that the UK is less so. Let me tell you here and now that the uk lives in the Dark Ages. We've not invented tools yet. The industrial revolution is thousands, no, millions of miles away. We are apes swinging in the trees compared to the nirvana, the space age Mecca that is the provision for bikes in this country. Okay, it's flat so that's one substantial barrier removed. But it's so much more than that. Every road, every public space has been built with the bike in the forefront. There are roads here with a single lane for cars - that's one lane for the traffic in both directions to share, and great wide strips either side for bikes. So bikes get fully half of the width of these well maintained, pothole free, clearly painted, tidy roads.

Just outside europort a bike lane (obviously there's a bike lane all the way from europort to Rotterdam, some 40km) had been made uneven by tree roots. They'd come along with some sort of shaving/scraping device and cut the bumps clean off.

Most of the cycle lanes are separated from the road by a strip of grass. The general problem with this design is that any time a driveway joins the road the bike lane drops down a bit, goes over a kerbstone, across the drive and then bump bump up another kerbstone. Altogether breaking up the rythem of the ride. Here, they've done away with the kerbstone and worked on the relative heights so that there's no interruption. Two tiny changes, probably cheaper, hugely better to ride.

Of course riding in a country with other cyclists (quite a novelty in itself) comes with disadvantages. You can't stop in a bike lane - not because cars want to park in it, but because you'll be in the path of another bike - guarenteed - within a minute or two.

Anyway today we've had good weather, a little cool but not windy. Been setting quite a pace as well - 30km/h for a time - too fast to sustain on the flat, I think. The magic pace, on the flat and with no noticable wind (stationary) is about 27 km/h. The extra 3 or 4 makes a real difference! It'll be interesting to see how sore the others are tomorrow.

Tonight rough camping in field behind cafe. Hope to get early start in the morning but unfortunately won't get fed here as they don't reopen till midday.

Location:Wadenoijen, Holland