Tag: round trip

This series is about the successful attempt of doing the Ronde van Nederland in four days, in total of 1300 km on a bike. Day 4 I left the accommodation at around 6:20AM right after my morning routine, which turned out to be a rookie mistake since I didn’t check the ferry schedule all I knew was that they started service at 6 in the morning. It made me believe, just like many times before, there would be ferries leaving every 10 minutes to get to the other side. Well they didn’t, it was a longer ferry ride, through Europort, the port of Rotterdam. At the port the realization just hit me that true the first ferry left at 6:00AM but the next one left at 7:00AM, so I had a nice 30 minutes to kill in the morning cold, which I could have spent at the accommodation. I didn’t mind, since it was the last day, I left in the morning thinking whatever happened I would get home today no matter what. After a lovely 6-kilometer ferry ride, the actual trip started from Maasvlakte that day. Frosted grass, early morning sun rays and cool West wind accompanied me on the Europort. Getting in the mood for cycling wasn’t easy this day either, but I’d had worst. I woke up completely when I reached the first hydroelectric dam, this was between Rokanje and Stellendam. I took a little time there, I had a closer look at those famous “dijks” which are in fact “dams” since there is water on both sides of them. It wasn’t a simple system for sure, I didn’t see it in action though I wouldn’t like to be here when it is necessary to close the flood gate to stop the seawater from flooding into the

This series is about the successful attempt of doing the Ronde van Nederland in four days, in total of 1300 km on a bike. Day 3 HarlingenDay 3 didn’t set off so smoothly. Firstly I woke up earlier than I was supposed to. Secondly the first morning movements caused pain in my left knee plus I could feel my left hand, my pinky finger and my ring finger were really numb. I was hoping these symptoms would pass during the night by the morning, but they didn’t. There were more and more tourists there, by looking at the cars you would have thought you were in Germany. I kept hearing German speech everywhere I turned. I set off with a full stomach, it almost felt like I was sailing as the back wind got so strong, lucky for me. It showed on my stats too, I did a 26km/h average speed on 286 kilometers. It was a great way to regenerate, at least that was what I thought then. Who cares it wasn’t that bad anyway, with a bit of worrying in my head I started packing and had a nice breakfast. The night before my hosts were kind enough to prepare my breakfast ahead since they don’t get up as early as the time I left, they didn’t want me to leave with an empty stomach. Caring like this always feels good. Packing, breakfast, a selfie and I could set off before 7:00 AM. HarlingenFog and cold were waiting for me on the road and it was all calm and silent. It was about 2-3 °C, mixed with the humid seaside air it wasn’t that pleasant. I was going to try pedaling faster than usual, to warm my body up a bit, but my body didn’t feel like working

This series is about the successful attempt of doing the Ronde van Nederland in four days, in total of 1300 km on a bike. Day 2 I woke up early and got to the morning routine packing. Packed up all those fricking chargers, put a charged battery into the camera and one into the GPS and so on. I prepared my daily food kit, filled up the Camelbak with isotonic drinks. I thought I’d be done soon, so I did not do anything about these things I chose to relax a bit. Turned out, it took me 1,5 hour to have breakfast and get ready to go. So I could leave almost at 7:00 AM again. Surprisingly none of my body parts were sore at all, it was no problem getting on the bike and set off. It gave me a pretty good swing that lasted for 50 kilometers. Then a longer field section came along, which you could absolutely do riding a race bike, but due to all the rain there was so much mud and puddles, and it was not good for the bicycle at all. That was the moment that fore-mentioned swing broke a bit. In the meantime the Sun came up too and that infamous Dutch West wind got it on pretty good too and it was bearing hard on me all day long. Of course it could have been worse, but I did not like it a bit. Getting out of the woods and kept going on forestry and/or private roads. Once I had to pedal along an old cobble road which looked a lot more like one of the worst sections of Paris-Roubaix than nice cobbles you usually see in squares in cities. Well, it had its effect. While taking a right turn I

This series is about the successful attempt of doing the Ronde van Nederland in four days, in total of 1300 km on a bike. Day 1 The first 20-25 kilometers didn’t bring anything new, I had done that route plenty of times before, I did it on the test day too as part of my preparation. I divided the day into 3 stages. 1. From our house to Roermond. 2. From Roermond to Arnhem. 3. From Arnhem to Geesteren, where I spent the first night. To Roermond I wasn’t too lucky as for the weather, not like I had huge expectations, I got rained on like the forecast predicted, a lot of wind from the front and the side too. The excitement created by the preparation immediately turned into a worrying heavy feeling. If the weather had been the same on Day 3 and Day 4, I probably would have taken a train home. But since at that time I was still feeling fit and enthusiastic I just accepted the fact and kept going. On the way to Roermond there was not much to see, but on the bank of a tributary of the river Maas, traces of “lumberjack” activity of a bigger beaver population caught my eyes. Of course I had seen on National Geographic what an enormous work these animals could do, but I never would have thought they could easily chew around a 1-meter diameter tree trunk til it fell. I took a little time there I made a couple of photos, then I kept going. By the way, I saw some promising sun rays from among the clouds there for the first time that day and it had a really positive effect on my mood. I just hit Roermond then the route continued along the river

This series is about the successful attempt of doing the Ronde van Nederland in four days, in total of 1300 km on a bike. What a pleasant surprise! Today I have received my diploma from the Stichting Landelijk Fietsplatform about completing the "Ronde van Nederland". During the route you have to take photos in several places to prove that you have cycled there and than send it via post or e-mail. There is no time limit actually, if you look at some of the diplomas, there are cyclists who have done it in weeks, months or even years, by doing it from one section to another. It is an honor to be in the Hall of Fame of the "Ronde van Nederland". Greetings, András

This series is about the successful attempt of doing the Ronde van Nederland in four days, in total of 1300 km on a bike. As I promised, here is a more detailed report about my Dutch round trip. But first let me start with some facts and numbers. We managed to finish the tour at the planned pace and tempo, as in starting March 29 (Tuesday) and finishing successfully April 1 (Friday). We did not manage to complete that 1300 kilometers as we planned due to some complications we had to face on the move, but we cannot complain, we are pretty satisfied with our performance, doing 1225 km in four days. My courier bike named Frankensteincolnago performed excellently, I also made it through the whole tour without any serious falls or injuries. (more on the minor ones later). Hip hip hurray!   Of course we were feeling kind of edgy on Monday evening, the night before the tour. All of us were excited (Barbara and I – editor-) anxiously waiting for Tuesday morning to come. Me personally couldn’t sleep too well some familiar feelings came over me. I felt the same way as I felt back then right before MTB XcO races, that fever of excitement, plus time passing by so slowly, me keeping checking the time only made it worse. Of course I jumped out of bed 30 minutes earlier than I was supposed to. I carefully put on my bicycle gear, I had breakfast and for the whole time I kept thinking “I wonder what I’ll forget to take with me… What will I leave home, What else do I need”. Needless to say. all of this was totally unnecessary, as I had been thinking about it and I had planned everything since I came up with