None of the above mentions cycling though, surely that's in part what this blog's all about? Well in part it is, so moving forward in time to 2008 and there is a change in my motivation for visiting, this visit was a family holiday, again camping but this time we had three bikes loaded onto the back of the car. A sutble change in mindset occurred during this trip brought about by a couple of minor events that lead to bigger things in recent years. Firstly we cycled everywhere, into town (Amstelveen), around the Amsterdamse Bos park, into Amsterdam itself to visit the museum quarter, indeed we even managed to get lost on the way back to the campsite one day ending up in Schipol airport! The second event was meeting an Irish family who had stopped over for a couple of nights before carrying on their journey by bikes down south, then east, then north and hopefully completing a big loop around the Netherlands back to Isjmuiden in a couple of weeks. At that time I thought these people were remarkable, I still admire them for it but realise now how unremarkable their journey was, but in a good way.
So to the present.I had made the decision to do a cycling trip to the Netherlands a couple of years ago but a bad fall and one broken wrist put paid swiftly to that idea. I knew it was time to resurrect it when Mrs Silver announced she was off to Brussels with her friends for a long weekend, and so the die was cast. Flights from Glasgow were booked in preference to the Newcastle ferry which would have been my preferred option, but given the nature of public transport in the UK a return ticket on the train at short notice was going to cost almost as much as the ferry. I was determined to do this using one of my own bikes and felt it was a no-brainer to take my recently acquired Dahon folder. Numerous tweets were exchanged with KLM about packing the bike, removing pedals, checking the batteries for my lights met safety standards, deflating tyres and so on. Every question was answered promptly with no ambiguity, what could possibly go wrong?
My flight out of Glasgow was at 9:25 on a Friday morning so I duly arrived to find I was the only person at the counter. I had already printed my boarding pass so I expected to simply check-in the bike and walk on board. Um, "You have a bicycle reservation for the hold yes?" indeed I did, but what I hadn't seen was the invitation to pay for its' transport. "That'll be £40 sir, or if you want pay for the return flight as well £80". After I got up off the floor the figures were double checked and sure enough I had to part with £80 to get the bike in the luggage hold. Being of a philosophical bent I figured that was still half the price of the train ticket I didn't purchase last week but there you go, what can I do but pay the lady. Thankfully plastic was accepted and feeling suitably idiotic for not checking properly, the bike was loaded on and I was on a plane bound for Schiphol.
The flight was over quickly, it only takes an hour or so, and before I knew it I was through passport control and into the Odd Sized Baggage area awaiting my one piece of baggage. This was duly collected and, in my eagerness to set off, carried the thing rather than putting it on a trolley and wheeling it outside. Five minutes later I was on the concourse outside Schipol preparing to assemble my bike whilst all around me was the sound of unbridled 20-something excitement at arriving in what was presumably for them "party central". So whilst the young folk headed off to a weekend of, well whatever, I started to unpack and prepared to pedal off into the midday sun.
