Holland Part 2 - Andante

So it came to pass. I was at long last standing on the concourse outside Schiphol Airport getting ready to unpack the Dahon and roll off for three days in bicycle nirvana. Trying to do this whilst a conga line of twenty somethings sang "Sean's just broke his iPhone, Sean's just broke his iPhone..." was not the easy task it should have been but nevertheless I persevered and soon the congoists disappeared off to party central no doubt.

As I lifted the cover off the bike something tap-tap-tapped along the ground, I couldn't see what it was but determined to get going I unfolded the bike and started rearranging my backpack to make it a bit lighter by sticking bike tools and my one extra pair of sensible shoes into my second bag that had been in with the bike and was now on my pannier rack. I was set to go, I went to push off and ... my front wheel was locked. A quick check revealed not quite the worst but bad enough. The front brake caliper was missing a little screw which had clearly been smashed off in transit and on quick inspection was what caused the tap-tapping sound on the ground earlier. This meant I had to release my front brake completely and do without for the next three days, again no hardship but really annoying when I thought about how I had followed packing instructions to the tee.

Preparing to depart Schipol

Looking at the picture now the thing that strikes me is how little I actually needed for three days. My backpack was pretty light considering I had packed fresh t-shirts etc for each day and included a very light showerproof Surface jacket, waterproof overshoes and gloves - like I said before, I've been to Holland quite a few times, I know what the weather can be like! One last stop, to take this picture, pump up the rear tyre some more and I was off at last, heading west to the small town of Hoofddorp after which I would head north using the bike paths to Haarlem. A leisurely ride which shouldn't have taken much more than an hour or so.

Friday was market day in Hoofddorp so after ten minutes trying to find a spot to lock up the bike I strolled through stalls that were not unlike the farmer's markets back home but with amazing cheeses, Spanish sausages, salamis, loads of fish and seafood in addition to the usual mobile phone accessories and other tat that you see in markets everywhere these days.

No need for words...

Of course it was absolutely obligatory that I stop and partake of excellent coffee and a custard pastry which I was later told were Portuguese in origin, which was a good decision considering what happened later...

Meantime all was good with the world and I had a cycle around Hoofddorp on cycle lanes that are maybe not quite in the exemplar category but to be honest were absolutely fine for everyday use. Separated from traffic was and is the key to getting cycling rates up and even in Hoofddorp it was easy to see that the bicycle was a safe, convenient way of making short journeys.

Market day in Hoofddorp

It occurred to me that I hadn't been taking any pictures of cycling infrastructure which was one of the things that enabled me to make this journey from one major city to another in a country I was barely familiar with, in terms of solo transport anyway if that makes sense.

It also struck me that I hadn't taken any pictures after Schiphol precisely because I had no reason to stop other than once at a junction to get my bearings just before making a right turn towards Hoofddorp. The sheer everydayness of cycling is precisely why I didn't stop; I didn't need to. I didn't need to get off to negotiate stupid barriers on paths, bollards on paths, road signs, street lights and so forth i.e. the usual UK list of rubbish that ticks the box labelled Infrastructure. This is a provincial Dutch town, completely and utterly ordinary, not some grand "cycling city" and yet I could get off a plane from another country, hop on a bicycle and travel from one city to another with no fear of traffic, well not entirely, but for almost the entire journey there was segregation, perhaps not gold standard paths but it was absolutely great to be able to travel at my own pace in absolute safety for the most part.

Bicycle bridge on the outskirts of Haarlem

The journey from Hoofddorp to the north edge of Haarlem should take about an hour at a lesuirely pace and since the check-in at my accomodation wasn't until 15:00 I took my time. This gave me a chance to drink in the experience of cycling Dutch style, I mean proper Dutch style not the nonsense that UK planners think is Dutch. A good example is this bridge on the outskirts of Haarlem which I crossed after several km of pedaling across flat but picturesque landscape. I was also struck by the number of people I passed, or passed me, on this route. Not just people cycling but walkers, joggers and a quad bike operated by what looked to be one of the park rangers who I presume look after the upkeep of the surrounds. I digress.

At this point I have to admit I was becoming a bit bemused by what I believed to be a lack of signage for bicycle routes. I finally spotted a sign pointing in what I felt was the right direction to Haarlem and picked up a lovely cross country path that crossed several what we might call B-roads on the way to Haarlem. This however was where I made an error of judgement that had a knock-on effect later that, whilst certainly not disasterous, was a salutory lesson that I will come to later. I was feeling a bit peeved with the lack of signs on the bicycle route so switched on mobile data and GPS on my phone and used SatNav for what I expected would be a straightforward run into Haarlem, which it was.

A few photos of canals and very good quality cycle paths later and a sign that simply said Haarlem loomed. This was unbelievable, I was on the outskirts of the city in maybe 30 min or so of leisurely cycling since leaving Hoofddorp, backpack and all. At some point when fiddling with my phone to take pictures I managed to turn the volume off on the GPS navigator and kept going until it occurred to me that I hadn't heard a peep from it for a while. On checking and discovering this I realised that I was way off my route and most annoyingly I was starting to get a bit low on the old juice, both the type that gives your legs energy as well as the type that powers your phone.

Holland Part 1 - Prelude

Strictly speaking the title should be Noord Holland Part 1, largest city Amsterdam, capital city Haarlem, but that would be splitting hairs a bit I think. I've visited this part of the world perhaps not many times but certainly as often as possible ever since I started in my first job and saved the money to go camping on a long since vanished campsite on the outskirts of Amsterdam near the Olympic Stadium. My reason for wanting to visit back then, we're talking 1980ish here, was unsurprisingly to do with music. I was then, as I still am, a big fan of a certain Dutch rock band and also lots of Euro jazz, so the trip was almost a pilgrimage for me, taking in as many record stores as I could find (no internet in those days) and spending all my hard saved guilders on albums I didn't even know existed. Perhaps I was at that age where Wordsworth noted that "I, at this time, Saw blessings spread around me like a sea.", of seeing the world and a different way of life with fresh young eyes, perhaps because of this I became smitten with the country as well as some of its music. I still remember my disbelief at being able to order food in a cafe and get a beer with it, mild but ultimately delightful culture shock.

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.