# A ride to the Netherlands, Part 3



## totallyfixed (11 Sep 2013)

This was one of those occasions where our host who was almost 8 months pregnant, along with 2 young children plus various bags for the children and a huge heavy bike which which to transport all of the above, guided us out of Leeuwarden, she cycled with us for about 6 km where we parted company with promises to keep in touch [which we have]. I forgot to post the first mileage picture which we took at the end of each day, but here is the one from when we arrived in Leeuwarden:





This is the accumulated distance from Cambridge.
The weather was again warm but for the first time it was slightly overcast, our destination for our next overnight stop was Assen, apparently famous for motor racing but also for cycle racing too. Apart from a cursory look on the internet we knew nothing about these places and all the better for that I think as we arrived with no expectations. As this was hopefully going to be a shorter day in terms of miles we had decided to go via the university town of Groningen, known for its high levels of cycling even for the NL, wow we thought, that must really be something.
For one of the few times on this trip we followed the main road, which is not as bad as it sounds because you have your own beautiful path well segregated from the traffic usually by vegetation of some kind. We were fairly batting along and just over half way to Groningen we turned off the main road to drop down to a canal that ran most of the way into the city. The barges were enormous, often 100 meters long and usually with cars on them. We often saw a lot of dredging going on, something I guess had to be a non stop job, but what a brilliant way of transporting goods around, both within and out of the country, as long as express delivery wasn't specified!
I had mentioned earlier how the numbered system for getting around tended to take the scenic route, found the photo we took of the map that shows the section from just outside Alkmaar to a few km's short of the North Sea dike.
Alkmaar is about 10 km south from the bottom left corner and we were heading for the top right corner. You get an idea now how frustrating it could be.






After about three and a half hours the buildings of Groningen hove into sight followed almost simultaneously with the first drops of rain, after a few more minutes we had to put on our waterproofs and overshoes. We followed the signs for Centrum and once in the centre we walked the bikes whilst looking at the shops, then bought pieces of pizza and stood under some buildings feeling the cold for the first time and probably looking a bit dejected. The Tourist Office was just across the square so we headed in to see if we could find a better map, I saw a Groningen cycling T-shirt I really liked but there was only one left in my size and would you believe it was whisked from before my eyes by another bloke.............who was English! I was a bit miffed, after all we were the ones who had cycled to get there.
Armed with a new cycling map book [which turned out to be fairly rubbish] we headed due south to Assen into a headwind, and it was still raining, I don't have a great recollection of this section as it was mainly head down and grit teeth, I remember the rain got hard enough to force us to stop under a motorway bridge. As we came into Assen the sun came back out and short sleeve order was restored.
Finding the address in Assen was the most difficult yet, our phone map copies just didn't show enough so after much tooing and froing, side to siding and up and downing, not to mention going round in circles, we asked someone [should have done that in the first place], the 2 guys we asked joked with us and threatened to send us off in the wrong direction, they were funny but got us to our next stop.
The lady who answered the door was lovely, but didn't speak any English which kind of stopped us in our tracks a bit, and our Dutch was zero, just as I was wondering how we would communicate, out came an ipad with Google translate on it! Given that she was about 70 I thought this was brilliant, after much laughter we got her wifi password and then used the same method on our phones, problem solved. Once more we ate out in town that evening sitting outside, but not before finding a supermarket and stocking up with snacks for the next day. We had become very partial to a thick sweet chocolate drink called Vla which was fantastic for recovery after a hard ride.
Photo of speedo in Assen




When we informed our host that our next stop was Zutphen, her eyebrows went up in surprise, I got the impression she thought it a long way, had we chewed off too much? 
A photo of our kind hostess as we were leaving




Always a slightly sad goodbye and this was no exception, but I am sure we will return one day.
The day beckoned, the sun was shining again and this was potentially a long one if we didn't get the map reading correct first time. No pressure then .
Next, headwind, hills and a lot of roadies.


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## Hill Wimp (12 Sep 2013)

Don't want this to end.


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