Cycle Dash around the Netherlands

This post could just as easily have been titled “how not to do a tour of the Netherlands”. Load up the bike with far too much gear, including enough wet weather gear to survive a monsoon, then head off during a heatwave. Oh, and don’t book any accommodation.

Firstly, I compiled an out and back route from the gps files on this site. I can’t read what it says about them, but I downloaded them anyway. Here, I read that the LF routes are good ones for touring. Once underway it became apparent that the route was generally very accurate and rarely did I need to refer to my too-large scale fietsroute map. Every twist and turn popped up on my GPS, even though I had to filter each track to 250 points or less in MapSource. Then I converted the track to a route using GPSbabel. For some reason MapSource doesn’t do this conversion. Once converted I re-opened the track file back in MapSource and then Transferred to my Garmin GPSmap 60CSx.

My route was parts of LF12, Maas-en Vestingroute, LF2, Stedenroute, LF4, Midden Nederlandroute, and LF3, Maasroute. You can get an overview here

Day one saw a detour via Kinderdijk and on to Utrecht arriving at dusk. Pressing “find” on Garmin and picking a Best Western directed me neatly to a building site. I asked some locals who pointed me in the direction of a small private hotel.

Day two, passing through Arnhem and Nijmegen. After Nijmegen the area becomes quite hilly but incredibly having already pedalled 90 miles or so I found myself hauling the heavy load up long inclines at my best pace yet. My intended stopover town was closed, it was getting dark and I had no choice but to take a flyer to the next village. I had to fix my lights, I packed them of course, and cycle along some very dark wooded paths adjacent to a lake. So another 15 miles or so and a late night knock on the door at Motel Koolen brought a good welcome.

Day three was a scorcher. From around 10am I had to wear my “Lawrence of Arabia” style cap and neck shield, and put my long-sleeved dark shirt back on to stop my arms from burning. A navigation error at Heusden caused me to lose an hour or so before I realised the way forwards was actually a mile or so back the way I came and across a ferry. This mistake, the excessive heat and lack of proper meal the previous night conspired to prevent me from completing the 140 or so miles back to Europort so I had a third night in Dordrecht before a leisurely cycle to the port next morning.

Despite (because of?) the big mileages covered this route was superb for the pleasure of cycling. Mostly on smooth paths, it takes in quite a variation of the Dutch countryside. I’d do it again, but with a tent, and I would give the cities a complete miss. I’d certainly use the lf_nederland files again to compile a route.

Europort to Utrecht via Rotterdam, Kinderdijk, Gouda and Woerden
Netherlands day one (89 miles)

Utrecht, Arnhem, Nijmegen
Netherlands day two (113 miles)

near Nijmegen to Dordrecht
Netherlands day three (98 miles)

Dordrecht to Europort via Rotterdam
Netherlands day four (42 miles)