Best Bike Trip Yet

It was time. The time had come. It was Time this morning to brave taking the bike on the train, to pedal farther from home.

Today's forecast was rainy, as all day yesterday had in fact been. But when I crawled out of bed there was dense fog, and cable TV's pitiful little weather-radar showed nothing serious blowing in from the North Sea. So I packed up the huge Spa Blauw water bottle, the camera, GPS, book (in case I miss a train connection), and I just bolted off to Naarden-Bussum station. Used the automatic ticket dispenser to buy a round-trip ticket to Harderwijk, on the "real-land" side just off the "manufactured-land" island of Flevoland. Bought a Fiets Dagkaart (day ticket to take the bike on the train). Lugged the loaded bike down and back up the stairs to the waiting island in the middle of the station. The train came.

Now there does exist, against all received knowledge I expect, a Method to my Madness. NS (Nederlands Spoorwegen) people don't really like you to take bikes trains, hate it in fact, and they only allow them in certain places, and not at all during rush hours quaintly named "spits". Not only that but you need to know RIGHT AWAY which door to wheel to--before the doors open for sure, and preferably even as the cars are gliding past you to their (very brief) stop. Worse, you have very very little time to make your move, the light is poor in the stations, and worst of all--there are several different kinds of train, each with different markings and doors. NS, meet Sade.

So Tuesday at Amsterdam Centraal I stared at trains and at passengers boarding and exiting with bicycles. Enlightenment required about an hour, and it went like this: after testing and discarding several seemingly reasonable hypotheses, I settled on two sure-fire means of identifying a correct door: (1) a little white placard with a bicycle. This might be anywhere around the door, but whatever the train type, it is always right under the "1" or "2" for the class. This is not good enough, however, because the train zips by you very fast, and the placard is not always too readable for a distance. Thus means (2): in the middle of the train car is a pair of doors, a boarding area, and a window on each side. If one of these windows is wider than the other (and wider than all the other windows), THAT is where you run with the bike. The only exception is a intercity (express) train where you go under the driver's cockpit, which is high up like that of a 747.

So this morning--the train rolls in, I find my door right away--piece of cake--haul the bike in and park it, sit. Oops!--the floor is not actually flat, and the bike's kickstand doesn't keep it stable as the train shrugs left and right between tracks, entering and leaving each station. I find that by backing the rear wheel next to my fold-down jump seat and turning the front wheel crosswise, I can stabilize it even while sitting down, and the front wheel is out of the entering and exiting passengers' way as well. Another mystery solved. I rode that way to Amersfoort, pumped up the tires during the connection, and then on to Harderwijk.

Where I needed a toilet. Ah, but this is an enlightened station--they have one of those automated toilets...maybe I'd better explain. Dropping in the 50-cent coin opens this automatic, cataclysmically huge polished stainless steel door, heavy and utterly intimidating, like something out of Cheyenne Mountain or a Geneva bank. Reading the Dutch sign inside, you learn that you have 15 minutes (hopefully it doesn't take 16 minutes for you to interpret it, because in typically efficient Dutch fashion, you get 15 minutes, not 15 minutes and one second. You learn that at 12 minutes from coin-drop, an alarm sounds, at 14 minutes the alarm becomes insistent, and at 15 minutes the door locks and the sanitation cycle starts whether you are in there or not. Leaving the hygeine of some of the other long-distance cyclists aside, I don't think enduring this would improve one's health.

I emerge in two minutes flat, just to be safe, short-sleeve shirt on, long-sleeve shirt packed away. And the best bike ride yet starts! Southwest along the old Zuider Zee coast, treeline of the new Flevoland just visible in the fog, a kilometer across the narrow Veluwemeer.

Along the way, someone thought it would be nice to put up this memorial to the center of the Dutch way of life. My pale (but rideable, nyah nyah nyah) imitation crouches beneath.
 

Still foggy halfway from Harderwijk to Nijkerk, looking across the Veluwemeer to Flevoland.
 

When the Dutch want to discourage you and your boat from entering an area, they don't mess around. No mere suggestions like little floating lines and buoys for these hearty sailors--if it can't rip out the bottom of your boat, it doesn't really count. And you Florida readers can settle down--the bird spreading its wings to dry is not an anhinga but just a demented cormorant.
 

Across the 301 bridge near Nijkerk, the farthest distance I had managed before today. Then northeast along Flevoland's coast. I veer away from the "approved" bike path...

...and follow the long winding dike that keeps Flevoland (at left) from returning to the sea (at right). Folks, this picture is level. You have not lost your balance. Yes, the land at left is much lower than the sea at right. Welcome to the Netherlands. Anyway, the dike is grassy and the pedaling is slow, but I don't see another soul for almost an hour--and that's my first time in the Netherlands outdoors for that.
 

Please note in the above picture that the leaves have started turning color. In fact, my parking lot at work has maples all in dark red and is ankle deep in fallen leaves. I think it's going to be a long time before our trees are green again.

Gracious. I just wrote "our" trees. You know--that's happening more and more.

OK, so SOMEONE in the Netherlands has a sense of humor...
 

A hazy sun finally emerges, and I pass by the small waterfront town of Zeewolde and find a shady spot for lunch. I don't even sit down--the legs feel good, the heart and lungs feel just right, and it was still cool. Perfect.
 

And even a little lunchtime guest, trumpeting quite softly in the reeds.


 

Continuing northeast along the water I see clouds building to the north. This is not good--they had predicted rain for today, after all, and now I see the convection was in fact starting. So even my utterly novice train-bike-train planning was paying off: instead of continuing northeast along the Flevoland side (no train lines nearby), I was in a position to cross over and continue northeast as long as the weather held out--on a parallel out of Harderwijk along the mainland side, and most importantly parallel to a train line with a station every 10 km or so.

I rode through deep countryside, sometimes the bike path narrowed to a long rut between barbed-wire fences at each elbow. Occasionally I passed a "modest" farmhouse like this one.
 

But in an hour or two I pooped out and got nervous about the weather at the same time. I turned southeast to Nunspeet. And no sooner had I dropped a 2-Euro coin in for a one-way ticket to Harderwijk (from which I still had my return ticket), then a little boy shouted to his parents: "Kijk! Ik hoor de trein!"--Look! I hear the train! And I checked the schedule, it was in fact the train to Amersfoort. I handily spotted a bike-legal door, clambered in.

Setting up my first real NS test: the NS Conductor! IS ALLES IN ORDE? Fortunately she came by after we passed Harderwijk so I could leave my little one-way ticket out of it. I presented my return ticket with my most pleasant ritual "Alstublieft"--[punch punch] and the same with my Fiets Dagkaart [punch punch]. Tickets were indeed in order, and my bike out of the way and secure too. She was very pleased. Not bad: I had passed from mere experimenter to a Fiets-Trein ambassador to the ever-suspicious NS crews. On her way back through she even asked if I was tired "vermoeid" (just try to pronounce it), and I responded that I had done "zeventig kilometer", 70 km. She made a ritual impressed look, smiled, and didn't bother me again.

And that was pretty much it. The "stap over" (connection) at Amersfoort was interesting--the trains were facing each other as through waiting for each other, which is common here, and in fact I did just step across. I realized suddenly that I had boarded without even glancing up at the signage. Well, it was in fact the Amsterdam Centraal sneltrain, and I got off in Naarden-Bussum, lugged the bike down and up the stairs again (this part will be a drag), and cycled the 4 minutes to the apartment.

Footnote 1: Wow. I'm doing this again next weekend. Maybe both days. It's not just the freedom of getting farther from home. It's also being able to start and stop the day in very different places. Obviously. But less obvious and even better: Since trains stop at most stations every 30 minutes (much of the Dutch world revolves around 30-minute cycles), I don't even have to plan where to end the day. I can just ride until I get tired, find the nearest NS station on the map. Incredibly liberating. And I don't really even lose much time. Rather than wasting the first hour at home catching my breath at the end of a ride, I can just be on the train. This evening I rode home from the Naarden-Bussum station almost refreshed. What a system.

Footnote 2: The cumulative GPS map of all the routes I've cycled over here is getting very interesting. You can make out Flevoland's curving southern coastline and the mainland shores just opposite. Pretty soon you'll be able to make out all Flevoland and what's left of the Zuider Zee. Maybe I'll post a map on this site if I can figure out how--comments anyone?

But mostly I can't wait to take advantage of this really powerful new way--train, bike, train--to explore this country.