The Alkmaar lift bridge at 10AM this morning. Koolltuin to the right.
The First Law had its day. SW force 4 and force 5 is not really the thing when bicycling from Alkmaar (cheese capital) to Vlaardingen (herring capital).
In addition it turned out that to navigate the Dutch bicycle paths over some distance is not the easiest thing in the world. Directions were always to nearest (small) place and some concentrated map reading was needed in order to be able to move more or less in the general direction of the destination.
Got a bit side-tracked on at least two occasions, made a longer detour east of Ijmuiden and missed the North Sea Canal locks, and also south of Delft I made a completely unnecessary detour in the general direction of Rotterdam mainly because map reading was not concentrated enough.
However all things considered the day went well, the total distance was 124 km, at least 15 km more than planned, mainly due to the two main detours (the distance as the crow flies only 84.8 km according to the GPS). Average speed was 19 km/h in spite of the strong headwind. Not too unhappy with the first day, although I must admit I have been in better shape. However thing should improve. Maintained speed the whole day and also increased average speed at the end of the ride, mainly because wind died down.
The heavily loaded bike performed flawlessly, also on the rather bumpy bike paths (to build bikepaths with bricks is in my honest opinion not a very good idea). A major part of the bike paths today were built with bricks and were not asphalted.
Made it to Vlaardingen around 1900, nine hours after leaving Alkmaar, and with about 6h40minutes on the bike. Plan to take it easier tomorrow. Also navigation on the Rhine delta islands should be a lot simpler. The weather forecast is again SW strength 4 or maybe even 5.
the 5th June Vlaardingen sunset
back to on the road - next day