April 16: Pancakes

There’s been altogether too much talk about cycling lately, so here’s something better: pancakes. Pancakes are pretty good anytime, but when it’s a Sunday morning and you’re cold and tired and miles from home and surrounded by cows, they’re amazing. I will explain! Actually no I won’t, here’s a picture instead.

I was overjoyed to have these at the 30mL Cafe in Ede. I rolled up with a feral beard, in slightly rancid cycling gear, probably smelling of Alpacas and to their credit they didn’t call the police. (I did take a seat at the back to not unsettle the brunching middle class.) Did I mention the coffee? 30mL Cafe also makes very nice coffee. I think I was there for well over an hour, which meant I didn’t get on the road until really late, but I have no regrets.

Of course, the reason I was in Ede having pancakes is … retiring risks for the trip? Fine, let’s just say cycling. The training schedule calls for two 6-hour rides this weekend. I wanted to do the rides with the full set of gear I’ll take, and stay in the tent overnight to shake out any problems.

I planned a 12 hour route that roughly follows the Dutch Green Divide, here’s how it looks:

Ede is at the bottom in the middle obscured by the blue path and you can just see “de”.

So on Saturday I got all the gear organized, checked and packed. But I was being careful and thorough and it took far too long …. and I didn’t actually get it all done. By early afternoon I had to give up: I threw the remaining important stuff into the panniers, found a campground near Ede that split the ride into 5+7 hours, and got going. That was a bit after 2. 5 hours means an ETA of a bit after 7, hopefully Komoot overestimated my time. (This hope has not become a stale cliche, if you were wondering.)

The new panniers are robust and waterproof, but they’re also accommodating and roomy, and that makes them deceptively dangerous. They offer endless exhaustion and misery, baited a generous ~70 liters of space. With all my gear packed in, they could still take more. And since they’re so big it’s very easy to throw more in - like I did with all the things I hadn’t carefully prepared! - and end up woefully overweight. My gear list is pretty well settled, but if I ever get tempted I’m sure the thought of grinding up a Spanish mountain will fix it…

Also, this was the first ride with the new Brooks seat. It doesn’t look like anything special, doesn’t seem to be padded … but it’s surprisingly comfortable to sit on. I hear you can’t really tell if a seat is a good fit until after a few hundred km on it, and that’ll be done by the end of weekend, but after just a trip around the block it’s already looking positive.

The weather forecast said no rain. That was true, but while it wasn’t actually raining it was trying to bend that rule. I didn’t want to have to put up the tent in the dark, in the cold, and possibly in the rain so I pressed on with all speed. That obviously includes some chips and a drink in Doorn though.

The route deliberately stays on natural areas away from cities, and this meant a lot of time cycling through forests - but usually on concrete paths! I regularly saw other riders, even on a cold day like today. So I guess dirt paths would not be able to cope with the high-season crowds.

There was one exception, which was Ginkelseweg nr. 2 (see photo). This was a path that was just plain sand. It was so deep that riding wasn’t actually possible, I had to push the bike. I took the first a turnoff, which was blocked by a fallen tree (last photo) but the bike is still light enough to lift so it wasn’t a problem.

I arrived at the campsite about 1900. It was clearly built for the summer crowd: there were western-themed buildings, a children’s playground, and a small zoo with Alpacas. It was also deserted. I was still trying to figure out which of the faux-wild-west buildings was reception when someone appeared and showed me around. They didn’t speak English but we made it work in Dutch, and even got through some small talk which was very gratifying after the episode in Belgium. I had a campsite close to the Alpaca pen; they probably get whiffy in summer but weren’t too bad while it’s cold.

I got the tent up before nightfall, had a shower (hot water for 50 cents) and went out on the bike to find some dinner. The weather was still not raining but things were clearly escalating so I took the raincoat. Found a three-course meal for 20eur, during the chicken course it started drizzling; over tiramisu it stepped up into light rain. The ride back was about 2km, but by then it was dark and wet and the route crossed a major road, so it was a careful trip. Discovered the Wifi didn’t extend outside the bathroom block so had to call the family from there.

It was supposed to drop below 8 degrees during the night. It shouldn’t drop much below 10 during the trip so if I could comfortably deal with the temperature tonight, it means I’m prepared. I was wearing the full merino underlayer, so I was warm enough, but didn’t sleep well: at 830 I was still tired. There’s was a 7 hour ride today, so I really had to get moving anyway; but it took an hour to get all the gear packed away and loaded up. Happily Google has a function to find pancakes and there were some nearby in Ede … and that’s why I ended up at the 30ml cafe.

The rest of the day was the same as yesterday - cycling through the forest, mostly on concrete paths.

Trouble showed up midafternoon: the Garmin satellite locator stopped sending my location. This was worrisome: I’m relying on it for SOS, so if it isn’t working, I can’t use it to call for help. (I have two cellphones with me, but the network isn’t trustworthy across my route; I got the Garmin specifically for because it works anywhere.) I tried moving it to the tank bag so it had better sky visibility, and parking in a spot without trees to give it a better chance to connect to satellites. It didn’t help. The cellphones had a good connection though, and I kept going.

The only other memorable part of the trip was a bridge near the end where there’s no easily accessible ramp, there’s three flights of steep stairs. The bike’s tyres are too wide for the groove on the right so, once again, carrying it was the best option…

I think that was the third time I had to carry the bike this trip? So I guess it’s going to happen regularly. The bike is still so light that this is easy, it’s more reasons not to fill up those panniers.

After that I got to Zwolle, found the train station, and got the next train to Amsterdam. Very unhappy with the personal locator; I’ll investigate the problem tomorrow.

But I’m very happy with the Merino layer, I wore the undershirt all day and even though it was 10-12 it kept me comfortably warm. I’d checked a lot of internet reviews and forums before buying, they were right.

And the Brooks saddle hype is real! Lots of recommendations for them online - and it’s well earned, I’m taking this saddle for the trip.

But the best part? Definitely pancakes.