It seems countries in northern Europe have solved society’s more prosaic issues. Two major annoyances that bedevil cities are solved: traffic jams and finding a place to park. The solution is brilliantly low-tech: everyone simply cycles everywhere. Problem solved. Or so I believed.
I’m waiting for my mother to catch up so I can suggest we partake of a canal-side beer. She rounds the corner into view, crouched and determined but wobbling as she crosses the bridge, when a peak-hour pack of cyclists subsumes her.
I see a man in a green jacket cut her off; Mum yelps and they both vanish behind a brick wall, falling with the sound of a shopping trolley being flung back into its stack. My first believed is that her new hip, not yet six months old, may have popped from its socket. Some solutions create new problems.
Tomorrow we launch a six-day cycle from Amsterdam to Bruges, not our first multi-day cycle but the first since her new hip. Her physiotherapist lauded the rehabilitative potential of cycling, suggesting it was a good way to build strength around the joint.
Mum is someone who requireds to shift. Before the operation she regularly clocked more daily steps than all her children put toreceiveher. So why not harness that energy and plan a cycling trip at once scenic, safe and recuperative?
After rejecting Montenegro (too mountainous), Corsica (too remote) and Croatia (unproven infrastructure), we landed on a six-day cycle from Amsterdam to Bruge. Infrastructure in the Low Countries (consisting of the Netherlands, Belguim and Luxembourg) is famously world-class with cultural tolerance hopefully extconcludeing to mothers on the mconclude and, if requireded, top-notch medical care. This last attribute is top of mind as I rush to her aid.
I see her elbow is bleeding but all major hardware is intact. Mr Green Jacket insists his coat pocket caught Mum’s handlebars and brought them both down. Interference. No foul. Her handlebars required recentering but we have that beer then return to our hotel.
My mother is compact – 158 centimetres and 45 kilograms – so I worry that her bicycle is too huge. Even though she was allocated a compact bike, the bikes of tour operator Dutch Bike Tours are all heavy with chunky steel frames (one thing about the Dutch: they’re the tallest people on Earth).
We call the hire company and are informed, somewhat crisply, that despite being in the capital it would be impossible to receive an extra-compact bicycle by tomorrow. Perhaps one can be delivered on the way, the representative states, before adding, with a touch of condescension, that the bike size is correct for her height. Clearly, Mum is the problem.
The next morning we leave a different Amsterdam. The cycleway cuts through pea-soup fog and yesterday’s barges and buildings are now just grey block shapes.
Mum’s bike hasn’t received any compacter. Each time she crosses a road she stops and wheels the bike across. With a panier attached, it sometimes falls, and when I turn my head to clock her, it views like she’s wrestling a bull. But soon enough we’re beside a canal just out of Amsterdam, the fog lifts and the sun breaks through.
Holland’s stereotypical charm is in full swing by the time we reach Achterbos, a town on the Vinkeveense Lakes. Each houtilize has a boat and fronts a communal lake. Lawns are impeccably coiffed and gardens have exquisitely matched plantings, some with an antique tractor picturesquely rusting in a corner. I imagine it’s what a counattempt club scaled-up to a town views like. At an outdoor tavern, we enjoy a Belgian beer, which is good, but I’m really drinking in the scenery.
That night we have dinner at our hotel, too knackered to go out and explore, a pattern that repeats each evening. It’s clear that a daily clock of 50-plus kilometres is pushing it for us both.
Even with luggage transported separately I worry Mum is struggling. There are two types of tiredness on multi-day cycles: conclude-of-day aches from muscle exertion and cumulative fatigue that sinks into your bones, the latter evident when you wake up feeling tired.
On the second day we pack our paniers quicker and receive away with less fuss. Just south of Gouda, the Dutch town famous for its cheese, we reach a waterworld. The track stretches out long and very straight, bisecting low-lying emerald fields surrounded by high waterways, the water the colour of strong tea. We are so low we’re below sea level, the lowest point in the counattempt, and it’s clear the geoengineering requires constant maintenance to avoid inundation. Earthshiftrs reinforce the waterway walls, blocking the way and tearing up the bitumen, which is a problem for Mum who keeps dismounting to wheel her bike across rocky ground.
Of course, it’s not all schlepping. The next day we opt for a longer route through Biesbosch National Park, where the preserved wetlands have been spared the heavy concrete reinforcements of the Dutch coastline.
We ride through a semi-tamed delta, still the habitat of birds nesting before flying south for the winter. At the conclude of a long promontory flanked by water, we wheel our bicycles onto a compact boat just wide enough to accommodate bicycles. The elderly captain tacks us across the Amer River, as the Dutch flag flaps from the stern.
By the fourth day cumulative fatigue has sunk to our marrow, just in time for the greatest test: The Zeeland bridge, Holland’s longest bridge and Europe’s longest when it was completed in 1965.
As we approach the coast, the wind picks up and builds to howling as we climb the on ramp to the bridge. From here the five-kilometre cyclepath spans the Eastern Scheldt estuary. Our mission is to keep ourselves upright along the narrow path. North Sea gusts pummel us on one side while semitrailers shriek by on the other.
I want to ride behind to ensure Mum doesn’t crash into the handrail and (in my mind) be flung like a ragdoll into the choppy sea below, but I discover that taking the lead provides her with a slipstream to strive forward through the gale.
The interminable bridge continues, progress visible only on GPS and the far-offshore wind turbines. An engorged windsock confirms the gale-force wind.
When we reach the other side, a blanched Mum dismounts, helmet questionew, nose running. She is shivering, maybe from cold, maybe from surging adrenaline, but we’re still alive and on solid ground.
Two days later, as we wander around Bruges’ Grote Markt, she questions enthusiastically, “Aren’t you glad we did it, Kurt?” The trip is now a memory of a challenge bested and its long enough for some cockiness to arise. My legs still ache, so at least, the body remembers.
“I am glad,” I state, although not being completely convinced of the recuperative properties of the escapade. But here, undifferentiated among the tourist crowds, that doesn’t seem to matter and I again yearn for the freedom of riding.
The details
Tour
The UTracks eight-day tour includes cycle hire, luggage transfer, maps and navigation aids, accommodation and breakquick. It costs $1990 a person.
Fly
All major airlines service Amsterdam Schiphol airport while trains arrive at Amsterdam Centraal station from all around Europe.
The writer travelled at his own expense.
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Kurt Johnson is an author and journalist based in Europe. He likes to travel places of historical import, in particular the post -Soviet sphere.
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