After dragging Nicolas out of bed to open up the bike locker, I left Jacob van Campenplein at around 9. I decided to do my first bit of token bike maintenance at the side of the path, around a mile from my starting point. First item on the agenda was tyre pressure. I deployed my flash new pump and an aggressive hiss left my front tyre flat in a matter of seconds. It was clear I had the wrong kind of pump. Cursing the fact that I had not checked this before leaving, I trotted back to the nearest bike shop which was adjacent to Nicolas’ house. This was frustrating in the extreme. The shopkeeper was happy enough to sell me the appropriate adaptors and by the time I had messed around getting them to work I had good firm tyres but an hour’s less time.
This being so I thought I had better belt out the first section, Rotterdam to Gorinchem, so that I could reasonably expect to arrive in Nijmegen before dusk. This proved easy enough as the cycle path was very direct, following the route of the main road communicating between the towns. I paid for the convenience in scenery as all there was to see for 20 miles was a motorway wall on one side and an assortment of innominate buildings on the other. This tedium was occasionally punctuated by cheerful Dutch villages and the occasional glimpse of the Waal.
Arriving in Gorinchem I found it to be a delightful little market village, with a small network of cobbled streets. With the help of a local woman I found the central square and enjoyed a coffee and a large slab of Cadbury’s in the sunshine. I was soon on my way to my next stop, Tiel, along the Waaldijk. This was a great ride and I flew along the long flat dijk with the wind helping. I had a slight setback in missing a turning which added an extra few miles to the route but arrived in Tiel in good time and devoured a meal of ham, beef, other ham and three eggs. I crossed the Waal at Tiel by way of a ‘pont’, a Dutch colloquialism for ferry. This dropped me off at the start of a long and mostly straight road straight through to Nijmegen and I completed this last section without incident, arriving in Nijmegen around five o’clock.
My second host, Loes, came to meet me in the centre and we cycled back to her flat for dinner before going down to the oldest bar in Nijmegen and by extension the Netherlands. This was a great place but the Dutch beers were like wine with a head and I had to stop after three emasculatively small glasses.
I attempted to read in bed but slipped off, book in hand.
Distance covered 80 miles
