Amsterdam > Haarlem > Zandvoort [Tue 29 May | 62.26 km]
Zandvoort > Den Haag [Wed 30 May | 81.14 km]
Den Haag > Rotterdam [Thu 31 May | 48.17 km]
Come Tuesday, it was time to get on the road at last - with the first real riding part of my vacation consisting of a group ride to Haarlem, followed by... a cross-country alleycat from Haarlem to Zandvoort, where we'd be camping the night. The real challenge of the day was in Bloemendal, one of the wealthiest areas of the Netherlands, with one of the only hills, which. much to my delight, had some long stretches of brick cobbles. The wind was in our faces the entire way, especially when we broke out of the forests and into the dunes, which are quite reminiscient of those along the pacific coast in Nor-Cal. The evenings camping was at a nice enough spot in the dunes, sheltered somewhat from the winds, with the bike camping area back away from the caravans, which is always a nice way to do it. There was yet another alleycat in Zaandvoort, which must've been quite a sight for the locals - 50 messengers descending on their town and riding like maniacs all around.
Next morning we woke up and got on the road to Den Haag, where we'd been meeting some of the local messengers. Most of our route there was through the dunes on bike paths - the Noordzeeroute, i beleive - which were pretty heavily trafficked along their entire length by Dutch and German tourists, and roadies out for a training spin. Made for some nice riding, until we got dumped out into some of the coastal towns, which can be quite touristy, and it only gets uglier that way until Den Haag, where you end up on this incredibly obnoxious boardwalk. Urgh. Thankfully, our campsite was nowhere near that, and was actually quite a nice spot - good grass sites, and a good bit of trees for shelter
Mopenhagen and a few more of the Copenhagen crew have joined us at this point, as well as Ercan and some of the Dusseldorf gang, i beleive, making for a pretty good-sized little group. Everyone rode into town to meet the locals and (you guessed it) race another alleycat. As for myself, i just headed back to camp, after a pretty futile search for beer, underscoring how important it is to know where the nightshop is...
Thursday sent us on the final leg to Rotterdam, through Delft, which is quite an attractive town - would've liked to spend more time here, but that'll have to wait for next time, as you can't really make a group of 50+ messengers ride by your travel plans... Arrival in Rotterdam finds it to be in complete contrast to Amsterdam - everywhere there is modern architecture, and the industrial look of a large port city. As the ECMC campsite isn't set up yet, we spent the night in the race HQ, which seemed a lot like a high school gym.
Maps used:
ANWB Fietsmaps: Amsterdam, Dordrecht
On to Rotterdam and the ECMC