21.09.2023 Crossing Netherlands and Belgium quickly

The last few days were pretty shitty.

I had constant headwind and a quite strong one.

Last time I experienced such a strong headwinds was at the top of Denmark ( where this is normal).

But I havent expected such headwinds here in Netherlands and Belgium and I am not even on the coastline, but quite inwards.

I left the Netherlands ( decided not to go to Rotterdam and follow the coastline because of the wind ), and crossed into Belgium.

I have learned very well by now that the wind goes most often from SW so if you are planning to cycle west of France, Belgium, Netherlands and beyond, its advised to go from south to north if possible.

A huge church in Belgium, refusing to fit into the picture.

Now I got you.

Sleeping in some woods in Belgium.

No shortage of bikes here

Little bit of Bruxelles

Camping just before the border of France. There was a nice cycling road starting several kilometeres before the border with france and entering into France. This mean I could sleep somewhere here (as the night caugt me) and so I did. The road was only for cyclists so there was no much traffic.

After several windy days, the rain come.

After I have crossed the border from Belgium to France, I had 2 days of constant rain. And the temperature has dropped. Still I decided to ride it because I didnt want to stay anywhere.

Miserable me (les miserables)

Hiding form the rain under thre bridge.

Since the main point of this trip for me was to hike in the Tatra mountains in Slovakia, enjoy the Baltic coast of Poland ( which I missed last year when I crossed Poland ) and enjoy Denmark mainland (I have been to Copenhagen last year), I have pretty much done this now and the rest was just a backup plan. 

If I end with more time left , my thought was I can always spend some more time in France.

That was the main reason I chose to ride counter clockwise going into Baltic countries first.

Also for the first time I have sat down and looked at the map ( and the time I have left on this trip ) and concluded that I cannot continue towards the coast of France. 

So now I am going straight to Paris and then north Italy avoiding the alps.

So this is the last stretch of my journey, and it has been nice in all possible ways!

I am not in a hurry but I do need to keep the pace to arrive home in time.

Love these structures in parks in France.

Rainy atmosphere

One night I slept in some old shed / bar, it protected me at least from some rain.

Riding these gravel singletracks alongside river become more and more common as I ventured deeply  into France.

More and more canals, here was still very head-windy.

Dirty me (les dirties)

This sign started to make a lot of sense. While riding next to the riverband you really need to be careful at some places, otherwise loosing concentration for a bit could easily make you dive into these diry rivers.

Abandoned ship.

This was actually part of Eurovelo 3. I was not planning to ride here but Komoot bike ride brought me here. 

This looks like I am sleeping next to the road, but these roads are forbidden and all vechicles except cyclists and ended up here one night ( looking where to sleep ) and welcoming this table with both arms.

Wooden arhitecture in France.

Looking forward to seeing some France on my way back ( so far I only saw the Chamonix region ).

France is big of course and one could spend months just cycling here.

Paris here I come!

15.09.2023 Netherlands, the good parts

 I havent spent a lot of time in the Netherlands and I wasn't expecting much.

Yet it seems like the country has a lot to offer.

There is a certain architecture which persists in small towns similar to German which use this 'brick' design of the houses and buildings.

I started to follow Fietserpad, which is a famous cycling path going from north to south of the country. Seems a bit weird because almost everything in the Netherlands IS a cycling path :)

This route led me across several national parks which are forest areas and the route uses mostly paved roads or paths.

If you find yourself in one of these national parks it would be quite easy to wild camp and its very quiet, since the rest of the country is pretty much populated. 

Here is was quite rainy but I had a lot of sun in Netherlands as well.

A lot of windmills here but there were also present in Denmark a lot.

I ended up sleeping one night on one of those water facilities (like a small dam) very close to German border. It wa sa nice find, half an hour before sunset (and a nice sunsert it was!). 

The place ended up being very quiet with no residental houses few hundred meters in any direction.

Magical mornings

Bridge reflection

Mighty churches, this one didnt even fit into the picture.

Monument Mens Tegen Macht in Arnhem

About the Netherlands quite amazing cycling infrastructure, speaking to Tom ( my Warmshowers host in the town of Deventer ),  I said the infrastructure in Netherlands was almost too much ( you get confused sometimes with all the lanes) but after I left Netherlands, I see even bigger reason and thats the fact that if you get used to such infrastructure, when you go to any other country, it will feel like their infrastructure is seriously lacking, ( which is not) so better dont go to Netherlands at all :) 

A film night which I spent which my Warmshowers host Tom in the town of Deventer. 

Strangely , in supermarkets in the Netherlands you can find a lot of super quality peanut butter at very cheap prices ( which is not the case in most other countries in Europe) . As soon as I entered the first store in the Netherlands I immediately bought 1kg of super tasty peanut butter for 5 euro ( which is like Poland prices ).

Peanut butter was not lacking in the Netherlands :)

One thing I also liked vey much is bread with raisins which is also available in supermarkets. I would just eat it on its own with no need for other ingredients like a jam for example.

Here you can see examples of trash cans located along the cyclist paths ( yes, they look like basket in basketball ). 

As soon as I saw one it made me smile. The point is obvious, you should be able to throw garbage passing by on a bicycle. Of course most people dont do this neither I have.

A few pictures of the city of Ultrecht in the Netherlands through which I have passed.

Riding the Merwede Canal

18.09.2023 A free shelter in the Netherlands

 A free shelter in the Netherlands you say? Yes, it does exist:) 

After yesterday's half slept night in public park when the police woke me in half of the night, luckily after seeing my ID card, they wished me luck with my trip and I managed to get some sleep.

But I picked the spot completely wrong. Komoot brought me to shelter in that park but it ended up being only some kind of desk table with half a roof.

I did enjoy the evening on several available tables and first I wanted to sleep in the woods because this shelter would not protect me from the rain which was forecasted for the night and morning.

But everything was wet in the evening, all the grass and whenever there is supposed to be rain I always try to find a roof over my head, because there is nothing worse than having all your sleeping gear wet in the morning.

Before bed I somehow decided to cramp my tent under that table and hope maybe I manage to avoid most of the rain.

But in the morning water got partly underneath my tent and still managed to get most stuff wet so I would say pucking tjat spot wasy mistake ( especially considering police could and did see me from the parking lot).

If I stayed in the woods I would be wet pretty much the same but would probably avoid the police waking me up in the middle of the night. Not sure if they were walking around on foot or just saw me from the car.

Btw that desk under the roof reminds me of one night in Norway last year where I managed to find very nice place by the lake one evening, and it had similar type of shelter only partially covered by roof. As it was supposed to rain that night, after eating dinner I decided to sleep right on the table, which would almost protect me from the rain completely. So I didn't use tenr but placed the sleeping pad and sleeping bag directly on the table .

I did use a tarp as well to cover only one side since I knew the direction of the wind and this also helped to keep me completely dry that night.

Funny thing, the Norwegian bike tourer I traveled a bit in Norway ( but we didn't always stay together) saw me the next morning still sleeping on the table, and when I told him the story where I slept one night, he immediately replied: Oh, that was you, I have seen you!

Back to today's real shelter which I found accidentally. It was going to rain again, and it did rain several times during the day, I saw some shelter quite far away, I didn't believe in the morning I was going to reach it, but as the day progressed, and all the little things that happened that day, I slowly but surely kept going towards that shelter. 

Its called Griendwerkershut.

And I must say shelter is really nice, easily reachable, few minutes of grassy path after paved road ends. 

There is no drinking water but aside from that, shelter has it all.

Feels like a mountain shelter compared to all the shelters in Denmark and Finland.

Quite a nice day today, and although I havent slept that well last night, I felt good all day. I managed to find one of those recreational equipment in some local park ( there was also and fingerboard :) 

I also dried my sleeping gear while doing dome exercising.

The headwind today however was very strong, the strongest so far I have experienced in Netherlands. Therefore I decided not to go through Rotterdam and coastline bridges I initially planned because the wind tomorrow is also strong and coming from SW so it would kill me.

Today I also changed rear brake pads. These are now second new pads since the beginning of the trip. Less than last year to Norway which was very hilly.

As for the rear shifter, it's moving quite a bit, I think I will manage to add another zip tie higher up to keep it stable. I still have to check if this plastic that broke can be replaced ( somehow doubt it).

I bought nice sliced ready to eat vegetables today (onion and similar content), it was quite a big pack and on discount so I decided to go for it for change. I havent managed to eat it all for dinner how big it was.

The newly bought non sticking pan is working well so far. It is actually the same as my previous cooking set from Primus which lasted a really long time. 

I haven't been able to use my laptop for a few days now, but tomorrow I can work from this shelter in the morning. 

I only wish I bought yoghurt since I love oats and yoghurt in the morning.

17.09.2023 How many battle scars can my bike get?

 How many battle scars can my bike get?

Today is the worst day since the beginning of my trip ( which is now almost 2 months on the road)

I have been in the Netherlands for a few days now and although I havent been expecting much ( I am more of just passing through, more looking forward to seeing France ), these few days have actually been very pleasant, and yesterday I was at a host in town of Deventer who took me at open film festival, but today misfortune and human misbehavior completely ruined it for me.

I left my bike leaned onto some flower stand next to the store I wanted to go in ( in a lack of a better place). When I finally got out of the store I saw my bike tipped over and flower stand missing, I was gutted.
When you see a bike like that it's never a pleasant feeling ( especially if its loaded with luggage) but to my worst surprise when I went to pick it up, first I saw that the rear shifter handle is completely broken.

I admit its my fault partially for leaving the bike leaned over this flower stand, but this doesnt change the fact that the woman completely lied and denied for what happened ever after I have asked several times who moved the flower stand and why did my bike fall over, only kept repeating its my fault for what has happened ( and I was in the store next by all the time).

I would at least expect from a grown up person to come to me, say what happened and can I help in some way, not trying to play cluelles and make an idiot of me.
I told her several times that she could just have waited several minutes maybe or ask anybody on the street ( and a lot of people were passing ) to help her move my bike anywhere. I dont even know if she just threw the bike so she can bring her flower stand back into the store or she tried to move it and fell in the process and I dont even want to know.

With all the people on the street it was quite a scene.
I even got a "Welcome to Nederlands" from a passer by ( he was trying to be sympatetic which didnt helped nor made me smile of course).

These kind of events sometimes make me want to quit everything I am doing, because if all humans were to behave in such rotten way, what are we left with?

My right Tiagra shifter was broken, and even part of the fenders were cracked ( they are old fenders but still cost money).

Luckily when I later tried to put it back in place ( except for the few broken plastic bits that fell out) , the shifter was miraculously still in the working state and I managed to add one zip tie to the bottom of it to keep everything in one place. That's the only place where I could add a zip tie, because the top of the shifter is a moving part for the brake.

How many battle scars can my bike have?

I had this for 3 years now, it travelled 20000 km only counting touring with luggage with anything from 10 kg (for short trips) to 30+ kg of luggage for longest ones.
It had fell over a lot of times over these years, mostly being leaned over somewhere and the wind simply managed to knock it over, no matter how much I tried to lean it opposite of wind direction to prevent this from happening in the first place.
I had one of two crashes in this period ( from what I remember) where I managed to fly over the bars.
I use it, and abuse it because luggage + my weight make it way over the manufacturers weight limit as it is.