Energised by a fine Dutch breakfast from my lovely Warmshowers hosts Jaap and Rie, I set off into a day-long headwind for the 45-mile-ish haul along roadside bike paths to Nijmegen. Dutch breakfasts evidently include eggs, bacon, rye bread, curranty bread rolls, and chocolate shavings. And coffee, and tea, and entertaining chat. I think I like Dutch breakfasts.
The actual riding itself today was pretty routine. I’d intentionally followed the main roads, or rather road, the N271, which arrows all the way from Venlo to Nijmegen. I knew there’d be a good roadside bike path, and didn’t feel the need to follow more roundabout leisure routes wiggling along the Maas valley.
I enjoyed poking around Arcen, a riverside castle town, and didn’t need to detain myself in a cafe thanks to my bumper breakfast. The sameness of the path experience thereafter was occasionally relieved by the sight of more animals for my roadside-farm bestiary: horses; ponies; goats with climbing frames; deer.
At Plasmolen – a lake with a sandy beach – I briefly regretted not bringing my trunks for a wild swim, then realised it was still cold and windy and March, so stopped regretting.
The final run-in to Nijmegen, round about threeish, was a delight. The F73 is a fast-bike route, something the Netherlands specialises in: cycling motorways, if you like. And I do.
The F73’s final seven or eight miles into town was on an outstanding bicycle path, wide enough for two riders each direction, smooth and of course car-free, and with priority at junctions with the occasional motor road. Much of it goes through woods, which although not at their best in this bare March, was still a tranquil and calming experience.
In Nijmegen, a vibrant university town, I spent an hour in Velorama, the Netherlands’ most prominent bike museum. Its three floors are packed with historic bicycles, covering the entire history of the machine from the hobbyhorses of the 1820s to… er… about 1900. Only a handful of its hundreds of items are from any later.
Those ‘modern’ exhibits are interesting if eclectic – a few folding WWI and WWII bikes, a Moulton, a Round-the-Worlder’s lavishly-loaded tourer from 1995, Wim van Est’s crumpled bike after he fell into a gorge while wearing the Yellow Jersey in the 1951 Tour de France.
But mostly this is a place for old-tech buffs. If you like seeing six-foot-high ‘penny-farthings’, ancient suspension, prehistoric rubber-free tyres, early shaft drives, and every possible 1800s variation of number of wheels, propulsion system and number of seats, all lavishly over-engineered in wrought iron, then you’ll be happy.
Anyway, having had my fill of clunky black metalwork driving wheels the size of dustbin lids, I could enjoy mingling with Nijmegen’s visitors in the busy Saturday market in the historic centre, check into my hostel, and go foraging for dinner and drinks from Albert Heijn.
Miles today: 44
Miles since Drielandenpunt: 119