Some story titles just spill the beans, so you’re left with nothing to imagine about what went down.
Like in most of these stories, we started with a good, balanced breakfast with our hosts, Diana and Wil. After packing up again and taking some goodbye selfies, we hit the road at 9:15 AM, as we had 82 km to cover. And that was for a fifth bike day in a row! I guess we were a bit crazy when we planned this.
Wil suggested we skip the sea route and take the one through The Oostvaardersplassen instead, hoping we’d spot more wildlife. And you know what? The road was totally beautiful.
But too much attention to the scenery leads to a first small detour. Nothing to worry about. Yet.
We’d only gone 30 km when we got to Lelystad, and we were already beat. So maybe a good sandwich at Bart’s Bakery can help.
The waitress felt a bit sorry for our tired faces and brought us a free glass of water to quench our thirst.
Next destination was to the city of Urk where we were confronted with works on the Ijsselmeerdijk, so we had to take a second detour. That just added another few km or so to our route. The weather was still warm and stiflingly hot.
We decided to bike along the sea, hoping it’d be a bit cooler than inland, but we got a mild 14km/h headwind. Our muscles were working overtime, but it was nothing we couldn’t handle. After we crossed the Ketelbrug, Leen noticed a slight vibration on her bike. As we kept going along the coast, her verdict was in: “Flat tire!”
I tried pumping up the tire, even though I knew it probably wouldn’t do much. But it got us to Urk’s city limits! I wasn’t really in the mood to fix it, so we looked for a bike repair shop that could immediately help us. Luckily, we found one fast, so Leen only had to walk her bike about 500 meters.
While the repair was ongoing, dark clouds gathered above us, preparing for the next delay of the day: a deluxe lightning storm.
We rushed to find a place to hide, but we got caught. We looked for shelter at a random house on a street, but the owners weren’t really willing to let us in. We stood, soaked to the skin under a small canopy over the front door until the worst of it passed. Since we didn’t want to wait for the whole storm to pass, we already left in the pouring rain (because the rain would stop sooner in the direction we were heading).
Still 25 km to go, and we gotta hit up Albert Heijn for dinner supplies. Those 25 km felt like an eternity, but we finally at 19:45 we made it to our Vrienden op de Fiets (VOF) spot. Our host Sandra was there to welcome us, and that bed is really calling our name.
We ended up doing 86.4 km, with all the detours and mischief. It was a long day, and the longest ride of our tour so far.
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