Riding the IJsselmeer

Having decided that this year I would ride the Dunwich Dynamo, an overnight cycle from Hackney to Dunwich in Suffolk, it was time to start training in earnest. However, flights to Earnest were too expensive, so instead I flew to the most bicycle-friendly country in the world to hit the road with my brother-in-law Marc, who had worked out a route around some small lake in the Netherlands called the IJsselmeer. Did I say small? It's the fifth largest frigging lake in Western frigging Europe and if I had known quite how big it was, I would probably never have got on the plane. Somehow or other though, we managed to do the whole 400km loop in three days.



Day 1. The sun is shining, the cheese is toothsome and the going is good.


Day 2. After camping for the night in Hoorn, where I also had to get a new front wheel, we cross the Afsluitdijk: a 32 km dyke which the Dutch built by cutting the IJsselmeer off from the sea, thereby turning a saltwater inlet into a freshwater lake. Amazing! The dyke itself, the second longest in the world, is basically little more than a road, mercilessly exposed to the elements. Fortunately the sun kept shining and we had a tail wind. The legs were sore, not to mention the arses, but we got across in good time, with a bit of encouragement from our i-pods. Note to cycIing goths: I highly recommend 'No Pussy Blues' by Grinderman as a pedalling aid.




Day 3. After spending the night in a rather luxurious hotel with my sister Sharon and their daughter Eleanor, Marc and I reluctantly get back in the saddle for the 150 km home stretch to Utrecht in somewhat less forgiving weather - a head wind and rain most of the way. On the way we see scenes of random Dutch weirdness such as a seemingly deserted new town which had been celebrating its 50th anniversary the night before and whose sole occupants were these rather sinister straw sentinels left guarding the entrance to the town.




It was a long hard slog, but somehow or other we managed to get back to Utrecht in 11 hours. The whole trip appeared to temporarily cure me of diabetes and I had perfect blood sugar readings every day, so have postponed the transition to Metformin a little further. Marc was a great cycling companion, and showed a lot of patience when I was lagging behind. I don't think I'd have been able to do it without that windmill powered crash helmet though.