Epic Bike Ride

Saturday morning and the weather forecast called for 70 degrees. We decided we didn’t have too many errands to run, so we’d go for a bike ride. Besides riding to and from work, I’ve been out on the road bike only about once a week and only for 20 miles or so. Our rides have been pretty slow because there are so many little towns around here. The bike route system is fantastic until you get into a town and the signs disappear. We end up doing lots of map checks to get back on track. But Dennis had found an area where there are not very many towns and there are some nice long stretches to build up our speed.

Our route took us out of our town, past my workplace, and through the neighboring town of Huizen. Huizen is along the lakeshore and we rode along the beaches, beachfront homes, and restaurants. Most of the in-town routes are brick roads with speed bumps and it’s hard to get going very fast. But soon, we left Huizen via the crushed limestone path along the lake. This section is short and worth taking to avoid more of the city streets. It’s a pretty direct way to the bridge across the lake.

The bridge offers one of the few “hills” in the area. Otherwise, the landscape is seriously flat. It makes Chicago appear mountainous by comparison. On the other side of the bridge is the newly created Flevoland. This is land reclaimed from the lake. I’m older than this land which was dried out in the 70’s. The few towns in Flevoland are also very new. For young families, it offers new, large homes for lower prices than the older more established cities. It’s a bit like Plainfield and Romeoville that way.

As we crossed the bridge, we followed one of the bike routes into a forest preserve (yeah, that’s funny because the trees were planted and they are only about 30 years old). The path was nicely paved, but wove around the woods with lots of twists and turns. There was some sort of organized roller blade event going on, so we also had to dodge roller bladers.

Finally, we got out of the forest and got on a small road that ran parallel to a canal. This is what we were looking for – a long stretch of smooth pavement with few cars. There were plenty of other riders, too. By this point in the day, the sun had come out and the wind was almost non-existent, but the temperature was only around 70. Dennis and I hammered a bit out here, but as my speedometer said we were already 20 miles from home, I was concerned about having enough energy to make it back. Even so, it was really fun to get in the aerobars and really cruise! When we got to the group of huge windmills, we stopped for a snack. Stroopwaffels make very good biking treats. These are thin wafer cookies stuck together with caramelized sugar syrup. They are tasty and they travel well. We took some time to read the signs about the windmills and the land reclamation. These windmills are huge modern things, not the old-fashioned historic ones. Unfortunately, the signs were all in Dutch and our language skills are not good enough for full appreciation of the subject.

Rested and fueled by stroopwafels, we continued on our way. Dennis led us around one of the few towns and onward back toward the lakeshore. We took a slight detour where the bike route was closed for constructions, but the detour took us on another really nice road. I was really having fun with the roads and the great weather, but was still wondering how much further we had to go. A check of the map indicated that all we needed to do was go along the lakeshore back to the bridge we came over on. Conveniently, there is a bike path all the way.

We started along the bike path and we were making good time, when the pavement ended and it became a crushed limestone trail. We normally don’t like such trails when we’re on the road bikes because the skinny tires don’t have much traction and the bikes just weren’t designed for this kind of surface. But, it seemed like it was in good condition and we figured the pavement would start up again soon. As we continued, the path became quite narrow – single track actually. Because we were near the shore, there were lots of hikers and people out sunbathing. One guy, about 60 years old, was crossing the path dressed in a Speedo and knee-high socks, no shoes. He was quite pale and plump and that’s an image you just don’t want seared on your retinas. Yikes!

As the path degraded, there were more and more patches of deep sand. If you hit those on road bike, the tires get mired down and your body lurches forward in a classis example of the laws of physics. We were almost 40 miles into the ride and my shoulders were aching, my butt was getting sore, and my legs were tired. When is this going to end?

About this time, we hit the bugs. Swarms and swarms of gnats seemed to never end. We had to slow down to keep from breathing too hard. If you open your mouth, you’d have gnats on your tonsils. Even breathing through my nose, I’m sure I inhaled several little guys. We both ride with sunglasses, but the bugs were still getting in our eyes. But you can’t take your eyes off the trail, or you’ll hit one of those treacherous sandy patches. OK, I’m not having fun anymore! Are we there yet?

Finally, we emerged from the nature area and onto a paved path. The little headwind we encountered here was a welcome relief from the bugs. I had Dennis help me fish a bug out of my eye. Once I could see again, I noticed that he was literally coated in bugs! His arms and legs were black as the gnats got trapped in his body hair. Boy I’m glad I shaved my legs!

About this point, I spotted an ice cream truck parked along the beach where a bunch of people were fishing. I told Dennis I wanted to stop for ice cream. “Do you have any money?” he asked. “Of course, I always have 20 bucks in case of emergencies. This was definitely an emergency! So we each had an ice cream bar as we watched the sailboats on the lake.

With a fresh burst of energy, we were off again. I was quite relieved when we were able to see our bridge in the distance. By this time, we had more than 45 miles on the speedometer and quite a few miles still to go. This was getting hard. We stopped a couple more times just to stretch and shake loose. We finally got home after 4 hours and 53 miles.

I’m hoping we can check the maps and GPS and figure out a way to find the sweet roads without having to take the single track. I’d also like to find a route that’s a bit shorter!