KINDERDIJK

110 kms | 3 h 46 m | avg speed 29.1 km/h | avg hr 146 bpm | 2.197 kcal

Today as planned I went from my home to Kinderdijk, a Dutch touristic attraction close to Rotterdam, via the dike on the Lekdijk. It is a beautiful scenery route with open view to the fields, lots of charming little cities on both ways and perfect road surface. Did it by myself and it was a great ride, with fantastic weather. Take a look after the link in a couple of photos from places I passed by and from the location.

Hoje como eu já planejava já há algum tempo, fiz uma volta de casa até o Kinderdijk, uma atração turística holandesa perto de Rotterdam. Fiz o caminho através to dique Lekdijk e foi uma volta muito boa. Típico cenário holandês com campos abertos, várias cidades bem charmosas e estrada perfeita. Dá uma olhada depois do link como foi e algumas fotos dos lugares que passei e do Kinderdijk.

I’ve been planning to do this ride for some time now. I managed to do good part of it last year but they were re-surfacing the road and I couldn’t go all the way to Kinderdijk. One year later I imagined that they would have completed their job and the road would be perfect to ride. Send an email to the group but nobody was willing to come down. Some nuts wanted to ride 220 kms on the north of the country. Good luck with that :)

The weather forecast was of sunny day, with temperatures between 10 and 19 degrees C and a crosswind force 2. Perfect for training. And that is exactly what I got. The crosswinds made it also perfect for training as one gets good resistance all the way and there is variance to train pushing, tempo, etc.

I left home early and wanted to ride the whole day at beginning of zone 3, around 156 bpm. With that in mind I was happy to see that I could keep speed of 32 to 34 km/h even with the cross winds. At some points, due to the several turns of the roads, I got headwind and the speed went down to 30.5/31 km/h. But never below 31 and I was feeling great the whole way. Very happy with the result with an average speed of 31 km/h.

Half way thru the ride I arrived in Kinderdijk. The place has like 30 windmolens lined up and it is a pretty site. Very calm with full of nature. Interesting that at 10:00 am, the place was already full of tourists. Mainly Japanese and Americans. The good thing is that they don’t pass the 300 meters mark and if you ride a little further, you will be almost alone. That is what I did, parked the bike and enjoy a couple of rice cakes in the nice warm sun. I was surrounded by with a couple of birds and we share the rice. They seem to like it.

From there I took the ferry to cross the river to the other side and come back via the Lekdijk Oost. Again, same story. Good crosswind, good speed and great feeling of pushing the speed but not going crazy. I slowed down in the smaller villages for safety and went back to 33 / 34 km/h. Right at the end when I got a little tailwind and was pushing nice 39 /40 km/h I had to stop due to an accident between a group of cyclists and a mopped bike. 3 ambulances at the location and police. Not nice.

But we cleared the place quick and start dashing down home. I passed a lot of groups at that point and it was great to feel the power. Not sure they liked that as I did hahaha. Once out of the dike I slowed down quite a lot in a area that is full of elderly people. I hate the idea to have an accident with them. But the groups didn’t and some of them overtook me. Once that area was cleared, I pushed again and overtook them once again and I could see side glances of pissed eyes. I think they thought I was showing off hahaha :)

Right at the end, with 10 kms to go this young guy passed me pushing all out. He was really giving it all and taking the craziest risks in the turns. He look not older than 22 and even had one of those things to hold race numbers. He was all the time looking back to see how close other riders were or far he had dusted them. At one point I pushed the pedals hard and passed him and kept pushing for a couple of minutes. He went crazy and really “attacked”. He was really strong but kept looking back all the time like inviting to race. Sorry mate, I’m too old for that level of shit… hahaha I sat upright, waved goodbye and went slowly back to my humble way… He is probably still racing and haunting someone around Amsterdamrijkanaal…

Google maps

Google maps

Resting and eating before turning around to come back

Kinderdijk

Ferry ticket to cross the Lek river