Bike ride in Holland and Belgium

[Cloggy]

Had a great day today, I met up with (tourmaster) Ton (Thulst) in his hometown Oss, at his local bike dealer Vososs around 0930, after coffee and a chat we headed out. We took a nice ride in Holland from Den Bosch to the Belgium border taking the scenic route via the Kempen route from the ANWB (Dutch equivelent of AAA or AA) and stopping for coffee and cake on the way
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After crossing the border we followed a roundabout route to Turnhout, from here we took another scenic route back to Breda in Holland where we stopped for a sandwich and a drink.
Later we headed up north on the highway for a short way, so we could follow some really nice twisty Dikes, to follow our planned route we had to cross a couple of major rivers on the ferry shuttle boats.
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[Cloggy]

Took some really nice roads following the dikes of a couple of major rivers, and we happened to pass Kinderdijk, a well known tourist attraction which has a lot of windmills and a museum (to explain to the tourists how the Dutch kept their feet dry, by pumping water out to sea, or into the larger rivers, which are higher than the surrounding land).

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Obviously this was a nice place to take some photo's, just so we would blend in with the tourists .
Maybe it's just me but don't the two red bikes look great together, maybe next time we can get some blue, black or silver ones to join in.

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They also had a modern electric "archimedes screw" pump house, so the windmills don't have to turn day and night as they used to.

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After our tourist stop we went further along some great dikes, unfortunately it is forbiden to ride some of them in the weekend. Unless of course you get lost on your travels and somehow miss the signpost on the other end of the dike, which is what happened to us, oops

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Well at the end of the ride we ended up in Vianen (a nice old town) where we had a nice meal to finish off the day.
The weather had been kind to us up to then, but I ran into some pretty torrential rain on my way home.
Anyway I'm really tired after a days ride so I might edit this tomorrow

[thulst]

Yep, Very tired after a day's hard work, but man was this a great ride. I've enjoyed every moment of it.
Martin thanks again. See you soon.

[mastakilla]

Hey guys,

thanks for posting, looks like a great ride indeed! I'd love to join you one day, but unfortunately my bike is a red 2007 FZ6 Fazer too

Anyways, I'm very curious about the dikes you were talking about, we don't have those in Belgium, and I'd really like to check them out. Where are the closest ones for us coming from Belgium (coming towards Holland via Terneuzen or Antwerp...)

My brother-in-law and I had an incredible day full of twisties in the Ardennes and Luxemburg yesterday (620 km total), I'll post my report tonight...

[bluenova]

Glad you had a good time guys, I wish I could have joined.

What's with the no bikes at weekends????

[Cloggy]

Originally Posted by mastakilla

Hey guys,

thanks for posting, looks like a great ride indeed! I'd love to join you one day, but unfortunately my bike is a red 2007 FZ6 Fazer too

The red arrows or the red devils sound quite catchy, on the other hand it sounds a bit like the belgium football team

Originally Posted by mastakilla

Anyways, I'm very curious about the dikes you were talking about, we don't have those in Belgium, and I'd really like to check them out. Where are the closest ones for us coming from Belgium (coming towards Holland via Terneuzen or Antwerp...)

Dikes (dijken) are (waterproof) raised river defences on the banks of a river or surrounding an area, they contain (or keep out) the river waters so they don't leak out into the surrounding area (similar to a levy in America), without them Holland would be almost submerged. It generally adds to their strength to build a road on top of these dikes. These dikes are quite twisty as this adds to their strength, also if there is a breech it is easier to build around the deep pool created by this breech than to fill it in.
Anyway I'll end my nerdy rantings , a dike road is a road with plenty of bends and raised above the surrounding countryside so you can generally see any approaching traffic, the speed limit is quite low (80km/h) so it's not really fast but it's great fun . I don't really know where there are any in your area, we mainly followed the river Lek but I think thats too northerly for you, most large rivers in Holland have them.

Originally Posted by mastakilla

My brother-in-law and I had an incredible day full of twisties in the Ardennes and Luxemburg yesterday (620 km total), I'll post my report tonight...

There is no comparison, the Eifel, Luxemburg or the ardennes are definately the places to go riding only it's a days ride for me to get there and back. Personally I find the belgium roads poorer than their neighbours, and there are quite regularly pot holes all over the place, I think this would be different if you know the roads quite well.

Looking forward to seeing the pics

[Cloggy]

Originally Posted by bluenova

Glad you had a good time guys, I wish I could have joined.

Hopefully next time we'll have a blue one with us, but with 3 red ones how will you keep up . Hope your wife gets well soon.

Originally Posted by bluenova

What's with the no bikes at weekends????

I think its because the dikes are quite narrow and twisty and that area was near a quaint old town which was popular with the tourists, it had quite a lot of parked cars on it too. It was only for a couple of KM's so no biggy.

[Rev-A]

looked like a fun ride, great pics!