Out of beautiful Maastricht and into the hilly part of the Netherlands. This pretty area seemed especially popular with road cyclists. The route led to gravelly forest paths which in the rain proved to be more challenging on my 25mm tyres than I wanted. Komoot eventually guided me to some singletrack which I would have loved to have gone down but sense pervaded and I found another way. The wet roads were cold and miserable and a some very close passes by cars made it even worse. Eventually the nice roads came with some super smooth sweeping descents into lovely valleys. Then came some beautiful German towns and the Ahr valley which was devastated by floods in 2021. There were still many signs of the damage which reminded me of the Kobe earthquake which I live through in 1995. The scale and extent of the damage is something you just don’t feel when you see these things on TV. The Ahr goes down to the Rhine where I picked up a bike path to Koblenz. The 220km trip took me way longer than expected but I made it just in time for pizza and beers with old cycling superstar mate Rex.
The fabulous hostel in Maastricht is The Green Elephant Hostel & Spar which I would highly recommend: https://www.thegreenelephant.nl/en
You can see my route on Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/11052176463
morning I am at this hostel is very very nice this place 26 Coffee Oak milk cat milk soy milk very nice breakfast mostly vegetarian there’s even a nice bike hanging out there looks like I’m the only one awake at this early hour got to go to blend blood and freezing rain it’s a miserably BL day today not looking to this it’s going to be a very very hard day today well looks like we’ actually got a hill so maybe we’re out of flat land Wow first proper Hill one of eight today I definitely need an electric bike that was near okay Relentless Hills today get overtaken by everyone oh God that’s quite a hill okay when the temperat is 5° and training pretty damn miserable actually going up and down up and down until I get to about 550 M some kind of holiday place here we at the top of the hill here looks like it this that say according to Gar I’ve only done 300 me of glowing I can’t believe it it feel was like hell that be mad was not expecting this well I’m not enjoying this bloody cold rain don’t think my bike is either Mucky and disgusting okay we keep going wrong down here it’s rough to me it is rough more gravel things are just getting worse and worse all the way down this bloody gravel path it’s the wrong way I’m never going to get there today no fing way went down the gravel path I’ve been down this there just doesn’t seem to be any other way to go I don’t understand it it’s got to be going down there why am not going down there oh miserable suddenly no bik paths roads that don’t drain properly freezing water all over [Music] me just looking up it doesn’t turn into a muddy gravy path again right got a little break under there I think well the weather’s clearing up a bit thank God bloody freezing well this is just a gradual uh 2% Hill going up and up and up to about 500 M you know what it feels very similar to going against the [Music] wind got the wind against me as well not as bad yesterday Jesus Christ he could this be the top man that was a long climb well I’m glad to find a bike path on this road cuz it was horrible I think I’m definitely carrying some extra weight here I have to get rid of that my god there got to be at least 2 300 G of extra bloody weight wasn’t expecting a muddy gravel path today what a mess my poor bike [Applause] okay one Hill off the next today no there’s no way across here okay the last climb of the day could this be the top yes last Hill a long way down now it weren’t so flipping cold it be quite Pleasant coming down here that it is freezing [Applause] wow look at that thing that’s amazing amazing maybe this is place that got damaged in those floods it’s like a strucking sight wow look at that out there ruined Castle yeah look this oh look at this wow what a rock wow sun is coming out look at that look at that must have been Devastation here God this guys go [Music] [Music] do explore around here this thing beautiful well still got like 50ks to go 7:30 another freaking hard day the bloody road condition is worse than England this poth home City lumpy lump this funny gate I have no idea how to get through it don’t understand any of this I’m stuck here at last we are on the river the big river goes into CS oh thank God for that I keep getting obstacles thrown at me now it’s this bloody path is incredibly rough and there is no one along this River along this path I haven’t seen a soul the ages it’s so bumpy can’t do more than 20 km an hour bit of civilization at last man this FY winds against me again wow this is nice lots of places to stop here these River PS are just Relentless aren they you oh no it’s working look at that it’s working it’s working again and the great Rex is there about to get a beer out of the vending machine oh my God this is a historic moment I made it it’s a c blend here we are made it took a blend we’ve already had a fantastic pizza and we’re going to have one of those
5 Comments
Great Vid, nice to see the south of the Netherlands(Limburg) in videos, we here are used to the (hills), little sad to see you lost the bike path a couple of times, but each year there are more and more paths and they are getting better each time. Unless you're from the area the good bike paths are harder to find,but i'm amazed each year how well they are made and run through really nice forest areas. Keep making these nice vids, really enjoying them. Greets From Limburg.
You went straight over the highest point of NL 😂
Hook of Holland-Koblenz in two days? Man on a mission.
Nice video. Thank you for sharing. 👍9
nice rides! Wow, Hook of Holland – Koblenz in 2 days, that is a lot of distance….220 K per day, impressive. Only in area Maastricht Holland is not flat! resty of it is like a pancake haha. I was in Berlin one day, bike paths everywhere! i thought whole Germany was bike friendly, but no, only Berlin has bike paths like Holland. Germany sucks for bike. France is much better