Monday night, I left for a visit to Holland to spectate the Worldchampions Cyclocross in Hoogerheide the upcoming weekend. I arrived the following day in Amsterdam and drove to the northeast province of Drenthe, where I stayed at my brother Eric's place and stored my Dutch bike.
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The next Wednesday morning ran 4k from Eric's house on the road and trails through the fields near his house. It was an overcast day with clouds coming straight from a Dutch painting.
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In the afternoon went for a 20-mile bike ride. I had initially planned a long route , but showers delayed my start into the middle of the afternoon. When it finally dried up went into the super strong wind. Fortunately I headed into the wind first and used some dirt trails to cut the route shorter. In the last section, I got blown back home by the wind.
![](https://blog.henryvandenbroek.com/content/images/2023/02/IMG_6592.jpeg)
Thursday, the next day, I picked up a mountain by for Neil at my sister's place for Neil, who would be arriving later that day. And after, I had planned to meet with my cousin Wim for a gravel ride. When I arrived at his house in Amersfoort, it was still dry, and we left for a 33-mile gravel ride. However, soon after we left, it started drizzling, and did not stop for the remainder of the ride. The route did touch up a lot of excellent dirt roads. We did have to track back at some point when we ended up on a golf course. Wim scored a hole-in-one with his bike (see cover photo). We were soaked and muddy when we got back. Fortunately, Wim had a hose to clean up the bikes, and ran the washing machine to clean our wet and dirt-covered clothes. Later at the hotel, I hung the still wet clothes to dry.
![](https://blog.henryvandenbroek.com/content/images/2023/02/IMG_6636.jpeg)
After I picked up Neil from the airport Thursday night, we stayed at a hotel in Haarlem in the center of town. The next day Neil and I drove to the CX Worlds event. We parked in the neighboring village Bergen op Zoom and then biked 3 miles to Hoogerheide to look at the CX Worlds course.
![](https://blog.henryvandenbroek.com/content/images/2023/02/IMG_6653.jpeg)
Saturday and Sunday, we spectated the races. To access the event, we parked the car in Huijbergen and then biked 4 miles into Hoogerheide to watch the Worlds cyclocross races and avoid all the traffic.
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This week on VeloViewer
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