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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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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