Netherlands/Belgium Bike Tour Day 1: Amsterdam to Edam
Posted by Cassie, November 9th, 2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Everything seemed to be ready to go for the start of our bike tour when we realized that the back tire on my bike was flat again! We had just changed a flat on the same tire the night before. We changed the tire, but afterwards, we could hear the air leaking out of it. We changed the tire again and put on our second and last spare inner tube. The tire seemed to be holding air, so we crossed our fingers and headed out on our bikes.
Heading off our bike tour of Europe!
Before even leaving the city of Amsterdam, we came across our first windmill in the Netherlands!
Windmill on the outskirts of Amsterdam
We had just gotten out of the city when I realized the back tire was flat yet again! This was a problem that plagued us for the entire day. I got a total of five flat tires on our first day of riding. We finally realized that patches we were using on the tires would not hold with all the weight on the bike. We were using the stick-on patches, and normally, they work fine. The following day, we found a bike shop and bought some extra spare inner tubes and the glue-on patches.
Despite the challenges with the bike, we enjoyed the ride. The Dutch countryside is beautiful! We rode along a dike through farms with pastures for sheep and cows.
Dutch countryside
Sheep!
We also rode through cute, small Dutch towns. And. of course, there were lots of windmills, both modern and old-fashioned.
Cute Dutch town
We were worried about making it to Edam without proper patches for my back tire, so we tried to stop at the first campground on the map in Volendam. We got to the campground, but it was a campground only for caravans. We talked to a nice couple from Scotland at the campground, and they said there was a big festival going in and the streets were full of drunk people. On our way to Edam, the bike route went right through the middle of the festival. The Scottish couple were not kidding about the drunk people! The streets looked like a scene of a wild party with tons of trash strewn all over the streets. The streets were so full of people that it was impossible to try to ride through it. We managed to find our way around the festival, but we lost the bike route on the way. We stopped to look at the map when a really nice man stopped to help us. He actually rode ahead of us to show us the way to Edam! Fortunately, my bike made it to the campground in Edam. However, when we returned to our bikes after paying for camping, the back tire was flat yet again. It was a rocky start to our bike tour, and it made us doubt that we would make it all the way to Budapest.
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