"We are a family of 5: Mom, Dad and the rug rats (10, 8 and 5 years old). I would love to take the kids biking in the Netherlands for 3 days/nights. I’ve been researching and just keep coming up with guided and self-guided tours that seem expensive. Do you have any suggestions on a great route for the kids? And does it make sense to camp? -Rachel" With two kids ourselves, we have plenty of tips for planning a bike tour with kids in the Netherlands. So, here goes…. Kid-Friendly Bicycle Routes Nearly all of the Netherlands is covered in safe and (mostly) flat bike paths. There are literally dozens (if not hundreds) of places we could recommend. That said, here are three of our top picks for family bike tours: Dutch Coastal Route As its name suggests, the Dutch Coastal Route tracks the Dutch seaside. It combines two long-distance bike paths, the LF1 (the Dutch section of the North Sea Cycle Route) and the LF10. Easy access to the beach, the traffic-free bike paths running through the sand dunes and the many little towns along the way make this a good option for families. Various cities and towns nearby the route offer an easy train connection (eg. The Hague, Haarlem, Alkmaar and Den Helder). Zuiderzee Route This route runs around the IJsselmeer (formerly known as the Zuiderzee), along dikes and through historic fishing villages. Going all the way around the IJsselmeer with kids would be too much for three days but you could do a shortened version of the route: start in Amsterdam, or take the train to Purmerend. Either way, your first stop is the famous cheese making village of Edam. Continuing up the coast, there’s a fabulous open air museum (the Zuiderzee Museum) in Enkhuizen. From there, take the ferry to Stavoren and cycle south to the former island of Urk. Note: there is no train station in Urk, so you’ll have to bike a further 25km to Kampen or Dronten to get the train home. Hoge Veluwe National Park The Hoge Veluwe National Park is one of our favourite destinations in the Netherlands; a fantastic landscape combined with one of the country’s best museums and many activities for kids. As far as cycling routes go, we suggest taking the train to Ede, biking through the park and up to Apeldoorn where you could take the kids to see monkeys at the Apenheul or a palace (Paleis Het Loo). From Apeldoorn, you could cycle back through the park to Arnhem to check out the Burgers Zoo, the Afrika Museum or the Open Air Museum (our favourite). If you’re interested in WWII, Arnhem also offers museums for that. Accommodation There are plenty of great campsites in the Netherlands but for shorter trips you probably won’t want to be bothered carrying all the gear. A couple alternatives to normal B&Bs could be: Vrienden op de Fiets – This association offers low-cost accommodation in private homes to anyone travelling by bicycle or on foot. It costs €8 to join and this gives you access to 6,000 lodging addresses. Adults pay a maximum of €19.50 per person, kids €9.50. If you have 3 kids or more, you may find a cheap hotel for about the same price. Trekkers Huts – Many campgrounds offer simple one-room cabins with bunk beds and basic cooking facilities. You would need to bring your own sleeping bags, and it’s always a good idea to book ahead. Other Tips Trains – Dutch trains are fairly bike friendly, and a good option if the kids are tired or you need to shorten the route. You’ll have to buy a ticket for each bike and avoid rush hour (except in the summer and on public holidays, when bikes are allowed all day). Bike spaces are limited, so the more ‘off-peak’ you can travel the easier your trip will be. Types of trains – Intercity trains run between major stops and are the quickest but some models require you to lift your bike into the carriage. The slower Sprinter trains stop everywhere but have tons of space for bikes and you can roll directly into the carriage. Renting Bikes – Most bike rental places in the Netherlands focus on city bikes but there are some interesting options if you look around. For example, MacBike in Amsterdam has bicycles with child seats and a parent child tandem – either of which would be fine for a short tour. Other shops offer fancier options like the Hase Pino tandem (eg. Vierfiets, Jasper Fietsen) but you may have to travel outside Amsterdam to get to them. Source: Travelling Two
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In the 1960s and ‘70s, the nation of Yugoslavia began an immense programme of monument-building – erecting huge, space-age structures up and down the country to commemorate military milestones in the Second World War. The word “spomenik” means “monument”, but is used outside of the countries that once made up Yugoslavia to specifically refer to these futuristic, brutalist war memorials. They were symbols of national pride, tangible objects around which the identity of a newly formed country stitching together numerous ethnic groups could coalesce. To learn of the existence of these monuments is to be instantly fascinated. They exert a powerful pull on the mind, gigantic artefacts from a vanished world. There is something so beguilingly alien about them that we had to go and see them for real. Skopje, the capital city of North Macedonia, is said to be the most complete example of a brutalist city anywhere in the world – due mainly to the fact it was almost totally rebuilt in a short window of time, overseen by one Japanese architect. When we decided to plan a bikepacking trip to visit some brutalist spomeniks, it made sense to start in Skopje. Given North Macedonia (known as the Republic of Macedonia from 1991 to 2018) is a tiny country, just 213km across at its widest point, “why not do a lap?”, we thought. “Lapedonia” was born. Some of the spomeniks in North Macedonia are easy to find. They have been added on Google Maps as places of interest. They are usually the better-maintained ones. Others don’t benefit from a digital pushpin, but can clearly be made out on Street View. Yet others have neither. One, as far as we found, simply does not exist any more. In our quest to hunt these spomeniks, we discovered awe-inspiring structures in remarkable settings and underwhelming piles of fallen-down stones. We ran away from a bear, got hit by a car, and pushed the definition of ‘road cycling’ to its screaming, tortured limit. North Macedonia is wild, there’s no other word for it. North Macedonia has wolves. Loads of them, in fact. More per square mile than any other country in Europe. Only the feckless or wilfully careless would knowingly camp in a secluded part of a vast national park away from human settlements in a country overflowing with wolves. It’s lucky then that we didn’t find out that statistic until after we got back. What we were worried about that night was the bear. With the first day’s big climb into the Mavrovo National Park dispensed with, we looked for somewhere to eat dinner. We were pleased with our first day exertions and confident of rolling off and easily finding a spot to sleep. One big dinner and some Macedonian reds later, we were dismayed to find there was not much flat ground in the gorgeous park – and that our available daylight was quickly dwindling. Deciding that a bird in the hand was worth two in the bush, we picked a grassy, kinda-flat lay-by and decided to make camp. Until Matt, our photographer, said, while peering down into the epic gorge below: “Is that a bear?” It was. A really big one. We panicked. We had to keep going down, to try and put a few kilometres of distance between us. So trundle off we did, downhill in the deepening dark, trying hard to watch out for potholes. Finally we found a deserted cafe, boarded up with a raised concrete patio in front. The patio had a small wooden fence around it with a gate. It would have to do. Sleep didn’t come very quickly that night. Jagged mountains and winding roads. Dense green forests and vast blue lakes. Surly guard dogs, suicidal tortoises and surprise gravel climbs. North Macedonia has all the components for a stunning bikepacking adventure. And wolves. And bears. The towns of North Macedonia are not up to much. Mostly they feel like border outposts, regardless of their position in the country. The dusty air of dozing insecurity. The palpable feeling of potential unrest. Everywhere on the outskirts of towns are these monolithic gutted buildings, wrecked relics of the nation’s Soviet-era past. For the three of us, all born on the same tiny island where real estate is at such a premium that a hulk like these left empty on our shores would immediately be turned into prestige living spaces, these booming abandoned mega-barns are an entrancing spectacle. Logging mills, power plants, train yards and grain stores – every one of them an urban explorer’s dreamscape – we ride past them all again and again. It all looks exactly like you’d imagine the outer limits of Leningrad do, if they had been uprooted from the snowy shores of the Baltic Sea and dumped into a Greek climate. We also see a lot of shanty towns, physical reminders that this is one of the poorest nations in Europe. North Macedonia is not a member of the European Union. It has been declined entry based on concerns over its lack of proper democracy and limited press freedoms. It is poor and you can tell. Kids stare at us. Watch us eat lunch. Find it immeasurably amusing when we eat bread. They are white and we are white, but by looking at us they can immediately tell we are foreigners. Mostly they think we are American. The only words we know how to say are ‘na’ and ‘spomenik’. A vocabulary like that only goes so far to bridging the culture gap. The spomeniks are either urban or rural. The rural ones are neglected, but they feel more magical. In Gevgelija, an upturned egg-beater made of scorched steel juts into the sky. A frame now, it used to be plated with metal sheeting – but that was nicked for scrap long ago. In a lay-by on the way into Mavrovo, our first spomenik is perhaps the most underwhelming of the trip, a broad fresco set in concrete. In Prilep, a set of looming, pristine white chessmen – a memorial to the 700 from the city who died fighting throughout the Second World War. And in Kavadartsi a faux-wooden fort atop a hill, like something you’d find on the forest moon of Endor. They can be bizarre, imposing, depressing and exultant – some of them are all at the same time. The endlessly surprising thing is how little people actually seem to care about them one way or another. To the average North Macedonian, they are just there. Once, the Macedons ruled the universe. Or the part of it they knew existed. Alexander the Great set forth from Macedonia and conquered the known world, forging ever eastward, founding cities, only curtailing his conquest when his men refused to go any further. They were homesick and refused to fight any more, wander any longer. They had reached northern India. In certain moments, we get a sense of the country that must’ve exerted that empire-inhibiting pull upon them. To get from Kichevo to Krusevo we have two choices. To climb three peaks and drop down into the highest city in the Balkans, or take the ‘long’ way round and go on the main road. This means riding ‘past’ Krusevo to the north, then heading south, and climbing up to the town. We opt for the three peaks. Trundle out of Kichevo after kebabs for lunch, turn off the small main road and almost immediately find that it’s gravel. The gravel goes all the way to the top of what becomes clear is a logging road. There is no up-traffic whatsoever and the only things coming down are two huge trucks off to the sawmill. The drivers roll their eyes, laugh at us, enquire about where exactly we think we’re going – but with nothing to say back but ‘no’ or ‘monument’, we just let them roll past. It takes an eternity to get up the mountain and as soon as we crest the ridge line, a pair of barking shepherd’s dogs chase us off their patch. It’s not till we’re about 500m down from the highest point that we pause, look across the valley we’ve just entered; an idyllic agrarian microcosm. Wheat fields carpet the valley floor. Mountains rise up on every side. We cannot see a single settlement from where we stand. An Arcadian scene that – but for a single transmitter mast – could be unchanged since old Alex first wondered what was over that next hill. I laugh out loud at the fantastical beauty of it. Giddy euphoria and the certain knowledge that nobody else has ridden a bike over this today. One ragged descent later and we are rolling on the valley floor. Flat tarmac, a gentle tail wind. Buzzing, but parched, we luck out and find a tiny village shop. It has a payphone outside the door, possibly the only one in town. No frontage, no indication whatsoever of what it is beside a branded drinks fridge, just visible inside the doorway. We descend on it like bees round honey. We must get water! Entering the dim and dusty room, all four sets of eyes inside settle on us. In the fridge, there is no water. No coke, or anything but yoghurt and beer. We choose beer and sit down at the same (sole) table as a man with the most remarkable mustachios I have ever seen not on the face of a silent-era movie villain. He must be 70, but his grip is like a demigod’s. He shakes us each by the hand and – seeing that we’ve bought two large beers between three – orders us a third one. The beers prove to be our undoing. There’s nothing of any nutritional value available in the shop. Empty stomachs and endurance capabilities dulled by alcohol, we trudge like weary footsoldiers over the next two climbs – leaving behind our little valley paradise. It is a wrench to leave it and so we understand how those Ancient Macedons must also have felt when they reached India. Why go on, when it’s so nice right here? An oncoming truck fills the whole road so I get to one side and onto the verge. I overbalance, topple over into the grass. For a moment I think of sleeping just there. If you hit a cyclist with your car in North Macedonia, the protocol – as far as I have observed in a real-world live test – is this.
Blue Shirt will call the station to send the One Guy Who Speaks English down to the roundabout. He needs the One Guy Who Speaks English to translate the questions he hurls in the direction of any of the cyclists, but Blue Shirt is the maestro in this situation, conducting the public like an orchestra leader, deflecting the useless salvos of information thrown his way with an irritated flick of his pen. The Stokowskiiof smash-ups. The Berlioz of broken bumpers. The ambulance will arrive. Check the cyclist is ok. The cyclist will insist he is, so as to avoid losing valuable hours of cycling time in the Strumica hospital emergency room. Word will arrive on the radio that the driver has been caught. He will be fined. The crime scene photographer will arrive and photograph the bike. The skid marks on the road. The bike again. The shattered road furniture. He will say something to Blue Shirt and all of a sudden, it is over. “He says, ‘you can go’.” The cyclists will say “thank you” profusely because, after all, they are British. One will make a joke and, despite insisting he does not speak English, Blue Shirt will laugh the loudest. Surfing the elevation loss from the high mountains that make the border with Bulgaria, we are chased by a storm. It’s rolling down from Bansko, the cut-price ski resort, and heading inland. Into Macedonia. Exactly where we’re going. We have a spomenik to see outside Mitrasinci, it’s a concrete claw, reaching up to grab for the sky – like an inverted version of those arcade games where you can, with an investment of £20-£35, win a cuddly toy worth 56p. Whatever it might be reaching for, the thunderstorm is what’s coming into view. The spomenik is not in the tiny village, it’s up on the hill that overlooks it. The spomenik itself isn’t visible from the road; it’s screened by a copse of pine trees. On the back side of the hill, a way through the trunks has been made – brutal concrete slabs are employed as steps up to the monument. At the top are some useless concrete plinths off to the corners of the flat clearing and a huge radio antenna. Then central, the claw. As we stand there, a few fat drops hit our jackets. But not many. Most of the storm is rolling around to either side of the hill. We are in a freakish pocket of calm at the centre of the storm. Like almost all the other ones – at least those in rural areas – this spomenik feels abandoned. No other tourists. No sign of human habitation or visitation. No plaques, nor anything indicating just what it is that we’re looking at. The 50th partisan brigade of Macedonia, the unit to which this spomenik is dedicated, was formed in 1944 when the tide was already inexorably turned in favour of the Allied forces. Facing back towards town, we watch the lightning storm travel away from us. Into the valley, then the next valley and the next. Huge tendrils of white light thrash down from sky into ridge line. Emergency services surround Tom in Strumica after his hit-and-run incident. The ambulance will arrive. Check the cyclist is ok. The cyclist will insist he is, so as to avoid losing valuable hours of cycling time in the Strumica hospital emergency room. Word will arrive on the radio that the driver has been caught. He will be fined. The crime scene photographer will arrive and photograph the bike. The skid marks on the road. The bike again. The shattered road furniture. He will say something to Blue Shirt and all of a sudden, it is over. “He says, ‘you can go’.” The cyclists will say “thank you” profusely because, after all, they are British. One will make a joke and, despite insisting he does not speak English, Blue Shirt will laugh the loudest. Sheltering from a thunderstorm. Surfing the elevation loss from the high mountains that make the border with Bulgaria, we are chased by a storm. It’s rolling down from Bansko, the cut-price ski resort, and heading inland. Into Macedonia. Exactly where we’re going. We have a spomenik to see outside Mitrasinci, it’s a concrete claw, reaching up to grab for the sky – like an inverted version of those arcade games where you can, with an investment of £20-£35, win a cuddly toy worth 56p. Whatever it might be reaching for, the thunderstorm is what’s coming into view. The spomenik is not in the tiny village, it’s up on the hill that overlooks it. The spomenik itself isn’t visible from the road; it’s screened by a copse of pine trees. On the back side of the hill, a way through the trunks has been made – brutal concrete slabs are employed as steps up to the monument. At the top are some useless concrete plinths off to the corners of the flat clearing and a huge radio antenna. Then central, the claw. As we stand there, a few fat drops hit our jackets. But not many. Most of the storm is rolling around to either side of the hill. We are in a freakish pocket of calm at the centre of the storm. The Spomenik outside Mitrasinci. Like almost all the other ones – at least those in rural areas – this spomenik feels abandoned. No other tourists. No sign of human habitation or visitation. No plaques, nor anything indicating just what it is that we’re looking at. The 50th partisan brigade of Macedonia, the unit to which this spomenik is dedicated, was formed in 1944 when the tide was already inexorably turned in favour of the Allied forces. Facing back towards town, we watch the lightning storm travel away from us. Into the valley, then the next valley and the next. Huge tendrils of white light thrash down from sky into ridge line. A thunderstorm in the distance at a Spomenik outside Mitrasinci. I think about partisans, of empires, of German boys being sent to fight in these hills and being routed again and again by the hardened men who lived, hunted, and worked the land here all their lives. Men who were fighting for their home against lads who barely knew where they were. Boys from Berlin, Munich and the icy Baltic coast, thrust into a lush, green and sweltering landscape filled with snakes – barely understanding why they were there, nerves jangling with the effects of Pervitin. I think of Alexander and his Macedons, on the furthest-flung edge of the known world. A man full of ambition to go and see and conquer more than any other in history, held back by his men who were homesick and wanted to go home to their land of green valleys and honey so sweet it crosses your eyes. I think of the home they must have left and I can still see shimmers of it today. In the heat haze over the road, in the places not filled with nightmarish concrete hulks and ragged dogs. On the vines that grow in the east and the unthinkable vastness of Lake Ohrid in the south. In the rumbling gait of the bears in Mavrovo. As the lightning strikes again, I wonder if any of those boys had thunderbolts on their lapels. I think lastly about my own country, tearing itself apart as it tries to come to terms with its own post-empire place in the world. Screaming its own importance as the world averts embarrassed eyes. Slamming a door closed and screaming, “And we’re never coming back…” I think empires are stupid. Text: Tom Owen | Photography: Matt Grayson
Friday Night Ride to the Coast has been spreading the joy of night riding for almost 15 years. If you missed this year’s Dunwich Dynamo, or feel that it’s a little too big, chaotic or (whisper it) competitive, you might trying catching the next Friday Night Ride to the Coast. This is a carefully organised event run by “the Fridays”, a club devoted to the singular cause of safely delivering you at a conversational pace from the Smoke to the sea. They do this every month from spring through autumn, requiring only third party insurance and an annual membership fee of £2. The FNRttC, as it’s known to veterans, has been spreading the joy of night riding for almost 15 years, flying quietly under the radar of most cyclists dazzled by mass congregations such as the Dynamo and the Exmouth Exodus. Guardian Today: the headlines, the analysis, the debate - sent direct to you It was started by Simon Legg,, who spent a decade escorting thousands to Brighton, Whitstable and other destinations with decent transport links. When he retired he entrusted his legacy to a group of seasoned ride leaders who take turns as mother hen. The distance ranges from 55 to 75 miles, and popular routes can attract more than 100 participants. There are tail-end Charlies and human waymarkers, sometimes recruited on the spot, to ensure nobody is lost or left behind. Rides begin at midnight with a chat about safety and etiquette, jokes optional. Mechanical problems along the way are met with expert assistance, though you’re advised to give your bike a thorough checkup beforehand, and particularly implored to “lose everything that you don’t really, really need”. It’s all a far cry from the Dynamo-style experience of hoping the blinking lights ahead of you are going the right way. Let’s just say the £2 is good value. It’s a great social mixer, but there are also opportunities for solitude as you pull each other along on an invisible stretchy rope. Punctures are a communal affair. “Houston, we have a problem,” one of the minders will more or less transmit to the front, and so all will wait, grateful it wasn’t them. This time. “Why ride at night?” you may be asking. It can seem daunting, particularly after a work day, and anyway, what is there to see? I almost imagine Fitzgerald discussing it with Hemingway: “The night is different to the day.” “Yes, it’s darker.” We ride at night because it’s there, conveniently out of the way of the usual routine. Less traffic is a bonus, but magic moments are made of more than this. There’s the moon, for a start: those times when it paints the road silver and the mist mysterious, inviting you to dabble in poetry. When not moonstruck, the darkness itself is the draw, a coverlet silencing the day’s concerns, yet granting permission for thoughts to drift forever out into space – while remembering to yell “Car up!”, the traditional cyclist’s warning of traffic on the lanes. Or “Cow up!”, as we found on a recent ride to Eastbourne. There are bats and badgers and other nocturnal creatures clocking in, which helps rouse you out of any stupor you may have been falling into. Hills become easier. Shrouded in mystery, their summits mere conjecture, they are far less daunting. But possibly the biggest draw is the intimacy of cycling with people all on the same mission, getting a buzz off their energy, their tired happy faces in the morning’s light a mirror of your own. “Why are you doing this?” I’ve asked fellow riders, particularly when the weather gods haven’t been kind and perspiration is more than matched by precipitation. Answers ranged from: “I’m getting miles in to help with Paris-Brest-Paris” – a 1,200km jolly – to: “My friend talked me into it.” There were plenty of dreamy shrugs: “Why not?” In the FNRttC, a small group of people can find a way of bucking the system, or at least their usual circadian rhythms. For some, it’s an answer to a question they may not even have been aware they’d been asking themselves. Carpe noctem! Source: Bike Blog
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