Side Of The Road, Again

By roychinnorNo Comments
I decided to ride my hire bicycle into Alkmaar first thing in the morning to take some photos before getting on the road. We only had a couple of hours motoring to do so I had plenty of time. Just 1 km from the centre of town and there was a bang behind me and the rear wheel jammed solid, skidding left and right before I managed to stop. I alighted to investigate what had happened and saw bits of half inch wide elastic sticking out from the wheel hub. Most hire bikes in The Netherlands are supplied with a parcel rack on the rear mudguard and something for holding luggage in place and prevent it from falling off, in this case elastic. This had somehow got entwined in the rear wheel and caused the trouble. I managed to free most of it, but couldn’t help to mentally draw parallels between bicycles and MG’s! I eventually remounted the cycle only to...
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The Wind In Your Hair

The Wind In Your Hair

By roychinnorNo Comments
The second days' motoring and we progressed to the town of Alkmaar, some 30 miles north of Amsterdam. Bridget was content to cruise at a comfortable 60/65 miles an hour and never stumbled once. The weather on the other hand was very poor. Regulars will testify that I don't just motor everywhere and have been moved on occasions to alternative modes of transport e.g. paragliding, jet-skiing, etc. In the interests of research I persuaded myself that I should sample the national mode of transport in The Netherlands, namely cycling. Now, it is over 20 years since I last rode a bike, but everyone here seems to do it and the whole road network appears to be designed around it. So I parked up Bridget for the day and hired a bicycle. It was some 5 kilometres into the centre of Alkmaar from my hotel and after a slightly shaky start I was soon town bound in the correct cycle lane. Similar to the...
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