Hey everyone, in my country holidays for most people are over so it's back to regular life again, I've been away to France so I had to stop my training for 2.5 weeks, in hindsight I could have brought my bicycle but I didn't because I still had some uncertainties about the bike carrier for the car since I only used it once and it was a short trip plus won't the bike get stolen from the car at the hotel because this year we did the trip in two parts.

So.. I had to resort to running - my old sport which was fun to do again but I stopped for a reason, an old injury to keeps returning and indeed after two weeks of multiple runs I could already feel some vague pains in my left foot so it was good to be back home again!

Strava

The cool thing about Strava is, it gives a really nice overview of all my recent activities, this way I can easily see what I did and when, and also check the total distance I made since my last chain lubrication which I do at around 250km intervals.

Slowly the distance for every ride goes up a little, the first ride I did when I got back from holiday was easy with only 30km on purpose because I wanted to see what my legs and endurance could still take, it wasn't even that bad thanks to the short runs I did in France so the last three rides I did after that it was nicely consistent above 50km, averaging at around 26.5 km/h.

A smooth cycling path with a windmill in the distance, it doesn't get more Dutch than this!

A added benefit with being able to go further is I can explore villages in my area I've never been before, even if they're not really far away I just never had any reason to drive there by car.

Like mentioned before, the infrastructure in The Netherlands is probably the best in the world with very smooth, separate paths for cyclist plus, without elevation the only thing wearing you down is the wind.

Nieuwpoort

One of the villages I've visited is Nieuwpoort, it used to be a fortified city in the past, it was a part of 'De Oude Hollandse Waterlinie' it's really pretty with narrow streets and a city wall with even a canon there, it's much like old cities as Leiden and Amsterdam but a lot smaller so much better for my liking.

De Oude Hollandse Waterlinie (“The Old Dutch Waterline”) was a defensive system in the Netherlands, created in the 17th century. The idea was simple but clever: use the country’s natural lowlands and rivers to flood wide stretches of land, making them impossible for enemy armies to cross.
It was first put into practice in 1672, the “Rampjaar” (Disaster Year), when the Dutch Republic was attacked by France, England, and two German states.
By opening sluices and dikes, land between Muiden (near Amsterdam) and the Biesbosch (near Dordrecht) could be deliberately flooded. The water was kept shallow: too deep to march through, but too shallow for boats.
Fortresses, cities, and castles along the edges of the line (like Utrecht, Gorinchem, and Woerden) acted as strongholds to defend the higher ground and access points.
This waterline successfully stopped the French advance in 1672 and remained part of Dutch defense strategy for centuries, later modernized into the Nieuwe Hollandse Waterlinie in the 19th century.

This is the old city hall, built in 1697. It is now a museum.

And there's the canon!

New gear!

Last week I bought quite a lot of new gear, mostly to prepare for colder weather.
I found out I really like Rogelli, it looks nice and is still affordable.

I bought:

• Cycling shoes for the autumn / winter
• Gloves
• Jacket
• Padded Shorts (Bibshorts)
• Wet Chain Oil

I'm pretty certain this is the sport for me from now on, so after investing in a bike I was mostly using my old running gear I felt it now was the time to invest some more, and I almost want colder weather now so I can test it all out! 😆

The only thing I could test out was the new bibshorts, until now I was using a cheap not so tight padded shorts that was better than nothing but as they saying goes in my country 'alle waar naar zijn geld' which translates to 'all goods are worth their price' it's a big upgrade, so.. slowly but surely, my hive mentor friendlymoose gets right and I'm becoming a MAMIL after all! 😝