Hey everyone, it's been a while since I made a post with a different topic than Splinterlands so it's time for another cycling post, hopefully without the founder of the Cycling community 
If you didn't read, friendlymoose is taking a long break from Hive and I'll miss him but I understand his reasons.
Winter has arrived!
I'm living in The Netherlands so winter has arrived and because I'm still fairly new to cycling (I've started in May this year) with 'only' about 2200 km in total this still feels like a great achievement but this will be my first winter.
When the weather is mild, it's a lot of fun to be outside but I already noticed that there is a lot more wind in the autumn and winter than we had in the summer, which is fine I guess because now what we lack in mountains we can make up with training against the wind. 😅
In the last months I have really invested in good winter equipment, I knew I wanted to keep cycling when the temperatures were getting lower and lower and although we don't experience 'real' winters anymore like when I was a kid, it's often somewhere between 0 and 5 degrees Celcius (for U.S readers, it's 32–41°F 🙂)
I'm still learning as I go, lately I've experienced my Rogelli gloves are NOT made for cycling in the rain, and while my hands don't get cold when my gloves get wet around 5 degrees, I'm afraid when it gets colder they definitely will and I remember from riding on my motorcycle when I was younger, cold hands can become REALLY painful!
So, with the Black Friday discount, I've bought these beauties from Grib Grab
November Challenges
I like to participate in the challenges Strava and Garmin have, just for fun!
This weekend there is the November Weekend 40k Challenge, my planned ride for today (it's Sunday) is 52km so I will complete it today, the 2025 Cycling Stage 4 to ride 675k in the last quarter of the year has already been completed for a while, on average I'm riding about 100km every week so that's an easy one.
The 20 hours in November is something I'm failing at every month by just one hour or so but now it's getting colder my 2 tot 2,5 rides are long enough so in total it's just under the 20 hours every month. 😅
The Strava Challenges were easy this month, riding 200k and being active 10 days this month but this can include other activities like walking as well.
The fun starts at home
How do you plan your rides or do you just get on your bike and start pedaling? 😄
Since I've bought my Garmin for easy navigation it's been a big change in how I can enjoy my trips, not having to worry what road I need to take and getting lost over and over, this was pretty fun when I just started but an already long ride can get real long when you're lost. 😅
So for me, the fun starts at home, the first thing I do is watch the weather forecast to plan when it's not raining if there is any and the wind direction and speed and plan my route accordingly, heavy rains means I will stay on the roads and when the wind is really strong, I try to avoid the many dykes since they're elevated and there's no shelter from the wind anywhere.
I think building routes with Garmin Connect is very easy and fun as well, this was last week and the weather forecast wasn't too great, I was planning to go out around 13:00 (1 PM) but then the rain radar showed it would start to rain by then, so I left at 11 AM, 2 degrees but because of the strong wind -7 real feel... 🙄
De Heerlijkheid Mariënwaerdt
De Heerlijkheid Mariënwaerdt in Beesd is a large historic estate in the Netherlands. It dates back to the 1100's and is still run by the same family for many generations. Today it is a beautiful area with forests, farms, orchards and walking paths. Visitors can enjoy nature, buy local organic products, eat at the restaurants, or join events held on the estate.
It's a large and very pretty area I like to pass through by bike, sometimes we also drive the car there to walk in the forest because it's too far to get there by foot.
There is also a 20km long MTB route in this area I have yet to buy a permit for, probably in the new year but because there are multiple nice MTB Tracks in my area I have postponed this biggest one so I can enjoy the permit to it's fullest in the entire new year of 2026.
On my way there I passed a small zoo with Albatrosses along the side of the road
It was fortunate the snow on the roads was gone in a couple of hours, but it was cold enough for the snow to still remain on the fields, it was pretty since we don't see that very often in my country! 🙂
An hour later and the snow was gone! The cold wind wasn't and here, out in the open it was pretty cold on some parts of the road, the sky turned more and more grey and I was afraid it would start to rain... rain and cold together are NOT good!
In the distance in the picture above you can see a large bridge crossing on of the main rivers in my country, 'De Waal'.
About 15 minutes later it started to snow, not much and not enough to make the roads white again.
Crossing the highway and a freight rail road from the Rotterdam Harbour all the way to Germany on my way home, I needed to cross some boring and open fields to reach the last part of my ride which is very pretty and passing through little villages along the water called 'De Linge'.
This has been my coldest ride so far and I was surprised I wasn't getting cold, not even in the second hour even though I was cycling in my heart rate zone 2 so with a little lower intensity to train my aerobic system and prevent too much sweating in the cold weather.
Mileage update
Since I've started my cycling hobby and training with small distances in the beginning, the addiction grew more and more, total distance this year is 2188 kilometers so far so I will probably end up somewhere between 2500 and 3000 by the end of the year which is awesome for me as a beginner.
Hopefully I can keep this up in the new year, and with a 100 kilometer weekly average - 4000 at least should be possible if not the 5k target just like my cycling friend here on hive,
Well, that's it for this post, hopefully we can keep at least SOME activity together here in the cycling community without our founder, thanks for stopping by and I hopefully see you on the next post!