4.5 Fridays in Netherlands in May?

Heard from several Bike Friday riders who will also be cycling in Netherlands in May. A neighbor (well, 20 miles... ) is planning to spend a couple of weeks in mid-May riding in Amsterdam area, with a friend, both on Bike Fridays (a Crusoe and a Tikit), and another pair of Bike Friday riders will be touring mid-May on a Tandem. So, that will be 5 of us riding in the Netherlands, on 4.5 Fridays (counting the tandem as 1.5?), at the same time. Wonder if any other Bike Friday riders will be cycling in the low countries then? 5 is very cool, and I hope that we'll cross paths for a day's cycling or at least a coffee break and photo at a crossroads somewhere. 6 or more riders? ... Well, that could be a "Bike Friday Flash Mob Netherlands" kind of event!

Electronics

Taking some basic electronics: Netbook, GPS, camera, battery charger. Netbook is incredible -- a Samsung N120, sub 3 lbs yet very high function, a terrific Daily Deal purchase on eBay. GPS -- a Garmin eTrex Legend, designed for cycling -- seems an odd choice for someone who claims to have no fixed destination hence no need for location, but I have discovered that I want to keep a record of where I will have been. (How many tenses in that sentence?).

Camera will probably be Canon S3. Battery charger prevents leaving a trail of dead AA batteries along the way.

Maps

Part of me says 'just ride -- if you don't have a destination you can't get lost' while another part says 'maps are neat'. How to reconcile? One possibility: enjoy the map... then ignore it.

Anyway, I found an incredible cycling resource for the Netherlands... a interactive site offering cycling-specific maps based on the LF (longfiets, or long-distance cycling) network, for variety of routes and regions. Here is the site: Landelijkefietsroutes

Purchased a set of overview maps -- the "Basis Kaart".
Very nice maps, and they appear easy to ignore in a pinch.

Bike, loaded up

Hmmm. Got the bike set up with briefcase and front panniers, stuffed with a bunch of towels and misc junk to approximate load I may be taking, and went for a couple rides this weekend. Works well, but the ride is certainly different! Without luggage, ride is kind of Miata-like... very nimble and zippy. With luggage... ride isn't exactly a Cadillac, but it is a lot more... stable. Did get high praise from a kid maybe about 9 years old, on a bike, as we rode by: "hey, that's coool!"

Which bike?

I'm planning to ride my Bike Friday Tikit. Bike is optimized for foldability, but without sacrificing rideability. Bought this bike as a treat last Fall, and since then it has become my main commute ride -- my old favorite Raleigh Twenty is now in semi-retirement. Tikit has tiny wheels (16") , while most bikes have wheels running roughly 24" - 28". Seems like this would make it ride like a toy, but it doesn't... wheelbase is comparable to a normal bike. Drivetrain is based on the Nexus 8-speed internally geared hub and small drive sprocket paired with a large chainwheel... so pedalling cadence and gear ratios also roughly match a normal bike. Internal hub may seem an odd choice, but I like these Nexus hubs, and have put lots of miles on them on a variety of bikes. Bike is middle of the road weight-wise... guessing around 25 pounds. I'll weigh it eventually and find out for sure.

Why Europe? Why the Netherlands?

Why Europe? Lot's of reasons -- I travel on business quite a bit in the US, haven't been to Europe in a while, enjoyed previous trips, but mostly -- there is some terrific cycling. Which leads to...

Why the Netherlands? There is a lot to like about the Netherlands -- fascinating history, a liberal culture, most Dutch speak better English than I (me?). But let's cut to the biking -- IMHO, you just can't beat it! Think about it...

1) Almost everybody rides so... no bad "car vs bike" dynamic
2) Thousands of kilometers of bicycle paths...
3) Not a heck of a lot of uphill pedalling... highest point in the country is about 300 feet.

Ok, let's address the obvious. No uphill pedalling means... no downhill coasting. But as a cyclist, you still come out WAY ahead. Here's why: Einstein was a cyclist. He noticed that, in hilly areas, you seem to spend 10x as much time pedalling uphill as you do coasting downhill. This is the observation that prompted his "Special Theory of Relativity", which states that time does not flow at a fixed rate. Thus, physics tells us that... cycling in an area without uphills is much better. (Trust me on this one.)

The practical minimum of Stuff

Passport + CC + Toothbrush is a bit TOO minimal.

The alternative -- the bikers you sometimes see with tents, sleeping bags, multiple packs, cookware, stoves, etc etc all strapped on -- is too much for what I want.

My goal is lightest feasible load for "credit card touring"... no camping, no cooking.

If I could, I'd strip the load down to a point that it would fit in a tiny backpack I use for my daily commute. That bag holds my computer, train ticket, change of shirt and not much more.

For six weeks on the road, I decided to add a small aluminum briefcase I found on eBay. Modified my bike rack to mount it behind the seat. Checked out how much it could hold, and it was almost enough... but not quite. So I'm also going to use two front-mounted mini-panniers. Should let me balance the load a bit better around the bike, and take just a bit more stuff.

Goal at this point? Doesn't fit... don't take it.

We'll see if it is possible!

The bare minimum of Stuff

Bare minimum?
1) Passport
2) Credit Card
3) Toothbrush

How unstructured?

The idea for this trip developed during my bicycle commutes to work. Actually the commute is 1) bike into trunk of car; 2) drive to Caltrain station; 3) ride train to San Jose; 4) bike from San Jose central station to office... ~30 miles total... roughly 3 by car, 23 by train, 4 by bike.

As I would turn off the bike path and towards my office, I sometimes wondered: "Where does this path go next? and after that?"

And I began to think that it would be cool to just follow the front wheel, see where the path goes, stop when I wanted, start again when I wanted, find a meal when I got hungry... that unstructured.

Then I began to wonder... what is the bare minumum of Stuff that I'd have to carry?

Why on a bike?

I like riding bikes. I'm a weekend and commute rider. Not a racer or a particularly high-miler... just a guy who likes to ride a bike for the same reason that we did as kids: it's fun!

I like building bikes. I've built a few up from scratch -- modified frames, built wheels, fabricated custom metal parts when what a bike "needed" just wasn't available. Nice thing about a bike you've built yourself -- you get exactly what you want, and you can fix it when it breaks ;-)

I like folding bikes in particular at this point. They are very useful -- toss them in the trunk, take them on the train, open them up, and ride. Some folders are toys, but the good ones are great.

I've got a few bikes. Enough? Hard to say exactly. A friend who has grappled with the same question put it well: "How many bikes are enough? One bike short of divorce." My relationship with Katie is pretty good at this point, so it looks like I don't have too many... yet.