Equipment Review

1982 Miyata 610
Worked well, no regrets with the purchase.  Only changes I am considering is to drill out and tap the rear eyelets instead of using thru-bolts and nuts on the rack, I feel I might get a bit more sturdiness out of the rack with such a setup.  Front eyelets were already tapped.  May consider a six or seven speed freewheel for the back too, or at least a bit more closely geared five speed, the gaps were just too large in the back even with half step 47-52 front gearing.  Needed more time to adjust bike and work out glitches in the end, too, I feel the front wheel tightening issues may have been resolved earlier had I given it more trail time.

Maruishi LadyAce Mixte
You'll have to ask Carissa, but it went down the road faster than the Miyata!  She did not like the stem mounted friction levers was the majority of the complaining I heard, but she did like the step thru frame.  The lesson learned from this is more to proper prep, as it looked decent I didn't do a complete overhaul, which led to me missing a stripped out rear brake caliper bolt and a crushed chainstay under the kickstand plate.

Axiom Journey Adjustable Rack
Not impressed, but it worked and was cheap.  It claims a max load of 50kg, but at under 15kg it was already showing some sway in corners.  Not necessarily a problem with the rack, but it did not mate well with the Nashbar panniers either, needed a hook lower than provided to hook the bungee too.  Hoping that tapping the rear eyelets on the bike gets a bit sturdier mount for it, otherwise I may be looking for a fixed, non-adjustable option.

Nashbar Waterproof Rear Panniers 
The bags themselves are wonderful.  Big, waterproof, and lots of reflectors.  Would have preferred a yellow color, they got toasty in the sun, but not really an issue.  The issue was with the mounting system.  Just, cheap, and with my slightly overstuffed, bit heavier bags, it did not hold well and I found myself turning around for dropped bags a couple times.  Also, as mentioned with the rack, they didn't mate together well, although I can hardly fault either for that matchup.  A bit better attachment method, and I'd consider them to be great.  For the price, they are still pretty good, I'll just likely look to improve the retention on the hooks.

Axiom Flare Lights
Only did a little riding at night, worked for what we needed them for.  Never rode in the complete darkness to tell how bright the headlight was.

Incredibell
Loud, attention getting, and the unorthodox mounting location in front of the left brake worked well.  The one truly bright modification I made!

Tektro Brakes Levers
Work SO much better than the old levers.  Installed mostly for compatibility with the cross top brake levers, but made riding much more pleasant, and the large hoods gave me a comfortable way to ride in a more upright position.  May put them on other classic bikes when they get to their overhaul time.

Performance Cross Top Brake Levers
Useless on the trails, invaluable in the city.  Were quick and easy to set up, confident stopping power (even if not 100% of the regular brake levers), and allowed me to retain my upright sitting position while looking at directions, signs, and traffic.

SKS Bluemel Fenders
Cheap, flimsy, no idea how long they'll last, but kept us and the bikes clean and dry in the wet.  A bargain and well worth what we paid for the benefits we derived.

Giro Rumble Shoes
Brilliant.  Not so good for the days solely dedicated to walking, but kept my feet comfortable while pedaling while still having enough give to be comfortable walking around off the bike during breaks without having to change shoes.  Only complaint is they run a bit big, so ordering a size smaller and breaking it in took a while and almost made me send them back.  They stretched to my fet and are comfy now!

The Weekend, Packing, and Leaving

The Weekend and Leaving

Saturday accommodations: Lloyd's Hotel
Sunday accommodations: CitizenM Schipol Airport

Saturday was spent doing touristy things.  Carissa's big to-do was the Anne Frank house.  Luckily we got tickets for the ticketed entrance times, wait times are ridiculous otherwise.  I highly recommend not going unless you have tickets or enjoy lines that wind around entire city squares.  We hit up two microbreweries, Oedipus on the north side of the Ij river, and 't Ij, actually located in a windmill on the south side, necessitating a couple more ferries, free this time.  After that, it was to the supermarket to stock up on some beers for the return home, as well as to pick up a couple tall boy Heinekens to watch the Champions League final in the hotel room, as nothing around us was open that had the game on TV.

Prinsengracht canal

Prinsengracht canal

Not sure if still used or not....

Trains look like strip malls here

Bike parking.  As if that is ever adhered to in this town

USPS Trek anyone?

Random canal

Only some of the railway station bike parking...

Barge dedicated to bike parking

Not sure what these things are, but they are popular and legal to drive on bike lanes (like scooters)

Waiting for a ferry

Miyata and a Koga Miyata!

Oedipus Brewing, I think nearly everyone here biked

Waiting for the ferry back

On the ferry

Amsterdam in the background

Obligatory parked on a bridge canal shot

Brouerwij 't Ij is in this windmill!

Unique frame parked outside our hotel

Bike parking Friday and Saturday night

Sunday we packed our bags.  We went into town for lunch, and wound up taking a canal tour.  After that was off to Westerpark, where we stumbled across another random microbrewry that I didn't even know existed, a wonderful surprise.  There was a debate as to whether to ride or train it to the airport, and in the end the threat of rain and the lack of internet to figure out a route meant we went back into town and loaded the bikes up for the trip over.

View out our hotel

Prepping me to go home, the exact same mugs I have at my home bar!

Bike is almost bigger than the car

Brewery Troost

Outside of brewery

Finally figured out where bikes went on a train!

Thankfully, the elevators worked, and we got out and walked out bikes to the on-airport hotel.  The staff at the hotel could not have been more accommodating.  Upon asking if there was a spot I could store and disassemble the bike, they offered up a spare conference room to keep it in while we got boxes from the airport, and then let us use the room for disassembly and storage overnight!  The boxes were humongous, the only necessity was to turn the handlebars and remove the pedals, although I took off the back fenders as I knew I'd also be carring them on the back end through the airport, and ran us 23EUR each which I happily paid for the sheer convenience factor.

I like big boxes and I cannot lie!

Easy work!

For dinner, we ran into another couple from Detroit who were returning from a vacation in Cape Town, so we spent a few hours at the hotel bar with them, then it was off to bed.

Check in the next morning went just as smooth as Toronto.  Carissa and an airline agent weighed the boxes while I got our tickets: her box had grown in size to 24kg, and mine to 28kg.  That was a 7kg increase from Toronto for me, albeit with 5 bottles of beer and more clothing as padding, but I have to assume the majority of the weight increase was the size of the box.  We were supposed to pay $50CA each, as we were traveling on Air Canada, but that fee was never levied and I didn't offer the money :)

Pushing the bikes to the airport.  As expected, just slightly too narrow to fit through without slaloming

The only difference between Toronto and Amsterdam: whereas Toronto ripped the boxes apart when we dropped them off at oversize drop, Amsterdam tossed them on a conveyor without a care.  As such, Carissa's bike went on not taped up, as I had left the taping for post inspection this time.  I managed to get some tape on mine before he hit the button.  Thankfully, the cardboard tabs held the entire trip without tape.  The boxes were very sturdy.

After that, all we had was some tragedy trying to get me a bacon and egg sandwich at McDonalds, a surprisingly cheap beer from the Heineken abr next to my gate to cheer me up, me getting annoyed again because they ran out of salmon on the airplane and I was stuck with veggie pasta, a couple more Molsons to make me happy again, naptime, and landing in Toronto.  We did the same process as we did in in Belgium, as the new boxes had no chance of fitting in my car, and put them together on the sidewalk outside enough to wheel the luggage around and put in my car, I took the shuttle to retrieve my car, brought it back, packed up, and made it home in time to watch the end of the Tigers game!

At Toronto.  Again, told to just leave boxes out for someone to pick up.

All in all, a good trip!

Started out with 34 miles on the clock, so 234 miles total with this running (not all the time)

Friday: Oegstgeest to Amsterdam

Oegstgeest to Amsterdam
~45 miles
Weekend accommodations: Lloyd's Hotel

Sadly, we had reached the final day.  It started out not great.  There was construction in front of our hotel, with the sidewalk ripped up.  We had not gotten a hundred meters when I heard a crashing sound behind me, and a yell to stop.  In the process of myself stopping while trying to look back over my shoulder, my foot slipped on the dirty concrete, pulling and aggravating my already injured groin, and I toppled over as well.  Embarrassing.  Thankfully, neither us nor the bikes were hurt, and we were quickly back on the way.

Seven miles of riding through mostly suburbs got us to Noordwijk and the North Sea, one of the highlight of the trip for me!  We headed north along the coast through the dunes, a uniquely beautiful area, although the hills were not much appreciated after days of flat riding!  After a few miles, we found a little resort area, where we stopped for pictures, ice cream and beer.  Also utilized was the restroom, as the temperature had finally risen enough for me to ditch the tights for shorts to show off my awesome rampant lion socks!

These bars are all over the bike paths, especially around built up areas, and fun to navigate with bags.  Lots of bike paths go straight through housing developments

Entering Noordwijk

Ice Cream time!

Made it to the North Sea from Brussels!

Finally get to show off the lion!

Our break complete, we pushed on.  We crossed into North Holland, our last "border" crossing of the trip, and after a climb of 47 feet we reached the town of Zandvoort.  This is a popular break off spot to head inland, but we continued north for a few more miles, cycling through the Zuid Kennemerland national park, where we encountered the only hill we found in the Netherlands marked off on Strava as dangerous, where we hit our top speeds of the trip of jsut over 20MPH!  We cut inland at the cute little town of Bloemendaal aan Zee, heading towards Haarlem.

You'd think there are killer chickens, or something, but this false cognate actually means cattle guard

Lots of American cars in the Netherlands

Came across a track with an event going on.  I could hear race cars for miles, had to come investigate!

Good aero positions are kinda nullified by bags...

A bike path through the park (that we didn't take)

In Haarlem, we stopped in the city center for a lunch of absolutely delicious open faced sandwiches, enjoyed watching a wedding at the city hall that happened to be going on by us (a preferred wedding location in much of Europe, our bikes parked right outside made it in quite a few wedding shots!), and then headed to the Jopenkerk microbrewery in a converted church.

Canal coming into Haarlem

Wedding time!

Heading from the town center to the brewery

Someone's cool wooden bike.  Hipsters at microbreweries are a thing here too!

One of the few bike racks we saw there

After that, I'm sad to say, it was a fairly straight shot into Amsterdam on a very well maintained bike trail.  The Dutch tossed us two last navigational monkey wrenches, the first being another one of those newly introduced intersection points with no updated maps, and the second the moving of the route markers to way up on general directional signs, but we were too wise to fall for any of that by this time!  Sadly, the continuation of no signs telling us we had entered a new jurisdiction, Amsterdam this time, had continued, so no epic arrival photos, just two folks in front of their hotel!

Waiting for the red light

Our last "You are approaching intersection" sign :(

We followed the train tracks the majority of the way in.  It was nice to read their mileage markers, and tick off the 100 metres as we went along

Tired and finished!  She saw the hotel before me and took off sprinting to it!

Less tired and wanting to turn around and go back!

Our celebration consisted of a bottle of France's cheapest bubbles (actually, the only French bubbles the supermarket stocked) to celebrate both the engagement and the completion of the trip, and the delicious cheese we had purchased in Gouda!

Bubbles and kaas!