Somewhere South of Den Helder to Zurich.
Morning arrives like a gift, and I am grateful, for not being discovered by hordes of anti tent yobs, and more fore being dry with my belongings likewise.
I pack up quick, and push my bike up the ridge, to be greeted by the sun rising over misty dutch farms. I buy a coffee down the road, at a small cafe down the road, which is only open to serve the boisterous fishermen congregated in the carpark. When I ask for a cup to take away (for my own coffee later) she gives me a butter yellow mug. Thinking she’s misunderstood, I go through a charade to explain that I am going to take it “never to return”. sure she says. It very grateful a second time that morning, I make us of it a kilometer down the road, civilised, sat at a picninc table, whatching the mist lift and greeting the lycrists that go by. I ride onward to Den Helder.
Another flat tyre, but its not a bother, repairing it on the side of the road, savouring the rest and being watched by bemused sheep. As I put the back wheel on I notice the source of my creaks and wobbles is a broken spoke that i haven’t seen for days. I am so glad this vintage wheel has 40 of them, or 39 now. So while I have been managing fine on one less spoke for probably 100s of kilometers, now that I know its not there , I am always worried. All my thoughts return to it and are interrupted by it, is the wheel okay, when can I repair it, when will it collapse and throw to the road. So I treat Rose gently, and fortunately the rest of the road is smooth, especially along the vast dyke in the north. Its 35km long into a light headwind. I had imagined riding alond a green ridge that goes to the horizon, with seas on either side of me. The reality is it like riding beside a highway with neither great views or interest. Still the experience made the beer in Zurich on the other side taste better.
a little way out of town, I pitch my tent on the incline of a great sea barrier.
