A Private Invitation

This blog seems to grow – by sheer numbers of posts, readers (thank you), even followers (a special thank you), and on me. So it seems only natural that I have to introduce a way of facilitating all our ways around the more than 100 posts, and I have decided to diversify the categories, introducing more of them for a start. Today it´s the Ride Reports that´s new, and I have also started to re-classify older posts by categorizing them anew.

As you will have noted, this post also is in the Ride Reports section. The reason this is possible at all is that my son and myself braved torrential rainfalls for 200 kms in our trusty 740 Volvo to be rewarded with an afternoon´s worth of riding in brilliant sunshine in Amerongen, Province of Utrecht, Netherlands. As soon as we turned off the motorway the rain stopped, and by the time we reached Amerongen´s Restaurant Buitenlust, situated in Burgemeester Jonkheer Hendrik van den Boschstraat, the sun had come out.

One after the other more than 60 riders turned up, from places as far afield as Groningen and – well, Germany. It took us about 30 minutes after the 11 o´clock starting time to look at all the bikes, take photos, and get acquainted or greet old friends.

Then we took off, straight onto a muddy path which made all those glitzy Italian seventies and eightes bikes look much more authentic. My ca. 1941 FW Evans fitted with an Osgear is in original paintwork, this being a description of a severe lack of any cleaning for years, so there´s dirt and rust everywhere anyway, plus it has mudguards, so I was not able to profit from the mud on the path. What I did manage was a gear change or two on the 75 kms we rode, which made me really proud of myself. My bike´s Osgear being the Pro version, a gear change necessitates a manual detensioning of the tension arm, overshifting the indexed quadrant, then dropping the lever into the right notch, and finally re-tensioning the tension arm.

The mech worked flawlessly, only all those steps were too much for me first time round, promptly making it necessary to dismount and to re-rail the chain which I had dropped onto the spokes. Luckily there was no harm done, but my pride was hurt, and to top it off all of this was filmed and published on Youtube. There are at least two films now, one called Retro Race Amerongen 2013, the incriminating one being titled Retro Toertocht Utrechtse Heuvelrug 2013.

A few kilometers after the start I tried to take a few pics of the bunch, which wasn´t easy as there were so many riders. And no, I didn´t stand on the newly laid concrete.

John, the organizer, together with family and friends, had managed not only to devise a very nicely cyclable and scenic route, but they also had set up two refreshment stations on the way, decorated with old jerseys, with friendly helpers doling out all sorts of versnaperingen from Dutch breakfast cake Ontbijtkoek to Italian Liqueur.

All of this, more than enough for 60 plus riders, was paid for by them, with participation in the event being free. John and the others, there is a huge thank you in this for you, and my son and me will bring a surprise to Apeldoorn on October 20.

In general the nice weather and the company was enjoyed by all, there were no accidents I heard of and only two punctures. Onlookers also were content, although their cheers sounded somewhat strange.

Here now are a number of impressions, without further comment. I will present two especially interesting bikes further down in this post.

It being the Netherlands, there were dozens of interesting bikes around everywhere. It seems that the Dutch don´t resist modern trends in utility cycling, so one finds bikes like these:

This is a split top tube on a Sparta Amazone with a child´s seat fitted between the rider´s seat and the handlebar.

Towards the end of the ride we passed Rhenen, one of the two towns which Queen Beatrix visited on her last proper Koninginnedag in 2012. One rider´s daughter actually presented the Queen with a bunch of flowers. In the background there is St Cunera church spire, one of the most beautiful gothic spires in all of the Netherlands.

Now for a closer look at two very special bikes, one British (of course), the other Dutch.

Here´s a Raleigh SBU with R753 tubing.

And here´s a Gazelle anniversary bike fitted with a Campag anniversary groupset. It belongs to a former Gazelle executive who has owned it since new but took it for its first ride in Amerongen. If this isn´t special I don´t know what is.