Introduction - Floating Across The Netherlands - Tandem Tour - July 2022 - CycleBlaze

June 16, 2022

Introduction

Someone has to do the easy rides!

Cycleblaze is an amazing community of stalwart bike tourists.  So many awesome people, cycling impressive distances over challenging terrain.  And such long tours!  I’m constantly impressed by what people on this site are doing.

Into this extraordinary community, I sheepishly introduce this journal of our barge-supported, 8 day ride across The Netherlands.  We are definitely not impressive or amazing cycle tourists.  But hey, someone has to do the easy rides!

This ride will use the tour operator “Boat Bike Tours”.  The specific tour is their 8 day ride from Amsterdam to Maastricht.  We’ll have a room on the barge, which will transport our bags and be our floating restaurant as well.  So this ride will definitely be one of the easiest rides posted on Cycleblaze this summer.

We’ll fly to and from Amsterdam from our closest big airport, which is Toulouse.  We’ll be using our Bike Friday tandem, which packs into a suitcase and a half.  

It packs down pretty well!
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The tour ends in Maastricht, so we’ll put the tandem into “train mode” and take the train back to Amsterdam.  

The tandem in "train mode". You can't ride it this way, but it will hang from a standard bike rack on any European train.
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We’ve arranged for a hotel in Amsterdam that will hold our extra bags while we’re out on the ride.

Like a lot of other rides, this ride was originally scheduled for 2020.  We’ve delayed it twice - finally settling on July 2nd 2022 as the starting date.  We’ll leave for Amsterdam a couple of days before that to allow time for building the bike and some nosing around Amsterdam - one of my favorite cities.

We hope to atone for this easy ride by doing something a bit more challenging in September.

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Steve Miller/GrampiesEvery ride is interesting and fun. Looking forward to seeing what you see on the way, through your eyes.
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1 year ago
Rachael AndersonSounds like a great tour. I look forward to reading about it!
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1 year ago