Klaus’s Birthday Castle Tour – Arnhem to Kempen

Day 3 of our tour, and the last day.

We had slept really well in our aircraft hangar. Cycle tours are wonderful for tiring you out!

The B&B had suggested breakfast at 09:00 (not earlier) so we had a leisurely walk before breakfast where we went to the fence surrounding the Deelen airfield. We couldn’t see a lot really, but gather it is a really large site.

We walked for about 2km before returning to the aircraft hangar.

We seemed to be the only people awake, apart from the two cats who had apparently had a bit of a fight in the night. We heard lots of yowling and then the Movement Alarm on Emily sounded, so one of them must have knocked against her. This was at 3am!

Breakfast was very impressive!

In the past we have found food in NL very disappointing. However, on this trip both breakfasts and evening meals were very good. Lunches less so, and of course the cakes are a bit of a catastrophe, but it seems at least we are improving our luck with Dutch food. Perhaps our experience is leading us to make better choices!

After a leisurely breakfast and a couple of cups of tea, we packed our things and readied the velomobiles. We said goodbye to the excellent host and her dog – we would very much like to come back again to this B&B.

Our planned route for today was this:

We had posted in the Velomobilforum that we expected to be at Bauerncafé Büllhorsthof at around 2pm or perhaps a bit later, if anyone wanted to join us there. We had not received any responses (a bit late notice) when we set off.

Our route started off by going downhill to Arnhem. And it was pretty hilly, so we had some high speeds on some open roads and then when we actually got into Arnhem we had some short, sharp climbs as we made our way through the outskirts of the city. My motor was again doing sterling work!

In Arnhem we crossed the John Frostbrug again, as a few weeks ago, and were now on the Radschnellweg/Fast Bike Route between Arnhem and Nijmegen. It’s an excellent route which is almost entirely on separate cycle infrastructure with not too many main road crossings. We zoomed along.

Soon we were approaching Nijmegen, which is also a bit hilly – we rode downhill to the river (and saw a fantastic cockapoo puppy in the town centre – if I’d had a chance I would have stopped to give it a cuddle, but we were going too fast on a main road!)

Almost immediately we were on a quiet country lane, despite being in the thick of Nijmegen just 600 metres ago. Impressive! We had an issue with two horses where we had to stop and wait for the young boy holding one horse to be rescued by his mum. We weren’t happy to pass with just the boy holding the horse as they can be so frightened of us.

We went through Persingen and then as we approached Wercheren there seemed to be dozens and dozens of race cyclists whizzing along on the relatively narrow cycle path. They were overtaking us at speed which is a bit scary in a velomobile as we have very limited opportunity to dodge hazards. They all disappeared up a steep slope which is where we should also have gone but we overshot. We needed time to work out the best way to get up there with all the race bikes.

In the end, we approached from the other side and it was fine as there was a brief lull in the cyclists. We were waved across the road by Marshalls and congratulated (they clearly thought we were part of this race) and then we passed a field where the racers were all collecting after their race. I think there were several hundred in the field, men and women. Some major event! I didn’t see any portaloos though! This was La Ronda de Nijmegen, as we later discovered.

We carried on of course, with a few race cyclists also going our way (after the finish, going home?). And we realised that we were back in Germany – I spotted the cycle route signs in the familiar German style. We were in the village of Zyfflich and two people on recumbent bikes waved at us, but we were moving at some speed and didn’t stop.

From Zyfflich we went through Niel and then Düffelward. We saw no cars, just a few other cyclists. Sunday morning and Kreis Kleve is really dead (apart from the thousands of cyclists back in NL and then another huge bunch we met in Düffelward, who were on the 160km La Ronda de Nijmegen route, it seems).

From Düffelward we were cycling on the dike on bricks so it was a bit bumpy. We then crossed the Spoykanal and turned south towards Kellen. We then skirted around Kleve, although we briefly considered riding into Kleve to find a café. But Kleve is big and hilly and I thought we would find somewhere to stop on our route. Although I was wrong!

We rode around Bedburg-Hau which was back on fairly familiar roads. And then we headed to Louisendorf which is a village founded by people from the Kurpfalz where Klaus hails from, so it’s like a mini homecoming. We stopped at the church in the centre of Louisendorf and stretched our legs a bit as I was feeling a bit cramped. We had done 65km without a stop and my legs were complaining a bit.

We then discovered that at 9:30 one of our velomobile acquaintances who lives in Kleve had asked where we were crossing the Rhein as he would join us for a short while, but we were already way past and he didn’t have time to come all the way to Winnekendonk where we were headed. It was a shame, but there you go.

It was just 25km from Louisendorf to Winnekendonk and includes a fantastic downhill run where I hit 60 km/h before I started to consider the approaching t-junction and bottled out. I was ahead at this point as we had had to go up a hill first and I had used my motor on maximum; Klaus was having to use leg-power alone, poor chap, plus he had all the luggage. But Emily is good and stable and he didn’t seem to mind.

From this point on we were on roads that we have regularly ridden so for me it felt like we were almost home. And then Bauerncafé Büllhorsthof hove into view – finally a chance for a cup of tea and some cake, 90km after leaving Arnhem.

As usual, it had to be the Mandarinen Schmand Kuchen. It is a real highlight of German Cakiness!

We enjoyed the relaxation, had two cups of tea and the one slice of cake each and rested a bit. I had been interested to see that my heart rate seemed to stay really low again today, as it did yesterday – averaging 95 at this point. That’s really unusual for me, I usually have a heart rate around 130. This has happened before and it seems to be related to me having a very carb-heavy breakfast, which I only do on tour.

However, after we left Winnekendonk things were a bit different. We really put the pedal to the metal, and Klaus (who was a bit quicker) rode the final 31km home at an average of 38.5 km/h. This is with a Quattrovelo which probably weighed close on 50kg with all the luggage and tools. Very impressive, although his legs were complaining about it (and not having had a warm down) the next day. I followed him at a slightly more sedate pace back (average about 36 km/h, I think), and warmed down for the final 2km or so.

In total today’s ride was just under 120 km.

The heart rate data is also interesting, as after the cake stop my heart rate returned to its ‘normal’, i.e. average of 130, with peaks around 160 bpm. You can see here the heart rate trace for the first 90km of the ride (at the beginning the heart rate monitor didn’t work, and it also stopped briefly in the middle where it appears as if I am dead on the trace):

The 90km to Büllhorsthof Cake. Max 125, average 95 bpm.

And then we stopped for cake… After that point the heart rate hugely increased. Here is the trace for the post-cake sector:

Average 134 for the final 31km, post-cake

And what can we conclude from this? I seem to ride better after cake! Good thing we had cake after 50km on the 210km ride on Friday. I have suggested to Klaus that we need to schedule in cake stops earlier on rides than 90km. I hope he will agree.

We arrived home, having remained dry despite some threatening clouds following us from Arnhem. So it seems the poncho that I purchased did its job of chasing off the rain – just 15 minutes of light drizzle over a weekend which originally forecast 6mm of rain. We were once again very lucky with the weather on our tour.

Rain-scaring poncho.

So our mini tour was at an end. Klaus has already planned the next one (we are turning a day group ride with the Grensland Rijders to a three day tour again).

Here is the Veloviewer Wheel to show you where we went on this tour:

457km is not bad for three days. Once again, thanks to my riding partner and pack mule Klaus who carted my clothes, shoes, iPad, battery charger etc around the Netherlands in his voluminous velomobile boot, whilst I just carried the rain-defying poncho as extra ballast. We had a great tour, he really enjoyed his birthday, and we visited some places that we will want to return to again.

Keep an eye out for my reports on the next tour in just a fortnight’s time…

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Translate »