HELP! St Albans to Amsterdam!

Clarebunny

Hi all,
My husband and I are planning a mini tour (still our longest ever ride) to Amsterdam at the start of April.

Riding about 50miles a day... St Albans==>Braintree==>Harwich (overnight ferry) Hook of Holland==>Amsterdam. 2 days in Amsterdam recovering, and then reversing the route back!

Really looking forwards to it but decided we couldnt afford a GPS so doing it all with paper maps.

Any advice for first time tourers, particularly route planning, kit and if anyone knows of a nice cheap (£50 per night for two adults sharing) hotel in or around Amsterdam with space to store our bikes would be great........

HELP! :-)

andymiller

Route planning - stay off A-roads if you possibly can. Beyond that it's probably a case of identifying places you want to go to/see and of course places to stay the night and then joining the dots.

There are some resources here:

http://www.visitessex.com/what-to-do/Cycle_Essex.aspx

(scroll to the bottom of the page a long time ago I got a pack of route guides from Essex Council - it looks like they may still do them.

and here:

http://www.visiteastofengland.com/thing ... fault.aspx

and of course there's the Sustrans website, plus there are several books with routes around the east of england which you could use for ideas.

If no one comes up with a better idea, you might find Booking.com useful for finding a hotel in/near Amsterdam

FJS

For planning the dutch part of your trip - the dutch CTC has created a dense network connecting cycle routes, signed on the road, with maps and connected by hubs with easy to remember numbers; and an online planner: http://www.fietsersbond.nl/fietsroutepl ... index.html

Hoek van Holland in the Rotterdam The Hague area is in a pretty built up part of the country, but there are cycle paths/lanes everywhere.

With hotels, do ask for safe storage explicitly, as most hotels (and everything else) has cycling stands outside for the local rusty town bikes they refer most tourists to for they rental bikes, but you might not want to use that for your nice touring bike. Bike theft is rampant in Amsterdam.

jc4lab

April is Perfect for the Bulb fields...For bulbs the area to aim for is Lisse and Keukenhof gardens area near Leiden.Katwijk or Norwijk on the coast are good bases for bulb field tours.You can stay in Amsderdam and take your bike on the bike friendly train to most parts of the country and get there within and hour or so..For windmills Kinderdyjk neas Rotterdamn is the place.

FJS

To add, lived there for 30 years, but embarrassingly, I don't have any hotel recommendations, but Amsterdam is a major tourist destination, and for £50 for a double you'd be in the budget categories. For weekends, definitively book ahead.

jc4lab wrote:

.You can stay in Amsderdam and take your bike on the bike friendly train to most parts of the country and get there within and hour or so

Yep. Not allowed during commuter rush hour though.

MichaelW

From the Ferry terminal in Hook, you can join the signposted coastal route LF1a to Haarlem then turn left to Amsterdam.




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Clarebunny

andymiller wrote:

Route planning - stay off A-roads if you possibly can. Beyond that it's probably a case of identifying places you want to go to/see and of course places to stay the night and then joining the dots.

There are some resources here:

http://www.visitessex.com/what-to-do/Cycle_Essex.aspx

(scroll to the bottom of the page a long time ago I got a pack of route guides from Essex Council - it looks like they may still do them.

and here:

http://www.visiteastofengland.com/thing ... fault.aspx

and of course there's the Sustrans website, plus there are several books with routes around the east of england which you could use for ideas.

If no one comes up with a better idea, you might find Booking.com useful for finding a hotel in/near Amsterdam

Thanks for those handy links!

Clarebunny

FJS wrote:

For planning the dutch part of your trip - the dutch CTC has created a dense network connecting cycle routes, signed on the road, with maps and connected by hubs with easy to remember numbers; and an online planner: http://www.fietsersbond.nl/fietsroutepl ... index.html

Hoek van Holland in the Rotterdam The Hague area is in a pretty built up part of the country, but there are cycle paths/lanes everywhere.

With hotels, do ask for safe storage explicitly, as most hotels (and everything else) has cycling stands outside for the local rusty town bikes they refer most tourists to for they rental bikes, but you might not want to use that for your nice touring bike. Bike theft is rampant in Amsterdam.

That's really handy for the Amsterdam cycling- thanks so much! Also thanks for the info about bike theft- I would have imagined it was pretty rare with so many bikes around so good to know the truth!!

Clarebunny

jc4lab wrote:

April is Perfect for the Bulb fields...For bulbs the area to aim for is Lisse and Keukenhof gardens area near Leiden.Katwijk or Norwijk on the coast are good bases for bulb field tours.You can stay in Amsderdam and take your bike on the bike friendly train to most parts of the country and get there within and hour or so..For windmills Kinderdyjk neas Rotterdamn is the place.

Brilliant- Thanks so much! I was hoping bulbs would start to show in April, and I hope that our route from Hook of Holland up to Amsterdam will take us past some of the tulip fields!

Clarebunny

MichaelW wrote:

From the Ferry terminal in Hook, you can join the signposted coastal route LF1a to Haarlem then turn left to Amsterdam.




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Great thanks Michael. Sounds easy to find!

jc4lab

I did this this staying in Katwijk and hiring a bike there when my own bike was in for a repair locally...You can get a bulb route cyclle guide map from the Holland tourist Board(VVV) . Theres a 30 km cyclist s tulip route around Lisse....Aint sure about trhe best time in April; though..Think tulips are mid April..and Hiachins and more durable flowers may come first.but you can catch em on the way back if early april is too early..

Clarebunny

jc4lab wrote:

I did this this staying in Katwijk and hiring a bike there when my own bike was in for a repair locally...You can get a bulb route cyclle guide map from the Holland tourist Board(VVV) . Theres a 30 km cyclist s tulip route around Lisse....Aint sure about trhe best time in April; though..Think tulips are mid April..and Hiachins and more durable flowers may come first.but you can catch em on the way back if early april is too early..

I believe we may catch the very start of the tulips if we're lucky!

MichaelW

Correction. Turn Right at Haarlem for Amsterdam. To the left is the North Sea and its all wet and cold.

jc4lab

Just to add ...my after my own bulb field tour which I based from Katwijk 2 years ago I, per chance, came across a Flower parade of flower floats which went from Nordwijk to Harleem which goes though all the bulb producing villages..so I just followed/cycled ahead of it to get to Amsterdam. that day..It goes on the 16th April this year...

Clarebunny

MichaelW wrote:

Correction. Turn Right at Haarlem for Amsterdam. To the left is the North Sea and its all wet and cold.

Indeed you're right!

We're leaving on the 3rd April- very excited and totally terrified!

jc4lab

If you do eventually see the bulbfields around Lisse then dont miss out on Kreukemhof gardens themselves..Sounds like a tourist soft option in comparison but they are exceptional..Also Queens day in Amsderdam at the end of April is worth a look .

Clarebunny

Hi all, thanks for all your advice- we did it! 316 miles over 6 days (accidently 7 days because we messed up our diaries!). Great fun and now we're tired!

Last day was hard work- into the wind and uphill! Rest of the time we had lovely sunshine, and tailwinds. Yes, really. The wind even switched 180 degrees so it was a tailwind up and down Holland! Highly recommended!





Only 4 punctures between us and I fell off my SPDs twice! Once in each direction!

peterst6906

Congrats on the trip. I ride all the time between the Hoek and Amsterdam. At this time of year it's great and I can only imagine how much fun the full trip including the UK parts must have been.

Epic journey.

Paris-Brest-Paris here you come...

Clarebunny

What a great journey to have on your doorstep!

On the way out we did Nord-Zee route to Harleem then across (only got a bit lost where it tries to take you through some towns like Katjwik!). On the way back we did a more diagonal route- near Leiden, through Den Haag etc. Lovely route- especially when the wind is with you!

Clarebunny

Mileage was:
Day 1: 51 miles
Day 2: 22 miles (accidental short day when we messed up dates)
Day 3: 33 miles
Day 4: 59 miles
Day 5: 60 miles
Day 6: 41 miles
Day 7: 50 miles

Surprise revelations:
-falling off your bike on your SPDs MOSTLY doesn't hurt as much as you think (helps that I didn't get run over I suppose)
-Premier Inns are really nice
-the Dutch can DO salads
-Cherry Beer is the BEST
-Heineken tastes nicer in Holland
-I'm fitter than I thought, but my body is rubbish!
-Harwich is a DUMP
-the new Stena Line ferrys are AMAZING.