01/03/2023 – 07/03/2023 – Cardiff to Amsterdam and back

I have 2 brothers. One lives in Amsterdam (Joe) and one has their Birthday on the 4th of March (Zac). Therefore, the only logical conclusion was to get Zac flights to visit Joe in Amsterdam for his Birthday for Christmas.

Whilst looking at flights for myself, I realised that they were actually quite expensive from Cardiff for just an hour in the air. The other option would be to travel to London to fly but that all seemed a bit excessive and would take quite a while.

Then, the idea popped into my head “Why don’t I just cycle there”. Not only would it work out cheaper and better for the environment but it would also be good training. I would split it out into 3 sections on the trip there and 3 sections on the way back.

On the 1st of March (St Davids Day), I finished work early, packed up my bike packing bags and set off for my parents house 215km away.

I set off at 14:22, headed out along the Newport flats into a fairly strong headwind but that wasn’t going to keep me down. It didn’t take long to get to the old Severn Bridge and once into England, the route was mainly country lanes through Malmesbury to Royal Wooton Bassett where I had spied out a Papa Johns.

After a XXL pizza, it had gone dark and the rest of the trip back home was really quiet. There were a couple of cool bits of wildlife but I soon made it to Reading and then it was familiar roads for the 25km back home.

After 9 hours of riding I arrived at midnight, quickly got some food down me and then straight to bed as I was working the morning shift so had to be up early on Thursday morning.

The morning shift at work was fine and was able to leave at 13:30 and head down to Dover.

I had 200km to do before my ferry but whilst the weather was fine and the wind was only a side wind, the route that I had chosen was quite a slow one. Lots of bike paths and slower single lanes but I wouldn’t mind too much so long as I made the ferry.

Having made my way out of Maidenhead, past Windsor and Staines I soon made it to a key feature of the route. Box Hill.

One of the most ridden hills in the UK and a climb that I had done multiple times on Zwift, I was intrigued to see what it was all about.

With a hairpin bend and the well known paintings on the tarmac bundled with the sun low in the distance, it was really nice, but not as long as I thought it would be. It is only a hill though and not a mountain to be fair.

I carried on through the countryside passing through small town after small village stopping at shops once or twice to get some snacks in. I really wanted a big meal but having the ferry time looming over me I dared not get held up.

This was a relatively new experience for me. The only other time that I’ve cycled with a set time to be somewhere was in the Pan Celtic Race last year where I had to make the 8am ferry from Dublin. That was during a race so I didn’t mind at all, but in a normal setting, it’s not the nicest of feelings.

Cycling to me has been about freedom. Riding where you want, when you want and the ability to stop somewhere if you feel like it. Waking up in a hostel in Laos deciding where I wanted to go today, if I even wanted to leave, I could always just stay there for an extra day, compared with having to miss out on things and just get your head down to get a ferry required a very different mindset.

I made it to Dover pretty much bang on midnight and pulled into a BP station to pick up some more food for the ferry over. 9 and a half hours of cycling with 1 hour stopped was pretty good in my mind, I’d have (some) time to relax on the ferry.

By this point I was wearing almost every layer that I had. The temperature had dropped down to 1 degree and standing waiting to be let on the ferry was not doing me any favours.

Once on the ferry and having tied my bike up to a railing, I went to the room with the allocated seating in, closed my eyes and slept on the floor.

My Garmin watch told me that I had 1 hour of sleep on the crossing which is far from ideal.

I set off from the ferry at 5:30am French time in Dunkirk into darkness and freezing temperatures. The first few hours were on the same roads that I took on my around the world trip so they seemed semi-familiar which was very useful, as the numpty that was doing this ride forgot to reinstall the European maps onto his Wahoo so was faced with a blank white map with a black line showing the route on it.

After about 10 minutes of riding when I turned from South to North East I realised that I had a problem. There was a 20 kph wind blowing right into my face. I checked the Met Office and it said that this wind was going to be there all day and sadly for me, my route was in effect, a direct line North East from Dunkirk to Amsterdam. Dam.

There was nothing I could do about it though besides test out my new fangled Aero bars and see how I got on with them, nothing like trial by fire as the route was pan flat so would have plenty of opportunity to make the most of them.

After 31km which took a painful hour and a half, I crossed the border into Belgium which, as the same as last year, I had no idea that it had happened.

I made my customary stop into Bruges after 88km and ate at the Burger King right in front of the Belfort, Colin Farrell would be proud.

The sun was up and warming me up slightly but every layer that I had packed was still required. Who’d have thought that cycling in Northern Europe in March would be a good idea. I blame my brother for being born in this month or maybe I should blame my other brother for not having moved to somewhere warm in March like South Africa, that’d certainly be an adventure. Cardiff to Cape Town all for my brothers birthday, that’d get me in the good books for sure.

After the quick half an hour stop I was on the bike again heading towards the Netherlands and where the route would take me onto areas of land that were very exposed to the weather.

I stopped into a Jumbo in Sluis but sadly did not see WVA or anyone who could offer me a professional cycling contract so I carried on as once again, I had another ferry to aim for. 124km into the ride there is a ferry from Breskens to Vlissingen which could make or break the ride. If I timed it well, I’d cycle straight on and make good time with my journey. If I missed it then it would be an hour wait for the next one.

I had made slow progress all day, despite it being pan flat, I was only averaging 19 kph. I’d love to say that it was all down to the wind but it probably wasn’t, the sleep didn’t help but to be honest, I hadn’t done much training for long distance cycling as I should have.

Since the race last year I took a chunk of time off the bike to let me hands heal up from some issues and then focused on running to train for a Half Marathon but since then, my “training” if you can call it that had been very fragmented and inconsistent. This was supposed to be the “kickstart” for training for the Pan Celtic Race this summer but the only thing being kicked was my ass.

420km over the previous 2 days followed by 1 hours sleep was not the best prep but I was still proud of how far I had cycled, I had hoped that I’d be going a little faster but conditions were not in my favour.

I rolled into the ferry port hoping that keeping my head down and my legs turning had not been in vein and was delighted to be told that I could pretty much walk straight onto the boat before it left in 5 minutes time.

With my head in my hands on the boat trying to do some mental maths about whether or not I would make it to Amsterdam in time whilst also trying to get some micro rest it boiled down to some simple maths.

By the time that I would reach the other side of the river, I would have traveled about 125km in 8 and a half hours elapsed time. Amsterdam was about another 170km. It was approaching 3pm. At this rate it would be well gone midnight before I reached Amsterdam and that was on the assumption that I would make it there before requiring to fall asleep in a hedge.

I decided that the best option would be to cycle to Rotterdam, only another 100km away and get a train to Amsterdam to be there at a reasonable time.

With the new route plotted and the plan in place, I set off from the ferry into the same strong headwind that I had encountered on the previous side.

Not too long afterwards I made my way out onto one of the Netherlands famous flood defences whilst being surrounded by wind turbines which only further confirmed that I was indeed cycling straight into a headwind.

This exposed part of the route was really pretty, looking out over beaches into the Channel/North Sea and if it wasn’t so cold and under a real time pressure I probably would have gone for a dip.

I encountered a bridge that was pretty hefty in size over a very substantial river but to my dismay, the cycle lane was closed and work was being done on that side of the bridge.

After checking what a detour would look like the 50km did not seem that appealing. It did seem more appealing that cycling on the actual road as it looked to be a motorway. I rode around the fence and asked the workmen if there was a way that I could sneak through and would offer very little disturbance to the work that was going on.

They pointed me in the direction of a side path that would bypass them over the foot persons bridge to then rejoin the main cycleway at a slightly later point and I could have hugged them, partly for their warmth as the sun had gone down and it was getting very chilly again but also because I could not face an extra 3 hours of headwind more than I needed to.

With the mission back on track I popped on a good playlist and got my head down for Rotterdam. One thing that did surprise me as I took cycle paths between towns was that some mopeds were joining me on them. It transpires that certain types of mopeds are essentially treated as bikes? Very strange.

I had been to Rotterdam before on my previous trip and so I wasn’t as surprised by the underground tunnels in place of bridges to get from one side of the river to the other as I was last time. It is still quite novel but it meant that Rotterdam station was almost within my grasp.

After arriving at Rotterdam Station at 9pm after 220km of riding I hopped on the train to Amsterdam. I was thankful that I didn’t have a further 80km to ride as I was really starting to flag.

It was very easy to get the bike onto the train and before I knew it I was in Amsterdam. A short 2km ride and I was at my brothers place, jumped into the hot shower and was then settled for the evening.

I was welcomed by Joes pre prepped mountain of food which didn’t last very long.

The plan was to join them for some drink but the lack of sleep on the ferry was really taking it out of me so I curled up on the blow up mattress and went to bed to make sure I was in good shape for the rest of the weekend.

In the morning I don’t think that any of us wanted to wake up too early, me because I was feeling more fatigued than I thought I would be and them because they had sore heads from the night before.

We spent the morning walking (and cycling) around Amsterdam stopping by Vegan Junk Food Bar for lunch which was amazing and then onto a local bar where the main attraction was Darts. The bartender was not just a bartender but Chief of Karaoke.

The night then took us to a riverside bar where we stayed until the early hours.

The next day we went for a cycle around Amsterdam again, went to a vintage second hand clothes shop and then to “AMAZE” which is an “audiovisual immersive walkthrough experience” and it certainly lived up to that. There were 7 different sections all with different light shows, music and physical elements. Would definitely recommend.

Once we’d spent some time dozing in the final space on the bean bags we hurriedly made our way out and to a VR Zombies style shooter game. We entered a room with guns and a VR headset. There were several different levels with varying amounts of Zombies trying to kill us. Very reminiscent of Call of Duty Black Ops.

With an early-ish night planned we headed back to the flat, hit the hay and then got ready for our last day in Amsterdam.

The final day entailed Joe heading off to work so Zac and I went around the city a little bit before I headed back on the bike to the Hook of Holland port south west of The Hague.

The weather was dry but it was as if the weather gods were playing a cruel trick on me. The wind that would have given me a tasty tailwind to the ferry had decided to spin 180 degrees and give me a headwind.

Thankfully the temperature didn’t do a 180 and suddenly become unseasonably warm. The chill was real and I’d gone back to wearing every layer that I had.

The route was largely on cycle paths and alongside canals which was nice and meant that it was very flat but the persistent headwind kept my speed muted.

As the sun went down the heavens opened and I got drenched. Thankfully I already had every layer on including my rain jacket on the outside so I just kept on riding but it was starting to become really unpleasant to ride in near freezing temperatures whilst getting soaked. My feet were sodden.

Thankfully I arrived in good time to the ferry port and I was made to book a room on the ferry overnight which given the state I was in I didn’t mind at all. I rushed in and jumped straight into the shower and then left to get some dinner in.

I slept like a log overnight and while disembarking the ferry was treated to snow coming down in place of rain. It wasn’t that heavy thankfully so was probably preferable to the rain of the previous evening.

The route from Harwich was nice and rural and was happily riding along in the snow listening to music when I got some messages from work. I was technically working today but was working the PM shift so didn’t have to start work until 2pm at the latest which was enough time to make it back to my parents house and get on the laptop.

However, in part to the snow that was falling, work was going to be very very busy and after some exchange of messages in a KFC I decided to get the train straight back to Cardiff to work from the office.

I rode on to Chelmsford, got the train into London. Train onto Maidenhead where my parents dropped me my work bag with laptop in etc, onto Reading and then back to Cardiff.

A quick stop at home for a shower and some food and then into the office where things really were busy.

That was then the end of my trip to Amsterdam and back ending slightly earlier than I had planned. It was still a trip just shy of 800km (500miles), managed to avoid taking any flights, saved a lot of emissions and hopefully gave me a bit of a fitness boost for the rest of the year. It is only upon writing this that I have re-realised that I tend to not take any photos of things when I go on trips. Hopefully that’ll change at some point but don’t count on it.

According to flightfree.org, missing this flight saved 0.2 metric tons of CO2 equivalent, the same as being vegetarian for 0.4 years. Not a massive amount but as they say, every little helps.

However, this website also says that “To limit global warming to a relatively safe 1.5 degrees Celsius it is estimated that individuals must have a yearly budget of 1.6 metric tons of C02e emissions.” Of which, 0.2 tons is quite a bit. For reference the current average US Citizen emits 15 tons every year at the moment.