Ossendrecht
[The Netherlands] 300 km Brevet
E. W. [Wim] Kok
During my spring trip to the Netherlands
in May I decided to participate in a couple of Brevets in the Netherlands. The first one took place on Saturday May 19
in Ossendrecht in the SW part of the Netherlands. Traveling by train with a bicycle in the Netherlands is easy. For Hfl 12.50 one gets a bike day pass (this
does not include one’s own ticket).
When the train arrives at the station, look for the car with the bike
sign, load the bike, take a seat, and enjoy the scenery until destination. After I got off the train in Bergen op Zoom,
I cycled to Ossendrecht in classical Dutch dreary weather: cloudy skies and
drizzle. Via a roundabout way -- that’s
another story -- I finally arrived at the hotel, where the bed and breakfast
charge was Hfl 55.00 or C$ 35.00. Quite
decent I might add.
Registration was Saturday morning at 5 am
with a scheduled start at six. The
start location was in one of the cafe-restaurants, where many riders were
already enjoying their early morning coffee.
Robert LeDuc, ride organizer and his cohorts were busy doing the paper
work. Some 25 riders on fenderless
bikes were ready to undertake this event.
At 6 am most riders got off into the cool and cloudy morning, with a few
starting later. Almost immediately a
stiff pace was set, so as not to waste time.
The group became stretched like a piece of spaghetti, soon to be broken
up in two sections. Realizing that 300
km is a long distance, and that it made no sense to burn myself up in the first
20 km, I put two and two together and decided to drop back to the second group,
which rode at a more leisurely (??) pace.
Meanwhile the skies cleared and a westerly breeze provided the necessary
resistance. After all we are
randonneurs and we enjoy all the resistance we can get. To reduce the latter however someone in our
group ‘organized’ us into an echelon or ‘waaier,’ so that energy could be saved
and the pace maintained. Like a
serpentine, we snaked through the province of Zeeland. We were alternating between cycling on the
dike, then again behind the dike. This
gave us different perspectives on the open polders with blooming orchards and
fields with leeks and other crops. The
morning smells were certainly inspiring.
After a secret control, we continued along
the river Schelde from Zuid-Beveland to Walcheren, carefully avoiding the
bigger cities like Vlissingen and Middelburg. The route was clearly marked with
yellow arrows and the number 3 (300 km brevet), which closely matched our route
description. The route took us through
small villages, many whose names ended with ‘kerke’ (church). At 95 km we had the first official control
in West Kapelle, where we stopped at a restaurant behind the dunes of the North
Sea for some 30 minutes. After this
welcome break with coffee for most of the riders, the route turned north along
the coast. We rode across the dike of
the Veerse Meer to Noord Beveland, and then crossed the big control structure
of the Oosterschelde to the island of Schouwen-Duiveland with a very stiff sea
breeze greeting us along the way. The
pace I must admit was kept high, although some described it as slow. Then someone ‘flatted.’ While we waited, he changed the tire, and we
into shorts. We crossed the
Grevelingen, another large distributary of the delta. The third control was in Ouddorp on the island of
Goeree-Overflakkee. The pies were
excellent!!
After a half hour rest we turned east and
now enjoyed a tailwind, which made the ride through the open landscape very
enjoyable. Just after Hellegatsplein we
crossed the Haringvlietbrug (bridge) to arrive on yet another island: the
Hoekse Waard, which we left via a tunnel under the Dordtse Kill. Shortly after someone’s tire exploded,
tearing the sidewall to shreds. The
usefulness of having a spare outer was clearly demonstrated. Near the City of Dordrecht we turned south,
went across the Hollands Diep via the famous Moerdijkbrug (the one that we
learned about in geography in elementary school in the Netherlands) to next
make a pit stop at the control in Zevenbergschenhoek in the Province of Noord
Brabant.
At this control many of the Dutch riders
filled their bidons with a malting barley product, and sampled it as well. The last 50 km took us back in the forested
area, finishing at 6:30 pm, some 12.5 hours after we departed. The brevet consisted of 10 hours cycling and
2.5 hours resting. Interesting the lead
group had completed the ride in well under ten hours. A great ride. In
conversations with some of the cyclists during and after the ride, it became
obvious that many of them are kilometre gluttons in the good sense of the
word. Some had already collected more
than 11,000 km (!!!) of riding so far this year. Their riding style is indeed evidence of this. Low gearing and high spinning rates make it
look so effortless. Most riders are
passionate about touring and randonneuring.
They participate in one event after the other, cycling weekend after
weekend thus adding the kilometres to their total.
Last update: 28 July 2001