Well, as you know I had some goals for 2003 and 2004. In that respect 2005 is not so different. This year and the coming years I'll just try to increase my BIG claims. But I'll set some marks at the start of the year and we will see how much will become reality. If you are interested in the BIGs I have planned for 2005 then follow the link:
Well, as you might recall from our last summer holiday, we had some problems when Marloes wanted to come along when I planned to conquer some BIGs. Every time we have to rent a bike for her and it's not just the costs that matter it's also the hassle of picking up the bike and even more tricky, bringing it back in time. So we were on the lookout to buy a second hand hybrid bike for Marloes. Not a racing bike as hybrids have gearing that requires less power to cycle uphill. So we checked in a local bike shop almost every week as it is near the supermarket where we do our shopping. But unfortunately there was not much on offer, second hand that is. Until I noticed a hybrid bike that was indeed more expensive then the second hand ones we were looking for. But the price seemed too low for a brand new bike. Let's check it out. Well, the bike was never used before but it was an older model. Hey, that we don't mind. I checked with Patricia to see if the price was OK and she agreed that it was. So I called Marloes and asked her to drop by to see if the bike had the right size. It turned out beautifully. The size was OK and she liked the bike. Deal!! Though I do want to have a few bottle holders with it so she can take along water. The costs are not that high but the bike was already lowered in price a lot. But the shopkeeper agreed after some thinking. So, Marloes has her own bike from now on. It's a Trek 7200.
We had only cycled together once, via my shortest route but one (36km) and then we found out that she needed real cycling trousers too. And even that's settled now. I did even have some toe clips left from my old bike that fitted on the Trek 7200. And it didn't take long before she could give it a try. We had planned a weekend in the Ardennes region in Belgium. That's a hilly region as you might know/remember from the 2003 homepage.
In 2003 when were in the Ardennes region we watched the classic race for professional cyclists that runs from Liège to Bastogne and then back to Liège. It's easy to watch the cyclists pass on the trip to and from Bastogne. I enjoyed it as well as Marloes and Erwin. Even Patricia enjoyed it, but not to the same extend as we did. It was so good that I had planned to go and watch such a race with my father. He likes (watching) cycling too. But last year we could not align our plans with the races. So this year I tried it again. And the weekend we planned to go to the Ardennes region was the weekend of the Amstel Gold Race in the south of the Netherlands. In Limburg to be precise. Blast, that was again bad planning but we had booked the house last year already when the planning for the new cycling season was not known yet. This bad luck forced us to settle for Liège-Bastogne-Liège. And believe it or not, it was just a week after we had our Ardennes weekend. Next year I'll have to try to combine these two. So here we go again for:
On the 30th of April my sister in law celebrated her birthday. As we had a lot of stuff to transport from Oisterwijk to the Bilt, I suggested to Marloes that we'd cycle to the Bilt (Near Utrecht). By car it's 75km but it would be a bit more if we would cycle it as we had to cross all the big rivers that cross the Netherlands like the Maas, the Waal and the Lek. To be able to cross these we could cycle to places where there is a bridge or places where we can take a ferry. Hence the extra kilometers. I estimated it around 85km. So we cycled from Oisterwijk via Helvoirt, Nieuwkuijk, Drunen and Elshout to Heusden. Here we crossed the first river, the Bergse Maas. Then we cycled to Wijk and Aalburg. From there we cycled on the dike next to the river through beautiful small villages such as Veen and Andel. In Andel we just missed the ferry and so we cycled on to Giessen where we could cross a dead end of the Maas. From there we cycled to Brakel where we took a ferry to Neerwijnen to cross the Waal. Then on to Leerdam, Schoonrewoerd, Zijderveld, Everdingen to Tienhoven. In this small town people had decorated their gardens with all kinds of things that related to food. I don't know what the tradition is but we enjoyed the creations that the people of Tienhoven had made. From Tienhoven we cycled via Hagestein to Vianen where we could cross the Lek. Mind you that when you follow the signs for cyclists that sometimes they seem to have vanished from the earth and you'll have a hard time as cyclist to find out where to go. This was the case in Leerdam and Vianen. But with a little help of local people we found the bridge. On the other side of the Lek is Nieuwegein. It was very busy as April the 30th is Queens day. The day that we celebrate the birthday of our Queen (Beatrix). Even though it's not her birthday, it's actually the birthday of the former Queen we had (Juliana). From Nieuwegein we followed the direction of Bunnik/Uithof. Marloes got a bit tired by now and I estimated that there was still some 10km to go. We passed the Fortress of Rijnauwen. And then we arrived in the Bilt, finally. We had cycled 98.3km in 4.5 hours. That's almost 22km/h and this includes stops to ask/look how to cycle and the ferry.
To be able to keep in shape and to prepare to conquer new BIGs I do some biking at home too of course. On Thursday evening I try to go to the Spinning Class and do some interval training with sprints and climbs. Both can be done sitting or standing. The standing sprints especially are exhausting. My heartbeat rises above 190 beats per minute easily ! Besides the Spinning I try to cycle twice a week, on Tuesday evening I cycle some 50-60km in 2 hours or less and in the weekend I cycle between 90-100km in roughly 3 hours. On the 30th of May I was cycling the 100km lap and I was on schedule when I reached the small town of Casteren. And then......
Well, this homepage will be updated whenever I have new information available. So look at the update date at the top.
On the 9th of July we left for our summer holiday. The weeks before Patricia had been collecting the stuff that we need to take along. So the only thing left for me was to pack the car. And even that was done on the last minute on the night of the 8th of July. But we managed to leave Oisterwijk around nine in the morning of the 9th of July. The first day we drove up to XXXX in Germany as planned. This town lies approximately some 100km above Munich. At start we had some trouble putting up the tent, it' has been one year since we last erected it, but after putting the tent down and then up again it was OK. We had selected this specific campsite as we were low on the gas that we use for cooking. And at this campsite one could exchange gas canisters. I managed to cook a meal on the last bit of gas that was in the canister, pfff. So after the dinner we went to the reception to exchange the empty canister for a full one. Yes, they did change gas canisters but not for CampingGaz, the brand that we use. So, we were really lucky that I was able to finish the cooking on what we had left. The surroundings in XXX are nice and it's a pity really that we only stay one night and then move on to Austria. The next morning we woke up and while we were lying in our sleeping bag still we could hear it starting to rain. Blast ! I'd rather pack when it's dry. But hey, what can you do except for grumbling a bit about it. And that doesn't help either I know but it helps me to accept the situation. So after we had packed we drove onto Austria:
As you might recall, I'm not only a member of the BIG. I'm also the secretary. Part of the job is that I write news letters. There is a news letter every other month so there are 6 in a year. The one for August contained information on a cycling trip organized by a fellow BIG member: Jacques Franck. Our chairman, Daniel Gobert, had suggested that we could use this event to organize a small rendezvous of BIG members. And Jacques had invited us for lunch after the trip was done. And the trip also contained a BIG that I had not yet mastered. Can I resist this temptation ?
As one of my 2005 goals was to finish all Dutch BIGs, see the link above: BIGs planned for 2005, I had to plan some trips to collect these:
And here is the updated link that gives an overview of the BIGs I have climbed in total up until the update date:
Well, due to the massive amount of text and pictures, there is no link to last year's page. Ohhhhhh, what a pity. Still, I hope you have enjoyed reading and watching the 2005 information.
If you want to know more of the most international cyclo climbing challenge BIG then click on:
Still, I hope you have enjoyed reading and watching the 2005 information. If
you have any feedback or comments then you can send a mail: