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Cycletrippin Day 1: Amsterdam to Aachen

by bernt & torsten

When I set out this morning on my cycletrippin ride from Amsterdam to Spain, I thought to myself that this ride would be my ‘mission impossible’. My ride today took longer than I had anticipated. Since I was carrying 10kg of extra weight, I could not ride at my usual speed. The other reason was due to the wind. Normally the wind is your friend as it pushes you along, today, however, I had headwind mostly which caused me to slow down.

At the end of the ride in Limburg, there were a few hills, including one that had a 10% grading. There were times where I was able to go downhill as well and I was able to hit 50km on one. A great rush!

Halfway during my ride, I had to navigate blindly. I was using Google maps navigation on my Samsung 3 after I past Utrecht, but after 4 hours of using it, I ran out of battery. Since I had GPS enabled on my phone, the battery life diminished faster, though it was necessary to have it on for navigation. I was able to use my iPhone for 8 hours without the use of GPS. With my iPhone, I used a YouTube capture app for video and Twitter for pictures and tweets.

My plan was to ride 8 to 10 hours a day. I need to change my plan a bit to shorten the hours I spend cycling so that I can use navigation.

When I arrived in Aachen, both of my mobiles were dead and I hadn’t written the address of the hotel I planned on staying at. Thankfully, I had the name of the place so I was able to find it eventually.

Today’s ride is dedicated to the Save The Arctic

Today’s music is Limp Bizkit – Take a look around