What Elly said (Facebook), but here’s some Bruce-addenda

Short sprinter train to Amsterdam Centraal station. Walked to Niewe Uilenbetgerstraat to collect pre-hired bikes. The mechanic at the bike shop gave us a polished spiel about how to use the locks. I was jealous of his workshop’s bike lift. But as the mechanic said, lifting up cargo-bikes to service them isn’t so easy. I think he was a bit surprised if bought my own SPD/toe-cage pedals

Our bikes were a bit older than I had expected from the photo on the rental website. Here’s what we got:

Elly’s bike

Kirov: frame-bag, pedals, iPhones and GoPro are my 21st-century additions!

I reckon that brand-new beasts would quickly disappear. I guess the bikes’ frames, goose-neck stems and QR wheels date their design to about 1980. They have 3 * 9 derailleur gears that feel lower than Lev’s (I’ve not counted teeth yet) , centre-pull calliper brakes and bottle-dynamo powered lights. I get on OK with mine, and prefer to be bashing him over brick pathways than I would on Lev. He enforces a quite upright position: better for sightseeing! Yay! So I’m calling him Kirov.

I didn’t get the GoPro set up in Amsterdam but I did cyclemeter our route back to Zaandam.

Back in Zaandam, I couldn’t resist techno-blinging Kirov: GoPro on the stem, iPhone 5 on left bar controlling GoPro, iPhone 6 for navigating and route-mapping. It amuses me that I can do this, but for going around tomorrow I’ll use iPhone 6 for everything, and stash iPhone 5 for emergencies.

I took Kitov on a tiny shakedown ride. There is video of this but it’s too large to upload from the phone.

There is much enjoyable relaxing, pottering and eating happening. I’ve had a lot of very freshly-prepared yummy rice, tofu and vegetable concoctions: ace! There has been beer. There has been almost no pain or gut-discomfort. I’ve not needed much medication (specifically Mebeverine). Overall I feel quite well: probably not up to a hard sportive just now, but tomorrow’s planned 30km bummel should be no problem. Yay!