“I’ve never done it before, so, I think I can do it”

I did something rather amazing this year – I went bikepacking (cycle touring for the purists) and cycled over 3000km in Europe! As you do.  

In May, Steve and I went to the Netherlands, where I was born, for a wonderful, very dutch holiday with all the family. We travelled there by ferry from the UK, and near the dock where we landed in Hoek Van Holland, Steve noticed a sign with a map showing a 1500km cycle route. The EuroVelo 15, which starts in Switzerland, follows the Rhine River to the North Sea there where we stood in the Netherlands. Steve, who’s been mad about cycling his whole life, of course said “We should do that!”. I rolled my eyes and said something like “Yeah right”.

But with the seed sown, it somehow just happened!

When we got back to the UK Steve checked Marketplace and found me a great little gravel bike. We bought some panniers and, because he had work commitments, I took our two-man tent and some camping gear and hopped back on the ferry by myself. Once in Holland I simply started pedalling! 

I haven’t ridden a bike more than a few kilometres at a time since I was a teenager so you could say it was a bit spontaneous. I’d done zero training, but with my Dutch blood maybe it’s in me. I felt excited and not daunted at all.

The Netherlands, as the cycling capital of the world, is a great place to start! It’s tiny, and yet has a network of over 35,000 kilometres of dedicated cycle paths. It’s super cyclist friendly, people speak English well, and it’s a safe place to cut your teeth. Best of all, it’s almost flat!

On the first day, as I pedalled from Den Haag to Utrecht, I saw another sign, this one painted in bold letters across a bright pink house wall:

“Ik heb het nog nooit gedaan
dus ik denk dat it het wel kan”

It’s a famous Dutch phrase attributed to one of my favourite childhood characters, the courageous and curious Pippi Longstocking. It means: “I have never done it before, so, I think I can do it.”

Viola – my new mantra!

A highlight of my first week of cycling included riding with cousins around Utrecht, the city where I was born. I also loved camping in the beautiful forest of The Hoge Veluwe National Park, cycling along canals and traditional Dutch farms, and seeing beautiful Friesian horses in the fields in Friesland. Ever since the days when I rode Fred the Friesian each day in a dancing stallion show nearly 40 years ago, I’d dreamt of going to Friesland. Riding through that flat land of wet, green fields and grasslands and endless waterways I battled crazy head-winds that nearly stopped me in my tracks and turned my little legs to jelly. But I had the best time, ate lots of delicious dutch treats from quaint village bakeries, had fun crossing waterways on all sorts of ferries, and visited an impressive Friesian stud.

I had no idea if I’d like riding long distances or if my aging body would cope, so I didn’t post anything online in case things went south. But I think from the get-go I was hooked. On my bike I felt like a kid again! I discovered that I really like cycling, even when the going is hard. There’s something empowering and simply joyful about waking up to sunlight shining through your tent, eating croissants and cheese and farm eggs outside and heading off on your bike each morning to see more of the world.

And my aging body didn’t just cope, it did ok and got a little stronger each day. Many of my chronic niggles – icky ankle, dodgy back, arthritic thumb, croaky throat, erratic insomnia – stopped. Maybe cycling is a cure-all!

After that first week on my own, my cousin Laura joined me and we rode down to Belgium (chocolate heaven) and another cycling paradise in the forests and rolling hills of Limburg, then through quaint and historic German villages and forests along an old train line, and finally into Luxembourg. Riding with a buddy was nice, especially sharing vital morning coffee stops (fresh cherries, pan au chocolat, cakes…) and chilling in campsites with cold drinks in the afternoons (the heat wave was real!).

Along the way we met fellow bike packers from all over the world, each travelling different distances and paces and routes. We shared a couple of days with two other women cyclists, one who was riding solo all the way from the Netherlands to Rome.

Laura’s vacation time was up so she caught the train back to Holland, and I rode on for another week down through spectacular Luxembourg to its beautiful city and onwards into France. Northern France’s rural moselle and champagne regions are just lovely, and I camped in some beautiful cities. Metz was a real gem (put it on your wish-list!). The French Championship Slalom Kayak competition was on that day, in the river rapids right in the centre of the city – incredible to watch with the backdrop of Metz’s historical buildings and massive gothic cathedral. In the next city, Reims, I scored again and enjoyed live music at a free concert in the city centre.

A few days of cycling later I caught up with Steve who was working in France and hitched a ride back with him to the UK on the Calais to Dover ferry.

In that month I rode about 1700 kms, and apart from a couple of overnight stops at cousins’ places and one night in an Airbnb, I camped all the way.

By then Steve had also bought himself a second-hand bike and a week later we headed back to Holland together to ride the EuroVelo 15 route we’d seen on that sign back in May.

First we cycled up to Amsterdam. It was nice to be back on the excellent Dutch cycle paths! Then we travelled with our bikes on trains to the Swiss Alps. That in itself took two and a half days and was quite an experience! Then, starting from Andermatt where the Rhine River starts, the route heads immediately up, and up, and up… over the Oberalp Pass. Honestly, I only had to look up the road to know I didn’t stand a chance! Having never ridden in mountains before, I was seriously unprepared . There is an option to go up on a little scenic train, but of course that wasn’t part of our plan. Instead, for almost all of the 10 kilometres of completely uphill winding mountain road, I pushed my loaded bike to the top. (Next time I will cheat, or get a bike with more gears!)

Views to die for, that’s for sure, but boy was that a hard slog. And then over the other side I rode 15 kilometres entirely downhill around one terrifying hairpin after another while Porsches and Ferraris and big motorbikes roared past me.

The Swiss Alps are fairytale material. I loathe riding uphill, but I’d go back in a heartbeat to spend more time exploring those stunning mountains. 

We found a campsite nestled in a picture-perfect spot beside the river, in the middle of those magnificent iconic mountains. It was full of mountain-bike riders and hikers, with a real adventure vibe. It was there we dipped our feet in the Rhine waters for the first time. 

At the start, the Rhine is of course a mountain stream, flowing fresh and cool over rocks and pebbles. Then down through deep gorges, it becomes a vibrant blue as it travels out of the mountains. It even tumbles down Europe’s largest waterfall on the edge of another very beautiful city, Schaffhausen, in Switzerland.

We followed the river all the way, with sections over the border in Austria and Lichtenstein, and several river crossings over bridges and on ferries between its French and German sides and finally back into Holland. The route is almost entirely on dedicated cycle paths, gravel tracks or quiet country roads and the landscape is diverse and beautiful.

It was another heat wave and each day temps got over 30℃, even up to 37℃, so every now and then we jumped into the water, clothes and all, to cool off. It’s amazing how clean and clear the water was all the way along until it gets further north in Germany where it flows through one of the largest industrial regions of Europe.

A highlight of our trip was a two day stop in Basel, a gorgeous city on the borders of Switzerland, France and Germany. We joined the locals in the famous Rheinschwimmen and hopped into the river with just a dry bag each and drifted down with the current for four kilometres right through the heart of the city.

One of my favourite aspects of bikepacking is the constant surprises. Around each bend is something unknown… each village with its own unique identity to explore, the ruins of castles on hilltops, a techno music parade to bop along, spotting mountain goats sliding down steep scree to the river’s edge, long tunnels made by the boughs of huge sycamore trees, random riverside bars with apfelschorle drinks on ice, fields of sunflower faces to smile at, church bells ringing the time, war cemeteries at which to pause and remember, hawks hovering, a wrinkled old man wearing a beret and waistcoat standing silently in a centuries old doorway, storks wading, the sweet smells of silage and cows and slashed grass, a family with three kids under 12 (one being towed) bikepacking the same route, tractors trailing clouds of dust. There’s no place for boredom, only curiosity and wonderment.

It felt an honour to accompany a river on its journey from its source to its end, seeing sunrises and sunsets reflected on its surface and watching all the birds that live around it. On its banks we saw music festivals, choir rehearsals, locals playing pétanque and fishing, and we had lots of picnic lunches. We learnt about the significant part it played in the wars of the last centuries, some ancient legends, and we cycled beside restaurant cruises, SUP paddlers and many of the large freight barges that chug up and down it every day.

The Rhine is known by different names as it flows through the various countries – the Rhy, Rhin, Rhein, Rijn. When it reaches the Netherlands it splits into a vast delta of several branches with more names. At the end, when we got back on the ferry to the UK, we sailed out on it and it felt a bit sad to say farewell. I knew I’d miss it.

And I’m already missing cycling.

To be fair, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. Camping sometimes comes with its challenges. We learnt it’s quite normal for people in some European countries to pitch their tents disturbingly close to neighbouring tents, even when there’s plenty of space around. Way too many people still smoke there, in every restaurant, park and street. You have no choice but to put up with it, but cigarette smoke wafting into your tent at night is simply foul. And middle of the night toilet visits get tedious sometimes when you have to unzip your tent and walk across a campground to the bathroom (one day we hope to go bikepacking in countries where wild camping is legal).

And even after all those kilometres, I still hate headwinds and hills.

But since returning to the UK last week, every single night I’ve had dreams about cycling. I guess I’ve got the bug. For me, it ticks so many boxes: being active and outdoors in fresh air and nature, travel, freedom and fun, history and culture, rivers and seas, camping, meeting interesting people, mindfulness, simplicity, adventure.

And I’ve learnt a valuable life lesson: 

If you’ve never done it before, think in fact that you can do it.

Even better, why not do it… you never know, you might even love it. ☺️