A Hard Days Night: A Bike Rider’s Commute

With apologies to the Beatles, but this is the phrase that bounced around in my head as I bicycled back and forth to work in the waning days of 2007. Ever since the Fall Solstice the days here in The Netherlands got progressively shorter. That meant that the sun rose later in the morning and set earlier in the afternoon far later and earlier than anything we experienced in Virginia.

To begin the day it means that you wake up in the dark. Not the dark you would associate with pre-dawn, but I mean real dark – like the sun is not up yet and it feels like midnight. Waking up and still seeing the night sky is a strange experience. So, when the alarm clock buzzer cuts through you like a knife through butter, I put the feet on the floor and try to convince myself that it is time to get vertical. Fifteen minutes later as I emerge from the shower and trudge back to the bedroom it is still dark and part of me wonders if the sun will ever get up. I put on my suit, kiss Mary Ann and the girls good bye, give the cat a friendly rub (she is smarter than all of us because time has no issue with her), and proceed down the stairs to the garage and my trusty bike.

Here in The Netherlands all bicycles are required to have working head and tail lamps. The police will actually fine – or at least give a stern warning – to all bikers who do not have these working lights on their bike. The basic rule of bike lights is this: the purpose of the lights is not for the benefit of the biker, but for those who share the road or path: in other words it to be seen and not to see.

For most of the bikes here the headlight is a generator attached to the front wheel. This means that as long as the front wheel is moving you will have some light ahead of you. Fortunately it is not dependent on how fast the wheel is moving, although I have noticed that the faster I move the brighter (but not by much) the headlamp gets. Some of the newer bikes have the generator inside the wheel hub. This makes much more sense because there have been several times when the tiny wire connecting my headlamp to the generator has come out leaving me in the dark (or at least with a non-functioning light). The rear light is a bright red steady light. It is not meant to brighten when you apply the breaks, and is takes 2 “double-aa” batteries. Since it is only for night use, the batteries will generally last a long time (unless, of course, you forget to turn off the light when you park the bike).

One of the things that The Netherlands has done for bicycles is the vast network of paths. The paths are fairly wide and, for the most part, fairly well lit at night. Some bike paths can be seen from the railroad on the way to Schiphol airport. I could not imagine myself on a path like this: absolutely no trees, and no cover or hiding place to protect you against the howling Dutch wind.

My commute to work takes me through Clingendael Landgoed, a large park with lots of trees and canals. It is a fairly beautiful ride and the path is wide but twisty. Here is a picture of the entrance. During the summer entering the park here is like going into a tunnel of trees. The park is extremely lush and there is a canal (you can see just a little of it on the right) that winds its way along the path. This is a path that is shared by bikes, horses (watch out!), joggers, joggers with dogs, people with dogs, and sometimes (but not often), just dogs and geese.

A little farther on I come to the end of the park and turn down another canal path. In the mornings when it is dark this is the one path that does not have any illumination: it usually is crowded, though, with joggers and an occasional horse-walker. Near this path is the Duinrell Horse Track which explains why there are so many horse stables around the area. Here is a picture of the path taken during the day. My commute takes me toward the left of the picture.(the way the arrow is pointing. It is the same path I come home at night in the dark, and even then it is usually crowded; sometimes another biker (usually a racing bike) silently zooms past without lights and you wonder what the biker sees (if anything).

Now is the toughest part of the commute. I call this part “Climbing Mount Den Haag.” This is where the bike path climbs up and over the Landscheidinsweg, the main road that comes into The Hague through the dunes. Here is a picture of the entrance to the hill.

Looks pretty innocent heh? Although this is not really a tough hill as far as US standards are concerned, it does represent a challenge to anyone on a bike, and since my trusty bike has NO gears, it can be very tough on a Monday morning!

A small digression: Here is an interesting story behind the pictures you see in this entry. I was taking pictures and near the spot where the last picture was taken and an old man comes down the hill on his bike. I would guess he was probably in his mid-eighties. He asked me in Dutch (and I understood him) whether I was a terrorist or something like it because I had a camera and he saw me taking pictures. I said to him (in my poor Dutch), “No, just a crazy American.” He laughed a bit and asked “Well, young man, whatever for?” I said, again in Dutch, that I had a diary and was going to write about what you are reading here. He said that was very interesting, and then I apologized for my Dutch, and he answered – in the most refined British accent I have ever heard in a long time – “your Dutch is very good, young man. You see I learned English during the war when I was living there. I got to know a lot of Americans.” It was my turn to laugh and he was getting ready to go on his way. I wished him well, and we went our separate ways.” End digression.

The last picture is taken from the top of Mount Den Haag and you can see that it can be a rather daunting climb for the newcomer. I usually come flying down this hill at night but it can be rather scary because of the field hockey field lights and the fact that at the bottom of the hill the bike is expected to yield to the rare car that comes down the road.

So there you have it. A brief photographic essay on what it means to commute to work each day. After going down the opposite side of this hill it is another five minutes to work from there. All in all, it is a eight kilometer round trip every day, rain or shine, heat or cold.

Finally, here is a picture of all our bikes (my bike is on the left in the front, Mary Ann's is in back of mine, Elisabeth's is on the right in front, and Julia-Anne's is in back of hers).

Tot Ziens!

Terry

Our Dearly Beloved Game Cube, R.I.P.

Yes, it is with great sadness that this first entry of the new year brings such unhappy news. Our Game Cube is no more. Its plug was mixed up with that of the PS2. The Game Cube's transformer could not withstand the power of the 220 volts that pulsed through it. One great spark and it was gone - along with tripping the fuse. Poor ER didn't even have a chance to play the new game she bought while we were home for Christmas. And I had just finished weeding 5 months worth of weeds in my Animal Crossing town without the help of Wisp.

Reminder: American voltage is 110; Europe 220. We have a transformer that steps down the voltage but only if the plug is plugged into it.

The PS2, like laptop computers, has a transformer that runs from 110 to 240 so it can handle the heavier load here. It just needs an adapter for the plug to fit into the Dutch wall socket.

Well, just means we have to get a Wii that much sooner. Did you know that you can get a Platinum Game Cube on Amazon? Nothing like the classics.

Oh, Happy New Year to everyone! I didn't realize that it's been two months since our last entry. Time to catch you all up on what is happening especially since there is so much travel planned for the next month and a half. So stay tuned.