Ride Summary

Distance: 60-odd miles in total
Climbing: minimal
Descending: same
Difficulty: easy
Link to first workout in Strava, Link to other workout in Strava

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Link to photo gallery from this trip

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We made it into The Hague (which they spell Den Haag locally) after midnight, and spent two whirlwind days there before heading out on the train for Austria. We made it count with about 60 miles of riding around and sight/friend-seeing.

We struggled a bit to get into our hotel after hours but a combination of persistance and luck helped us end up in bed by 2am. I hit my head pretty hard carrying Lori's bike up the narrow steep stairs but nothing that left much of a mark...

We walked to late breakfast in the morning before tooling around the Hague for the day - we rode through the dunes by the sea, learned that a glad rooster was actually how locals say "a cattleguard", and had a great Indonesian dinner and a fancy drink at a French bar before we met up with friends at a (different) rooftop bar.

Friends from my last job and then some neighbors of ours from Portland who had recently emigrated to The Hague made for a very welcome chill evening speaking unapologetic English and taking in the sunset before we headed back to sleep. In the interim I'd figured out how to avoid the steepest set of stairs which was a treat in tipsy, drowsy state carrying Lori's bike (she's much more worried about the safety of hers than I am of mine. So far so good in not suffering any theft including of lights/etc we might leave attached!) Our friends also informed us a bit about how to ride in (bike) traffic, which made the rest of our stay here rather less hectic and confusing! There are pretty clear street markings that explain right of way and once we understood them, we rode a lot more like the locals!

In the morning we put the bikes on the train and headed into Amsterdam (where I'd had trouble finding a reasonably priced place to stay, hence us staying in the Hague), and we took a sightseeing canal cruise, met one more friend of mine from my last job who lives in Amsterdam rather than the Hague, and then visited the amazing STRAAT museum at the suggestion my favorite mechanic from the bike shop we use in Portland, who'd just visited Amsterdam himself. Check out the rest of the photo gallery for this date - Friday May 8 2026 - since we took some good shots of some of the huge, amazing art displayed here.

We had a quick Italian dinner, visited a souvenir shop for Lori to get a trinket, and then we biked most of the way back to The Hague from Amsterdam. This was all the riding we got to do in Amsterdam so now I clearly have to return to soak in it a little more. It was rush hour, and thus still really hectic in town - bikes and pedestrians every which way, sprinkled with a healthy dollop of oblivious tourists walking into the road all over...quite a crowd of buzzing bees that then calmed down completely at the edge of town and we got to enjoy a very calm bucolic ride home including a cute ferry that took us 50 feet across a canal, which had just opened for the season a few hours before we got there. Quite a happy accident for us! We made a very fast flat 30-odd miles into the last train stop before The Hague where we decided to catch the train instead of riding through the dark.

Got packed up and did a little bike maintenance over a celebratory beer before we slept hard til morning. Finally, got onto the train(s - there are always transfers!) to Salzburg where I write this post. We'll have dinner in Munich and then finish our train to Salzburg wherefrom we start biking in earnest towards points south in a couple days!