Holland and Belgium trip

[Spooner]

In a few weeks I’m off for a short tour of Belgium and Holland. The logistics and route are pretty well sorted, but one nagging question remains....how to get from/to the ferry ports at the start and end of the ride.

I’m travelling from Hull to Zeebrugge and need to get from there to Bruges for the first night. It looks like the road trip out of the port may be hairy due to traffic. Am I best off getting a taxi out of Zeebrugge or is there a quiet, safe route to ride (I’ll probably be on a recumbent trike, so busses and Sustrans style barriers are probably a non-starter).

At the end of the tour in Amsterdam I need to get to the ferry port near Rotterdam, is this a decent route to ride? Looks like it’s about 63 miles and I expect it’s fairly flat, but any insights on the journey that will help me work out how long to allow to meet my ferry deadline would be appreciated.

Thanks!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Auntie Helen]

Amsterdam to Rotterdam is fine. I haven’t done the whole ride but have ridden south from Egmond along the coast and it’s a great route, cycle paths across the dunes. Beware of headwinds though.

[giropaul]

There is a canal with a decent road/ bike path all the way from Zeebrugge to Brugge. Finding the Zeebrugge end of it is a bit of a work of art ( especially if there is still some construction work going on)

The main road has a bike path all the way ( or usually has). You are probably aware that if there is a bike path it is compulsory to use it.

If you haven’t, it’s well worth getting bike maps ( Falk or similar) . The numbered post to numbered post system of navigating saves a load of map searching ( although the Belgian view occasionally of what is bikeable reflects their fabulous cyclocross heritage )

[Jakob W]

Are you getting the Hook-Harwich evening ferry? I'd want to give myself 4 or 5 hours to get there from Amsterdam, so setting off no later than late lunchtime - you might race it, but having slogged into a headwind to make a ferry before last boarding before I'd err on the conservative side. Have you already done The Hague? I'd consider trying to get there in the morning and mooching around town until late afternoon - it's only a hour or so away from the Hook terminal.

WRT Zeebrugge, I think the only bit where you have to mix it with lorries is the exit from the terminal - it looks like there are cycleways through Zeebrugge village, and you can then pick up the canal path that heads most of the way to Bruges. (EDIT Giropaul beat me to it!)

[Spooner]

Thanks for the insights. I have a couple of follow up questions if you can shed any further light.

GiroPaul, I don’t have any maps yet. I took a quick look at the Falk maps and they seem to be about £10 each and there seem to be loads of them to cover my entire route, which could get expensive. I have OS maps on my Garmin with a tiny screen, but do you think it would be worth me getting the Falk map(s) for the trips to and from the ferry (Zeebrugge to Bruges and Amsterdam to Rotterdam Europort) at least?

Secondly, you mentioned some of the bike paths are a bit ‘cyclocross’, which could be an issue. My recumbent trike has grippy tyres, but limited ground clearance 3” or so) and being a trike it struggles with narrow gaps and high vegetation encroaching on the path. Is this likely to be a problem? If so I have an old DF Hewitt tourer with sit-up-and-beg handlebars and Marathon tyres which I could use at a push....would that be better?

Jakob, my ferry home is Rotterdam Europort to Hull. Google suggests it’s over 60 miles and I wouldn’t risk riding that in a day with luggage at the end of the tour (I’m not that fit!). If the cycle route is good and easy to find, I’ll do it in two days, if there are issues such as route finding difficulties, or problems like busy roads or off road sections which may be an issue for a recumbent trike with low ground clearance, then I may just book a taxi to be on the safe side, which I guess may cost as much as an extra night in Holland if I chose to ride it over two days.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Auntie Helen]

Spooner, if you want to take your trike then I would do so. You can always find a short-cut to get around any difficult bike paths. I’ve triked around Europe with no issues, just occasional detours but nothing dramatic.

Certainly there will be no problems in the NL section - I rode round NL in my Velomobile (see Avatar) which is much less manoeuvrable than a trike and it was fine.

[Mrs Pingu]

This place may be of help for you to plan a route
http://www.fietsroute.org/cycle-node-planner

There's a thread here where Pingu mentions how he uses it
https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=98128.0

[Jakob W]

Ah, of course - I should have realised you were going to catch the (what I still think of as) North Sea Ferries route, in which case it's going to be a bit further from Amsterdam. If you wanted to think about doing that over two days, Leiden, Den Haag, and Delft are all about half way and good historic towns to visit.

If you've got a Garmin, can you create some tracks to follow (using cycle.travel or similar) to get you from Zeebrugge to Bruges and past other tricky bits? I'd not bother with a cycle atlas for the Netherlands; using a large-scale map for a rough list of destinations en route and following the cycle path signage is enough. I'd imagine a similar approach would also work in Flanders.

[giropaul]

Thanks for the insights. I have a couple of follow up questions if you can shed any further light.

GiroPaul, I don’t have any maps yet. I took a quick look at the Falk maps and they seem to be about £10 each and there seem to be loads of them to cover my entire route, which could get expensive. I have OS maps on my Garmin with a tiny screen, but do you think it would be worth me getting the Falk map(s) for the trips to and from the ferry (Zeebrugge to Bruges and Amsterdam to Rotterdam Europort) at least?

Secondly, you mentioned some of the bike paths are a bit ‘cyclocross’, which could be an issue. My recumbent trike has grippy tyres, but limited ground clearance 3” or so) and being a trike it struggles with narrow gaps and high vegetation encroaching on the path. Is this likely to be a problem? If so I have an old DF Hewitt tourer with sit-up-and-beg handlebars and Marathon tyres which I could use at a push....would that be better?

Jakob, my ferry home is Rotterdam Europort to Hull. Google suggests it’s over 60 miles and I wouldn’t risk riding that in a day with luggage at the end of the tour (I’m not that fit!). If the cycle route is good and easy to find, I’ll do it in two days, if there are issues such as route finding difficulties, or problems like busy roads or off road sections which may be an issue for a recumbent trike with low ground clearance, then I may just book a taxi to be on the safe side, which I guess may cost as much as an extra night in Holland if I chose to ride it over two days.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

I use Falk these days as I plan circular routes using the nodal system. There are other cycling maps ( see https://www.themapshop.co.uk/europe/MapGuideEurope.htm ), and Geocart also produce some useful maps, although their cycling maps seem to have disappeared at the moment. Locally there may well be other maps as well, especially in The Netherlands. If you’re ok using the bike paths alongside the roads then there’s little need for the pecialist ones I’d say.
The nodal system does use some bits of unsurfaced path and my comments really referred to these ( I should have been more specific) . Generally the bike paths alongside roads and canals are pretty good, if a little bumpy at times. I don’t suppose bunny-hops are an option on a recumbent:-). The paths improve in The Netherlands. I don’t know your planned route to cross the border, but, for example, the path along the canal from Brugge to Damme, then along the big canal ( Albert I think) to get to the border, or Via Ghent, Sas van Ghent, and Terneuzen tunnel is equally decent.
Some sort of map would be handy - the Belgians regularly close roads for markets, bike races, road works or just because.
My view is that you’ll be fine on  recumbent, there’s always a way round .

[Spooner]

Thanks all, that’s brilliant and very much appreciated!


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[Pingu]

The route planner referred to by Mrs P shows which bits are comedy off-roading or cobbled.