Words and photos by Epic Rider Malaya van Ruitenbeek

Living in a country having a typical 4 season coastal climate, I have become accustomed to saying goodbye to sunshine somewhere in November and accepting that overcast skies are what I face during most of my pre-season endurance rides. Of course there is the occasional clear blue sky on the cold days with offshore land (carrying with it the temperatures from mainland Europe), but freezing your cheeks off isn’t quite compensated by the happiness that the weak rays of the winter sun bring. By the time it turns February everybody starts aching for a little more substantial solar power and we Dutchies have even developed a special day to celebrate the onset of spring. It’s called Rokjesdag, or Skirt Day. Rokjesdag is the first day of the year that Dutch women, without prearrangement or appointment, decide to wear their skirts en masse. Googling Rokjesdag will give you 76,300 hits (and a Wikipedia entry naturally).

This year, Rokjesdag will hit early. We have had steady, sunny weather for more than 2 weeks and it is forecasted that Saturday April 2 will be Rokjesday, with again a sunny day and the quicksilver shooting past 20 degrees C for the first time in 2011. Rokjesdag will also announce the end of my pre-season endurance rides. The crit season is slowly starting and as daylight saving time has started last weekend, I can start participating in fast group rides in the evenings of working days. All in all this means that it’s time to leave the base miles behind me. And so, I gathered with my cycling buddies Jurgen and Luuk for a final pre-season endurance ride.


We decided to ride out into the Groene Hart, or the green heart. This is a rural area surrounded by the largest cities in the Netherlands, which form somewhat of a circle around the green heart. From The Hague we set course to the east and after about one hour we reached the Rotte, which is an old river that runs to Rotterdam. It is a very popular place to cycle around and you will see a lot of water sports happening here as well, especially rowing. Where we started our lap around the Rotte there are 4 typical windmills, which used to pump water around to keep the agricultural land dry.


From there we just criss crossed our way around the green heart to finally end up at Leiden, which is roughly north of my hometown Delft. Actually the weather turned for the worse the day of our ride and it was the first day in two weeks that we didn’t get to see the sun that much. To make matters worse, it started dribbling by the time we reached Leiden. Before my feet had the chance of getting wet, I punctured and we had to make the first tube change in all of this years Wednesday endurance rides. As I was taking the punctured tube off, we heard the unmistakable sound of someone seriously hitting his brakes and starting to get into a slip. As I looked up, a young man managed to jump off his scooter exactly when it hit the left bank. He actually jumped over his steering wheel and somehow managed to break his fall by slamming into a tree, all without injuring himself. In the meantime his scooter almost went into the ditch. We felt a bit awkward as he slipped in an attempt to avoid us, although we were standing on the other bank, clear from the road. He directly said he was alright and didn’t blame us, he just panicked and pulled the brakes. As my friends helped him get his scooter back on the road I simply couldn’t help but make a picture.
Only during the write up I realized that we were in fact quite lucky as well, as he could have slipped in our direction just as easily. It just shows that even if you are cautious, dangerous things can happen in traffic. Anyway by the time I changed the tube the worst rain had passed and there were 20 kilometers of head wind left. It was a bit of a struggle getting home as our muscles had stiffened up from the rain, but the hot shower was calling and the reward that it gives is always a little bigger when you’ve ridden in the wet. After freshening up myself it was time to clean the bike, as it needs to be in top condition for the ride on Rokjesdag!
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