Tuesday 29 December 2009

Oliebollentocht

The largest social ride for velomobiles in the Netherlands (and therefore the world) is the Oliebollentocht. This year, the eleventh, it was held in and around the city of Utrecht. A hundred and fifteen people registered for the ride and we covered 57 km with a few stops for coffee and cake.

It was a social ride, not a race, so we rode at a fairly slow pace (well, most of the time).

I made two videos, on two different cameras. The times overlap, but much of the start of the ride is on the first video, and much of the end is on the second. The first has genuine velomobile sounds, the second has music.




Some of the other Sinner Mangos on the ride. It's great to see people riding the machines that we build.

Also there were many Quests and a few Alleweders, Versatiles, Sunriders and WAWs. I also spotted one completely home made machine.

These are Oliebollen. They're a type of doughnut served in the Netherlands especially around New Year - and hence the name of the tour.

I've also got a few other photos from the Oliebollentocht on my picasaweb page, and ligfiets.net has more links to photos, videos and stories.

A picture and description of the cycling superhighway shown at the end of the first video appeared on this blog a little while ago.
Read my review of the Sinner Mango Velomobile.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

i would have liked to see pictures and possibly video of the homemade velomobile.

David Hembrow said...

I'm not sure I got it on video, but I did get a still. I've added it to the picasaweb album.

Natty said...

David,

What is the twin-seat (side by side) velomobile present in your video?

I've not seen that particular model before.

David Hembrow said...

Natty, that's the Duoquest. It's a one off from velomobiel.nl. There's a youtube video showing more of it.

Mark W. said...

Wow you were only meters from where I work! If only I'd known!

I see the start was in Overvecht where I grew up and you even show part of the route I took to school every day in the late 1970s, on the very same paths by the way.

Good to see you got to do that cycle highway to Amsterdam. I remember it was on your wishlist for quite some time. Was it as good as it seems from pictures?

anna said...

Wow, very cool!