This year, Cyclevision was held at FlevOnice in Biddinghuizen in Flevoland. The campsite was about 100 km from home, but there was a complication in that the first event was on Friday evening at a track another 20 odd km from the campsite. I wasn't sure for a long time if I'd go, because I wasn't sure I wanted to cycle there and then take part in an event the same day. It also seemed impractical to turn up on Thursday evening for a race which didn't take place until after 8 in the evening on Friday.
Eventually I decided I would go, and make the most of it. I do it for the fun. It doesn't really matter if I perform less well than usual because I'm never in contention for any prizes anyway.
Harry also decided to ride there on Friday, so we went together. However, because I had a meeting to go to on Monday morning I decided I must come back early, missing Sunday's events. That left only Friday and Saturday.
Friday's event was a one hour time trial, held on the same 2.8 km long high speed test track as Cyclevision had used at the 2002 and 2003 events which I also took part in. Therefore it was a chance to see if I could go faster than back then. Due to having a much faster bike, I was sure I would do so, and so it turned out. However, my speed wasn't particularly impressive. Perhaps 130 km of "warm up" is just too much.
Anyway, here's the video I made going to, during and after the race. Apart from the race itself, there's quite a bit showing the cycle paths I came home on afterwards:
Yesterday was the last competition of the summer season of races with the NVHPV - a time trial over 51 km, crossing 25.5 km of a dyke from Lelystad to Enkhuizen, and riding back again to the start place.
The start point is on the edge of Lelystad, a city established in 1967 as the capital of the province of Flevoland, which is the world's largest artificial island. Enkhuizen, in the province of North Holland at the other end of the dyke, is a smaller city, but also much older. It was given city rights in 1355.
The port of Enkhuizen used to open onto the sea, but now borders two huge artificial freshwater lakes, the Markermeer and the IJsselmeer. These are divided by the Houtribdijk - the dyke along which the time trial took place.
As you might expect in such an exposed place, the wind is very strong. Sailing is less important now for trade, but it remains a popular pass-time locally. There is also much evidence of electricity generation from the wind. On Sunday, the wind was coming from the North East, so there was a tailwind only for the very last stretch on the return run.
Having set the scene, here's the video, which due to my camera battery running out after a few minutes only includes edited highlights of the first few minutes of racing:
I didn't do all that well. 27th out of 39 competitors. I've had a pain down my right side for over a week now, and it's really not helpful for cycling, not that I'd be anywhere near the winners if I didn't have it. It took me nearly 80 minutes to ride the 51 km with an average of under 39 km/h, a long way behind the winner's speed of 59 km/h. However, it was a lot of fun.
A video made by Cees at the far side of the dyke, where help was on hand to turn people around. I'm in this video at 4:30, where you'll also see how I ended up cycling under a sailing ship at the start my return run.
At this point, I think thanks are in order to the many people in the NVHPV involved in organising these events. It's been a great year of racing, very enjoyable every time. The official story about the race, with more links, is here.
Relative to other places, there are several things notable about the cycle path along the dyke. First of all that the dyke was built with a cycle path at all. That would always be the case in NL. It's not classed as a "superhighway", or given any other fancy name. While it's an extraordinary facility compared with what is on offer in many other places, it's not been the subject of any hype at all. It's just a normal cycle path, joining up with other normal cycle paths to every other destination at either end of the dyke. Also note the wide demographics of people using it, not only those of us involved in sport, but both teenagers and pensioners were using the dyke cycle path. In this case, they were presumably making their journeys for pleasure given that it was a Sunday, but it's there for anyone to use at any time. Including, in our case, for a time-trial, with people riding in safety at high speed.
My Mango a day before the race, newly fitted with Continental Grand Prix tyres on the front, and an Avocet on the rear.
Last Sunday, Arjen and I went to a cycle promotion event in Flevoland. It was at the FlevOnice facility, a unique in the world place with a 5 km long outdoor artificial ice-skating circuit. It's obviously not reasonable to keep this thing frozen during the warmer months, so it turns into a tarmac circuit for other purposes in the spring. We were at the first event for "Mei Maand Fiets Maand" ("May Month, Bike Month"), an annual bicycle promotion event. That there is a lot of cycling already in this country is, after all, no reason why more shouldn't be promoted.
Flevoland itself is the world's largest artificial island. I find it fascinating. It's a vast area of land which used to be the sea bed. Draining it has resulted in hundreds of ship-wrecks now being on land, and it's protected by dykes built on an enormous scale (including this one which I cycled over last year). There are no buildings older than the 1960s on Flevoland, and three new cities: Lelystad, Dronten and Almere which were established in the 1960s and 1970s and consist only of modern architecture arranged on modern lines - with plenty of cycle paths of course.
As we were there representing Sinner Ligfietsen, here is the company video presentation showing the bikes, including some glimpses of how they are built.
