Holland / Netherlands

Here's one I might take on day 1.

http://www.voetveren.nl/sub-overzicht/detail/NH-0039.htm

Just wonder how frequent they are.

Ferries depend indeed. The ones Dumps mentiones in the north of Amsterdam (if you walk out of the central station you see those ferries) are free. The ones near my house are pretty cheap. Somewhere between 50cents and 1 euro, depending on the ferry. There's a ferry between Rotterdam and Dordrecht and I think it's about 2 euro's.

About the frequency:

Most smaller ferries (like you posted) just keep on traveling if there are people waiting. There's no real schedule. If you are waiting they will cross the river to pick you up. The bigger ones have a schedule and you might have to wait for 30 minutes.

Attaque84, if you are going to cycle over Arcen you better stop there. There's a brewery from Hertog Jan. Make sure you got an appointment. It's a really nice brewery and they let you taste a lot of beer.

At the end of your route you could (if you have time) make a detour around Valkenburg. That town is like a cyclist town. It's a real tourist place with roadies everywhere. The biggest hills in our country are there. Lot's of friendly people as well. Nice cycling paths and most of the people driving a car are used to cyclists.

And if you have some spare time when you're in Heerlen you could cycle to Gulpen and visit the Gulpener brewery or to Brand in Wijlre. Always make an appointment though.

Valkenburg - that's where the amstel gold race starts, isn't it?

Good shout with the brewery. It's about half way on my plan, so maybe a good place for lunch too? I'll need to practice drinking lots of beer and then riding for four hours.

That's the starting point indeed. I don't know about lunch in Arcen but the bar across the street from the brewery is really nice. Friendly people and the can probably serve your lunch as well. They have a direct pipeline to the factory for their beer so you know it's really fresh :P

Trip going well so far. Eating cherry waffles in gouda. Windmills were cool.

Amsterdam next.

I'm planning to do

London - Antwerp on the Eurostar and then Antwerp - Amsterdam - Antwerp on my Brompton.

Has anyone done anything similar?

Have any advice?

Suggested routes?

A question?

Why?

On a Brompton?

Easy to use on the trains. Easy to take into a hotel room. Plus, I find it quite a comfortable long distance bike.

I'd like a pleasant cycle so may take the odd train/ferry to make the Antwerp-Amsterdam route work.

Sounds good, a detour to Zeeland might be worthwhile.

http://routes.vvvzeeland.nl/en/cycling

Yes I quite fancy that. Only trouble with that type of coast is you have to be spot on with navigation to get the right crossing points.

I ride between Tilburg and Antwerpen from time to time. I'm a big fan of riding along the canal Dessel-Turnhout-Schoten. If you choose not to go via Zeeland, I can totally recommend sticking to that canal till Sint-Lenaarts and then head up north (via Breda and Utrecht probably). I found that having stretches of the trip where I absolutely do not have to worry about navigation does wonders for my endurance (and mood ;).

Right, I'm back. Had a lot of fun.

Covered 430 km over two days which on reflection was further than I think I had in mind. Luckily nothing went wrong!

Train to Harwich was fine and fairly quick. Stena from Harwich to Hoek was hassle free and comfortable. Quite exciting to ride up into the car deck ahead of all the cars and trucks. I got very lost when I rolled out from Hoek though, just as it started to piss it down!

Riding in towns was a bit slow, with all the traffic lights and bike traffic. Gives you the opportunity to soak up the atmosphere a bit more I suppose.

It was easier to keep the speed up in the countryside. The paths were a mix of: marked lanes on the road, segregated off to the side of the road, down 'machineweg?' (service roads for farms or small communes) or on dedicated paths through forests etc. With regard to the latter, be warned (and check your maps when planning) as 'Fietspad' can mean anything from 'wide, perfectly smooth path' to 'bridleway with enough sand for turtles to nest'. Trying to ride my race bike along one example in the Veluwe was challenging, even for someone who pretends to have some cyclocross experience!

Dutch drivers were great, almost without exception. Really noticed the difference when I briefly crossed into Germany. Cyclists don't seem to say 'Gedag!' to each other very much though.

Lack of hills (and bends, to some extent) can make things a bit dull, especially when I was riding south into an, admittedly fairly gentle, but relentless headwind. I remember thinking at one point that the Dutch had managed to suck the fun out of cycling, but I think that's probably unfair. The network is designed to be practical, after all, and I found plenty of more exciting roads later on in Gelderland and Limburg.

Also, favourite Dutch word: 'wildrooster'!

Second favourite was 'Stroopwafel'.

Ferries across rivers and canals were really easy. They just go back and forth all day (a bit like the woolwich ferry, I suppose) and cost anywhere between €0.60 and 1.00. Spent half an hour trying to find the jetty in Ridderkerk though.

Going to wash my bike now!

My kids' favourite Dutch word is Slaagroom (whipped cream)

(S)he's got the same sense of humour as me then!

I ride between Tilburg and Antwerpen from time to time. I'm a big fan of riding along the canal Dessel-Turnhout-Schoten. If you choose not to go via Zeeland, I can totally recommend sticking to that canal till Sint-Lenaarts and then head up north (via Breda and Utrecht probably). I found that having stretches of the trip where I absolutely do not have to worry about navigation does wonders for my endurance (and mood ;).

Thanks, I'll check that out. I'm toying with a different route there and back so may do this on the return leg.

What's the surface like on the path by the canal?

Mostly good (paved most of the time) if i remember correctly. Always rode a fixed road bike and it was fine. Stick to the northwest shore of the canal throughout though, no matter what the gps/ google maps etc. says

Me and him indoors did a micro tour of Amsterdam and Belgium last month in our VW bus but we took our bikes for getting around on during the day. (Him fixed and me ss.) We camped cheaply at Zeeburg in Amsterdam. We spotted a kid riding fixed and asked him about bike shops and he recommended this place: www​.pristinefixedgear.com on Kinkerstraat. It's pretty darn pricey but there's some really nice stuff there.
Also, the best time to bomb around Amsterdam seems to be dusk, there seems to be significantly fewer bikes on the road then!

Any tips on the best online maps to use for route planning in the Netherlands?

Google maps seem ok, but it can be difficult to pick out the bike paths sometimes.

Found this planner tool really useful:

fietsrouteplanner

Allows you to plan and specify only LF routes, only paved roads etc.

You can then export to a GPX file to either:

• Load onto your GPS device, if you have one, or
  
• Tweak / polish the route in ridewithgps, which can overlay the OSM bike paths layer and then load onto the device.
  

Just back from our mini-tour of the North Sea route; I'm sure the other half will post his impressions at some point, so I'll just add:

• the Stayokay hostels generally have good secured bike parking - keycard entry sheds with fairly basic racks. If you lock your bike up at all, it's more secure than 70% of the bikes in Holland already.
  
• nicely stocked bike shop in Haarlem, Bike Planet (website in Dutch), worth a look if you're passing.
  
• watch out for mopeds on the bike paths. My one scary moment came when I was doing a fairly stupid overtake on a bend and nearly crashed into one headfirst. My bad, but still... mopeds?
  
• If you get the Stena Line overnight ferry, take earplugs. The wakeup call is blasting 'Don't Worry, Be Happy' on the tannoy at 5.30am. Bastards.
  

Hey attaque84, sounds like you had a good time. And stroopwafels taste better then they sound. I love those things.
Where did you take the ferry to? That's really close to my house :)

babybat: "My bad, but still... mopeds?" What do you mean?

babybat: "My bad, but still... mopeds?" What do you mean?

I was overtaking on a bend, couldn't see the moped coming around the corner. Stupid move on my part, but I still think mopeds shouldn't be on the bike paths when they're going so much faster than the average bike. Otherwise, absolutely lovely trip!

In NL, there's quite a new rule (since a couple of years).
Inside cities/towns/villages, mopeds must ride on streets, like cars and motorcycles.
Outside, they have to ride on cycle paths, like bicycles.
I can imagine that this is confusing, especially for foreigners.
Luckily, most bike paths are one way (means: there are paths at both sides at the road), but some must or can be used both ways.