Random facts about the States

- People stop to see if you're alright when your bike is upside-down

- Any time I want to see a deer or moose, I should ask a local

- After 4 days I met the first non-Americans (except for Piter, but he lives in the States). A German family is also on its way to Denver. By motorhome that is.

- People immediately associate Holland with Amsterdam but think it's part of Scandinavia, or the same country as Denmark

- A lady told me she had been to Amsterdam: she had a stop-over at Schiphol

- Americans think downhill is dangerous ('there are so many turns!'). They better not go riding in the mountains in Europe.

- Skunks like trash and are not easily scared

- I rode in the shades for the first time after 5 days. That's the day that I left Washington, 'the evergreen state'.

- Apparently there are quite a few bicyclists riding the same route, but I've only seen a few that are going west

Bad luck at the right place

I had my first puncture ever with this bike! Unfortunately, it would continue to bother me for a few more days. After patching my tube, I was fine for two days, but when I left de camp ground the next morning, there was no air in my rear tire. Fixed it again, within 5 minutes it was flat. That made me change my whole tube, so I rode the 10 miles to Lewiston just fine. When pulling up the bike path, once again I heard the annoying noise that I'd heard before that morning.

For some reason this happened in the only city that has bike shops in a 200 mile span, so I took it as a sign and bought new tubes and patches, as the old ones were obviously no good.

After the four hour hold-up I decided to not go up the hills, but take the easier and shorter route along the river. There I stayed at a camp ground where I met a 79 year old man who had travelled all around the States and Europe. He told me more stories than I could ever remember, and gave me maps of Montana, Wyoming and Colorado, along with advise of what routes to take.

When I tried to pressurize my fuel bottle, I found out I couldn't get any air in. I had it filled that day, and it turned out it was filled up to the very top. After pouring out some gas, it seemed that I had somehow broken the pump. As it was already late, I decided to leave it be and ate bread with brie instead of rice with sweet peas.

The next morning I suddenly knew what was wrong with the pump, and with the tools and analysis of my neighbour's we managed to get it working again.

Funny thing is, that just before I got my tire trouble in Lewiston, I had filled out a survey which had statements like 'I always find a solution to unforeseen problems'. I said 'true'. Guess I was right.

Dolen in de woestijn

Tijd om weer eens een stukje Nederlands te schrijven. De reis verloopt voorspoedig als gepland, maar desondanks wisselen de gebeurtenissen zich zo snel af, dat het niet snel saai zal worden.

'Primitive camping' is wat er in mijn informatieboekje stond. Ik neem de afslag waar de camping moet zijn, en vind een informatiebord waarop staat wat er allemaal te beleven valt op deze weg. Met 'deze weg' bedoel ik een zelfs voor onverharde wegen slecht onverharde weg met steile hellingen. 'For more information, see leaflets,' lees ik. Geen leaflet aanwezig, dus ik trek er op uit in de hoop dat alles zichzelf wijst, zoals alles in Amerika.

Hoe verder ik kom, hoe minder geschikt deze plek lijkt voor kamperen. Alleen het gebied dat voor de wilder dieren bedoeld is, lijkt op een mooie plek voor een tent. Daar mag je natuurlijk niet komen. Een stel auto's passeert, maar de mensen hebben geen camping gezien. 'Maybe further down the road,' zegt een man. Vol goede moed rij ik verder, het jachtgebied in.

Nog steeds zonder enig resultaat, probeer ik het nummer van de camping dat in het boek staat. Ingesproken tekst is wat ik te horen krijg, dat heeft ook geen zin. Nadat een stel Mexicanen mij passeert zonder mij enige vorm van hulp aan te bieden, geef ik het verder rijden op. Ik begin door mijn water te raken, in deze hitte.

Terug bij het begin, zie ik een verharde weg die richting de rivier loopt. Waar ik het in eerste instantie totaal onlogisch vond dat daar een camping moet zijn, het informatiebord stond immers ver op de onverharde weg, rij ik binnen een minuut het terrein van de camping op. In plaats van 2 minuten had ik er anderhalf uur over gedaan in stof, zon, zonder wind om dit te vinden. Zo ontmoette ik wel een motorrijder die even aan het uitrusten was na zijn rit van 300 mijl om naar de dokter te gaan. Gekke Amerikanen.

Crazy is all relative

People think I'm crazy. Luckily for me, I met Piter. Piter is from Czechoslovakia (but now lives in Michigan) and is cycling from Michigan to Seattle and back again. He was complaining about the heat, the wind (he's heading west, so not the best times for him), the rough pavement, his old-fashioned bike, and the fact that his maps showed towns that weren't there which left him without food. The next service was 12 miles away, so I gave him my newly bought peanuts. When I asked him how much he'd covered so far, he answered 2300 miles in 18 days. This guy (he must have been in his 50's) gets up at 5am and does 125 miles a day, without any rest days. He'll be done in about 40 days total.

The owner of the store that I bought my peanuts at, keeps a log of all cyclists that have shopped there. Turns out, there's a couple about half a day ahead of me. Maybe I can catch up with them before I reach Missoula. I'd definitely do if I were as crazy as Piter.

On my way

Hazardous threats on the freeway

One ride to the airport, 22 hours of flying, two stop-overs, one ride to my family's. What would be the most likely place things can go wrong?

'Security is very heavy,' everybody warned me. So when I was pulled over to open my carry-on ('just food?') in London and the guy noticed I'm from the Netherlands, we started chatting about the European Championships. My stove and fuel bottle arrived just fine.

'You should be really careful in Chicago when youtake your baggage, people can rob you when you're on your own with all that stuff,' my parents warned me. So when I had cleared customs, picked up my bag and bike and slid my way through narrow doors, all my baggage was taken care of within 5 minutes.

After 28 hours of being awake, I managed to land in Portland, meet with Karen, get my baggage, and walk outside to be driven home by neighbour Sid. Everyone knows Americans think big, bigger, biggest when it comes to cars, but Sid is the kind of guy who realises that you don't need a big car, so he brought his reasonably sized vehicle that pulled his reasonably sized trailer. Of course the bike box just didn't fit in the trailer, so (thinking I'm at the other side of the world so I need to do the opposite here) I layed it in the trailer, nose up, tail down.

45 minutes later. Sid's worried someone was hurt when the box was blown out of the trailer and landed on the ground, Karen's feeling bad about looking back and not noticing the bike wasn't there, and I'm calling my bike insurance who can't seem to understand the time difference ('as I said, I can't report this to the police at 2am') and distance ('mailing the official police report to Holland will take days') between the Netherlands and the States. After backtracking and no trace of (part of) a bike box, the three of us went to sleep.

9am next morning. Karen's called a bunch of numbers, I've reported my missing bike at the police, and we'll be called when anything has been found.

1pm. I'm just about to announce my situation to my travel insurance. Karen's phone rings. 'Oh my god, you found the bike?!' (Alina falls down the toilet) Someone called in the night before that there was a hazardous threat on the freeway, and the police went to pick it up.

Sid and Iretrieved a bike that, after 4 flights, three with renowned airlines and one out of own will, had a tiny scratch on the seat and a slightly bent handle bar. We tied it down. Twice.

What exactly happened, will always remain a mystery. If you're the one who called in my bike, leave your address and we will reward you. For days on end.

By the way, Oregon's great.

Hup, Holland, Hup

'Uw fiets is aangemeld voor alle vluchten. Ik zie alleen dat u terug vliegt over Londen, waar u landt op Heathrow en vertrekt op Gatwick. De bussen tussen die vliegvelden nemen helemaal geen fietsen mee.'

Lichte paniek bij de ontvangende partij. Nouja, de overstaptijd is zeven uur(!). Dan moet ik wel van het ene naar het andere vliegveld kunnen komen op de een of andere manier.

'Ik zie ook dat de origineel geboekte vlucht van Londen naar Amsterdam is geannuleerd en dat u in plaats daarvan een andere vlucht toegewezen hebt gekregen. Dit geeft mij de mogelijkheid om, wacht even, ik beloof niks...'

'In plaats van de vlucht vanaf Gatwick om 19:35, heeft u nu de vlucht vanaf Heathrow om 15:50. Fijne dag.'

Deze meneer heeft er net voor gezorgd dat ik én niet van het ene naar het andere vliegveld hoef, én dat mijn overstaptijd is teruggebracht naar redelijke proporties. Zonder extra kosten.

Zonder geluk vaart niemand wel. Toch, Van Basten?

'Your bike has been registered for all flights. On your return flight you have a stop-over in London, where you arrive at Heathrow and depart from Gatwick. The buses between those airports don't accept bikes.'

Whoops. Time between flights is 7 hours(!) though, so I should be able to catch my plane one way or the other.

'By the way, I also see that your flight from London to Amsterdam was cancelled and that you were rescheduled. Maybe I can, one second, I can't promise anything...'

'Your 7:35PM flight from Gatwick is changed to a 3:50PM flight from Heathrow. Good day.'

This kind sir just helped me in two ways: I don't need to transfer to Gatwick, and the time between flights is reduced by nearly four and a half hours. And it didn't cost me a penny more.

Everyone needs a little bit of luck now and then. Right, Van Basten? (that was a soccer reference to all you non-soccer followers!)

Twee weken - Two weeks

Het werk zit erop, het geld is binnen, de uitrusting bijna (het wachten op kettingbladen die binnen twee weken uit Duitsland moeten komen en niet op voorraad zijn, is op dit moment spannender dan de reis zelf), het toelatingsexamen nog niet en de kriebels nog ver te zoeken. Toch, twee weken, dat klinkt ernstig dichtbij. Vorig jaar sprak ik nog over 'volgend jaar', twee maanden geleden over 'juni' en nu over 'twee weken'.

De afgelopen dagen heb ik bij McDonald's honderd keer mogen uitleggen wat ik ga doen en gelukkig werd mijn geheugen weer opgefrist met de drie vragen die ik een jaar geleden ook al moest beantwoorden.

Op de fiets? Helemaal alleen? Is dat niet eng? Ja, ja en nee. De eerste twee laat ik voor wat ze zijn, persoonlijke voorkeuren. Wel wil ik uit de wereld helpen dat fietsen in het buitenland of wat dan ook maar op de wereld niet eng is. Als jij naar een nieuwe supermarkt gaat om boodschappen te doen, is dat toch niet eng? Je weet niet alles één-twee-drie te vinden, de producten zijn misschien van een ander merk en je kent de cassières niet, maar daar wen je toch aan? Het onbekende is juist het avontuur, anders zou ik wel twee maanden lang rondjes door Joure gaan rijden.

Twee weken, kort hoor. Ik kan al bijna de klok 9 uur terug zetten.

Eerst maar toelatingsexamen.

Money has been earnt, equipment bought (hopefully I'll receive the chainrings I ordered in Germany on time), flights booked and family contacted. In two weeks I'll be in Portland, though it doesn't feel like it yet.

When I tell people about my trip, I usually get one of the following responses: By bike?! All alone?! Isn't that scary/dangerous?! I'd like to highlight the answer to the last question once more. It's no more dangerous than crossing the street next door. If you close your eyes and don't pay attention to your surroundings, then yes, it's dangerous to get to the other side of the road. Though if you anticipate what's happening around you and use some common sense, you're unlikely to be hit by a car. People should stop worrying so much.

Two weeks, wow. I'd better start learning the imperial system.