riding under the light of a thousand stars
It was in December 2020 that my mate Maarten and I were exploring the upper part of The Netherlands for the first time. Impressed by the wide desolate landscape views, and the straight roads up to the horizon, we got back in spring. Totally different experience. Colourful flower fields. Green grass. Grazing cows. Sheep and their lambs.
Nowadays I regularly take a look at the visitwadden website. Digging into their themes. It was where I read this blog post about darkness. They were very clear...
“In this last bit of pristine nature, it gets properly dark. In clear weather, you’ll see the greatness of the Milky Way. This area at night shouldn’t be missed on your bucket list.”
This writing got me reaching out to a couple of friends. To plan another ride in this area. This time, a night ride. Something I actually had never done before. Nor my friend Ruben. Nor my other friend Joppe. So we got excited, got ourselves some proper Lezyne bike lights, and went for it…
Of course, I reached out to Maarten aka Mr Acid Films too. And of course, he was keen to also follow our journey into the pitch-black darkness. So, with the four of us, we travelled north and checked in at Hotel De Bank in Harlingen. Where we were before. In spring. A place we really liked.
Arrived in Harlingen, we first did some grocery shopping. Diner for the night. Breakfast for the morning. Then we checked into our apartment. And after diner, we prepared our bikes, discussed the route, and went to bed.
Alarms went off at 2 AM. Can’t say I caught a good night of sleep. Went to bed too late. But it was mainly the excitement that made me actually only turn sides instead. Nevertheless, despite it being particularly early, we were all looking forward to what was there to come.
The night before had already proved it was difficult to estimate what we would like to have for breakfast this early in the morning. I played safe and made myself a bowl of oatmeal. Seen pancakes, smoothies and espressos as well.
After getting properly dressed, by 3 AM we went out to get to it…
I must say, it was cold, but not that bad. Temperature 0°C (32 °F) was what my Wahoo told me. And with nearly any wind I told myself it was quite okay for a regular December night. After we made some shots, we quietly rolled out of the town of Harlingen. While leaving streetlights behind, we went straight into this pitch-black dutch polder darkness.
From there we fully relied on our headlights. I was instantly amazed about how these lights did a really proper job. Perfectly lightening the road up far ahead of us. On these unlit roads, our bright headlights gave such good clarity! They easily picked up potholes and drains clearly.
But, also needs to be said… Mother nature was a bit of a help here too. With crystal clear skies we got accompanied by both the moon and an army of stars. I’ve rarely experienced a night like this!
Confidently we got on pace. Increasing our heart rates. It was the only way to warm up as much as possible.
In the meanwhile, we enjoyed this feeling. Rolling into the unknown. This crisp cold. The intense sound of our wheels rolling. While every now and then rabbits crossed our headlights. Startled by us rushing by.
During the next two hours it turned out that, instead of battling darkness, we were actually battling the cold. Temperature decreased to a steady -4 °C (25°F) which was nothing to joke around with. Pushing hard appeared not to be enough to remain warm. Especially we observed that there was no way to prevent our toes and hands from freezing. Nor our bottles.
Luckily every now and then we ran into Maarten. While he was getting his drone up in the air, it was our ultimate opportunity to warm up a bit in the car.
Despite Maarten popping up somewhere alongside the road every now and then, furthermore we never really stopped rolling. So we could keep our heart rates up and our blood flowing. Nevertheless, we only got colder and colder during our ride.
Still, we intensely enjoyed the speciality of darkness like this. The incredible silence of the night. The incredible starry sky above us. More than once we expressed to each other how special this all was. How grateful we were out here on our bikes here, in the middle of the night.
Battling the cold was only more than worth it once we rolled into dawn. While we tried to keep up our pace, the sky at the horizon slowly turned orange. Then pink. Then purple. Eventually, winter blue. Revealing the countryside all whitened by this freezing cold of the night. In the meanwhile, the sun gently started to shine. Covered in the morning fog.
We finished our ride at the only little piece of east coast we have within The Netherlands. Nothing beats finishing a ride with a view. At this point, we came to the conclusion we really created long-lasting memories last night. And although the rising sun really did its best to warm us up by now, we were just craving a hot shower…
