Day 1. Utrecht to Hoog Soren contd.
Finally after finding our way again we were heading for Bunschoten Spakenburg. The run up gave us a long section by a main road on a wide smooth access road. We experienced a stiff headwind here and for the first time in the day felt that we were travelling faster than we would have been on our touring bikes. Otherwise we did not seem to be travelling significantly faster than when touring with the Bromptons or tourers.Up to that point it had not been clear what the performance advantage was. You start off with 50% more rolling resistance, a much heavier rack, a comparatively flexible frame and more chain drag. However into the headwind our heart rate metres showed that we were running lower heart rates than under similar conditions on our touring bikes. So something was definitely different, but we still did not feel we were making significantly better progress than on a normal bike.
We arrived in Spakenburg to find that the 'LF route' and the Saturday market shared the same bit of road. Grump! So we followed the parallel roads next to the main street but there was not one obvious road, so we had to keep on turning left and right to find the route. I then tried a short section through the market when there was no obvious parallel road but mercifully there was an alley on the left after a hundred metres or so. The trikes had a definite advantage here. Not having to balance meant we stayed on the trikes and moved very slowly with the flow. Having said that if we had been told to get off and push that would have been a lot harder than with a bike.
Coming out of the town we lost the LF9b route signs again. After five minutes and a few U turns later (or in the case of Damae on the Trice a few multiple J turns) we found the dyke running alongside the Nijkerkernauw. This, in contrast to many of the dyke routes we have cycled recently, was not two cars wide, but a trike and twenty centimetres wide.
As we cycled up the side of the dyke to the top, we noticed an elderly couple in front of us. Getting past them was a bit harder than when on a normal bike. The gent moved over onto the grassy strip next to the path which meant we did not have to put a wheel on the grass ourselves. The lady (and all subsequent cyclists we passed on this section) moved to the extreme edge of the tarmac and we had to put a wheel and at least twenty centimetres of the trike on the left hand grass verge. So it was possible but with a lot more communication with the people you are trying to pass.