Day 3. De Bijland to Utrecht contd.
In addition our legs were beginning to feel it a bit in general as we had been using them in a slightly different way all weekend. I think also that we subtly use our body weight on a bike and it is possible to stretch your body and legs in more ways on a bike than a recumbent.At a junction shortly after our last stop, as a car executed a sharp turn, we were reminded how vulnerable our trikes seemed when compared to normal bikes. The sky rather dark and we had no lights on the trikes and Damae had lost her flag. To add to our discomfort, the weather was by now quite miserable. Fortunately on turning right in Ochten the wind became less unfavourable and after getting a bit lost trying to find the way to Rhenen we headed off at good speed. Approaching Rhenen we hit the edge of the Utrechtseheuvelrug. Here the town is to be seen up a noticeable hill and the bridge over the river Neder-Rijn is quite high. The view is nice with a big church spire on one side of the bridge and the town on the other. However it was not possible to take a photo of the view without stopping. Sitting so low the sides of the bridge were in the way, leading to great photos such as this one and this.
On the way out of Rhenen we stopped at a petrol station to eat gevulde koek and drink the last of the tea. We'd made it the night before in de Bijland and it was just drinkable with powdered milk. We headed on, running for a few kilometres on a thin cycle track on the road itself. In contrast to the relatively smooth tarmac next to us we ran on brick pave. The surface was poor and the lane so narrow that we often had to sit with one wheel on the road. If you are uneasy about sharing the road on a bike with traffic you will certainly not like it on a low recumbent. It was with some relief when we got a separate cycle track. I can't remember exactly where this was and I think there were a couple of sections in towns where the cycle track became part of the road again.
The N225 is a surprisingly lovely road considering it is a trunk route. It runs along and over the Utrechtseheuvelrug, a low range of hills to the east of Utrecht. The forested sections are populated mostly by mature deciduous trees. At this time of year with a mixture of rain and sunshine the greens are almost irridescent. The inclines are not too demanding but enough to keep the cycling interesting.
It was now around six in the evening, so time to have something to eat. One of the problems we had encountered with the trikes was that we had fewer signals that we were tired or needed to stop. On a touring bike we start to feel wobbly and balancing becomes rather more difficult. However as balancing is at no point an issue on a trike we lost that signal. Coming into Doorn we both decided to have a bite and just before the village itself we encountered a car park at the side of the road with a small kiosk. We ordered some food and sat there enjoying the scenery and the comings and goings of people. The patat and kaassouffle were wonderful and Damae was very content with her ice cream.