These pages...
These pages contain the descriptions of my past biking holidays sorted by year.
Some years may not have any bike tour presented due to various reasons. Particularly
in the "early years" of my biking career I wrote down my experiences on paper, in Dutch. So there
is a lot of time involved in retyping this in English and I already have a hard time keeping up-to-date
with my current bike tours so I need some spare time to catch up with the old tours.
Why do I go biking, on my own, with all that luggage? That's a rather common question
I get asked when arriving on camping sites. Let me try to give some thoughts on this:
- I like to smell the (usually) fresh air and feel the wind. I don't like sitting in a car in an air bubble that I brought from home.
- I like to go camping, it's more freedom, I cook myself and meet other people, or not. I don't like sitting hotel, hotels make me feel lonely. Also, I don't like B&B's because I feel like an intruder in someone else's life. I have no problem camping in nature, but only do it when needed: just because I like to have a hot shower after a day on the bike
- Yep, walking does all this too. I like walking, I just like biking a bit more.
So what's more on this site?
Well, I'm working on a collection of climbs in The Netherlands. No serious mountain passes of course, just noticeable or remarkable climbs that are usually not much more than a few hundred meters long. This collection will be presented under "NL climbs" and hopefully slowly grow whenever I have time to visit another bump in the countryside with a road going up...If I encounter any foreign mountain climb, pass, ski-station or whatever I hope to present that too under the item "Cols", that is as far as it cannot already be found in one of the mountain gides like "Altigraph" or "Cotacol".
And of course there is a guestbook, in case you feel the need to leave behind a message.
Who am I?
| Name : | Dennis Waterman |
| Residence : | Spijkenisse (near Rotterdam), The Netherlands |
| Born : | 1971 in Heemskerk, The Netherlands |
| State : | Married |
| Education : | Civil Engineering (MSc.) - Delft University of Technology |
| Work : | Course Coordinator at Plaxis BV |
What bike do I ride?
Well, I have two bikes I regularly use but one of them is a racing bike and not fit for touring.The other one is:
| Type: | Randonneur with racing bike handlebar |
| Brand: | Vittorio (custom made) |
| Height: | 64 cm |
| Colour: | Yellow and metallic blue |
| Gears: | 24 (Shimano Deore LX / RSX) - 46/36/26 front and 13-32 rear |
| Wheels : | Alesia 37-622 rims - 48 spokes with Hügi hubs |
| Luggage racks: | Custom made hollow steel tube Vittorio racks |
| Weight : | A shocking 18 kilograms |