tips for amsterdam shops and others

[Nino Coutinho]

Did you look into hostels for affordable accomodation? Most are quite comfortable these days and have an easy going atmosphere. Some are in quite spectacular buildings. While none is available right in Germersheim, there is a hostel some 35km away in Bad Bergzabern. Another one at 70km in Altleiningen (an old castle).

Yep, I stayed in 7 hostels, one quite different from each other, but all great! One of them was the Barbarossa in Nijmegen:



In Germersheim I ended up receiving a visit from my sister and she rented for us a very fine air b&b in Spöck, roughly 25km from Germersheim. It was the most comfortable accomodation I could have!

Have you already started your trip?

Oh, sure I did, and am already back to brazil! Thanks to all of you for the tips.

The 9 days in the Netherlands were a wonderful experience! Enjoyed very much the dutch spirit, the bike culture, the public transport and it was always so easy to communicate in english.

I must thank very much Gerhard from Ligfiets Winkel Amsterdam, Thys from Maia Ligfiets (Leiden), Herret (or Gerret?) from Ligfietsshop Tempelman, Theo&Allert from Velomobiel.nl, Peter from ICB and Hans from Elan. They were greatly kind and attentious to me. Learned very much from them. Because for them, I was able to try 14 recumbents before heading to SPEZI, with very quality test-rides - with almost each bike I rode something between 10km and 30km. Special mention to Andres at FlevoBike, who, in his Armadillo, guided me to a fine vegeterian lunch in Dronten. I also rented common dutch bikes in Rotterdam and Den Haag and rode quite a lot. In spezi was like I had imagined: you can try many bikes (in my case, 20) but is in a big hurry, not much more than 5 minutes with each of them. Of course, an experience that you can't have anywhere else. Well, thinking about Spezi experience I must also thank Henk and Monique from Nazca, who borrowed me the fuego, the fiero and the gaucho, and were very pacient with my, well... "brazilian style"

The list of bikes I rode is too long (34), but the top 5 aren't. Those were Azub Origami, Challenge Hurricane, Flux S600, Nazca Fiero and I must insert a trike here: ICE Sprint 20. The handling of these machines is SUPERB, very comfortable without losing the sportive feeling and, if some are not THAT fast, I find they are quite efficient. I must also mention the m5 shockproof 451 and the flevo greenmachine as great, too. Well, as you see, all small-wheeled bikes. As I ride mostly my high-racer, I think the 20 inch catched me, but I sure found the Challenge Chamsin a great substitute for my MetaPhysic, and I would like to had been able to test the Gaucho 26 side-to-side to the Chamsin. I rode the Gaucho, yes, but only the short rides you can do at SPEZI. That bike deserves an open road to feel its potential and, remembering the kind of elevation profile I have here, I really should take it to the mountains. I rode the Chamsin on some climbs around Nijmegen and it was really great, found it quite stiff.

Still about the Chamsin, a little espionage. Well, if Hans told me, it isn't a secret: he wants to build the Chamsin in carbon, and hopes to test a prototype till the end of the year.

I took so many pics and recorded so many videos that it's still a bit difficult to organize them, but I've already posted very few of them on the brazilian recumbent forum: http://recliforum.forumeiros.com/t1331-s...e-mochilao . I'm quite sure a google translation to english or dutch is pretty bad, but taking a look at the pics and vids usually doesn't need translation  (yet I speak portuguese on the videos)

Hope to come back in a few years, still got my OV-chipkart  !!