Cyclevision 2011

This year, Cyclevision was held at FlevOnice in Biddinghuizen in Flevoland. The campsite was about 100 km from home, but there was a complication in that the first event was on Friday evening at a track another 20 odd km from the campsite. I wasn't sure for a long time if I'd go, because I wasn't sure I wanted to cycle there and then take part in an event the same day. It also seemed impractical to turn up on Thursday evening for a race which didn't take place until after 8 in the evening on Friday.

Eventually I decided I would go, and make the most of it. I do it for the fun. It doesn't really matter if I perform less well than usual because I'm never in contention for any prizes anyway.

Harry also decided to ride there on Friday, so we went together. However, because I had a meeting to go to on Monday morning I decided I must come back early, missing Sunday's events. That left only Friday and Saturday.

Friday's event was a one hour time trial, held on the same 2.8 km long high speed test track as Cyclevision had used at the 2002 and 2003 events which I also took part in. Therefore it was a chance to see if I could go faster than back then. Due to having a much faster bike, I was sure I would do so, and so it turned out. However, my speed wasn't particularly impressive. Perhaps 130 km of "warm up" is just too much.

Anyway, here's the video I made going to, during and after the race. Apart from the race itself, there's quite a bit showing the cycle paths I came home on afterwards:


There are many other reports, videos, photos of the event. You can find them on the ligfiets.net website.

Many thanks to all those involved in organising this excellent event.


Grotere kaart weergeven
The last part of the video shows most of the first third of my route home. It is (more or less) as shown on this map.
Read my review of the Sinner Mango Velomobile.

Promoting cycling at FlevOnice

Last Sunday, Arjen and I went to a cycle promotion event in Flevoland. It was at the FlevOnice facility, a unique in the world place with a 5 km long outdoor artificial ice-skating circuit. It's obviously not reasonable to keep this thing frozen during the warmer months, so it turns into a tarmac circuit for other purposes in the spring. We were at the first event for "Mei Maand Fiets Maand" ("May Month, Bike Month"), an annual bicycle promotion event. That there is a lot of cycling already in this country is, after all, no reason why more shouldn't be promoted.

Flevoland itself is the world's largest artificial island. I find it fascinating. It's a vast area of land which used to be the sea bed. Draining it has resulted in hundreds of ship-wrecks now being on land, and it's protected by dykes built on an enormous scale (including this one which I cycled over last year). There are no buildings older than the 1960s on Flevoland, and three new cities: Lelystad, Dronten and Almere which were established in the 1960s and 1970s and consist only of modern architecture arranged on modern lines - with plenty of cycle paths of course.


As we were there representing Sinner Ligfietsen, here is the company video presentation showing the bikes, including some glimpses of how they are built.