This weekend we had the great pleasure of hopping back on our bikes again with the Wereldfietsers – probably the world’s best bicycle touring club!

They have 2,500 members and about 50 of them turned up in a small town between Utrecht and Arnhem this weekend to do a tour of the local countryside.

We had never been on a group ride before and we’d definitely never seen so many touring cyclists together in one place so when we got off the train and saw dozens of other cyclists with the same interest, we couldn’t stop smiling! We also couldn’t help noticing that almost everyone had Ortlieb panniers and that there were a large proportion of Koga and Santos bikes. These guys are serious about their cycle touring!

Soon we were zipping down the well-paved bike paths of The Netherlands.

Some of our most beautiful riding was through the woods. We didn’t realize that you could find so many unpopulated spaces in Europe but it was like this for miles and miles on end.

The open moors or heide were something else we didn’t expect to find in this part of the world. It felt like we had been transported to Yorkshire, England.

On Sunday morning, the mist was thick and we wondered if we’d get to the train station before the rain set in. The forest looked almost haunted with the clouds filling all the gaps between the trees.

The mist soon lifted and we enjoyed a morning of riding through more forests, on some quite sandy tracks. During a short break, our eyes drifted to another common sight in the group: the Brooks Saddle. Our bottoms were quite sore by this point so we vowed to get new Brooks Saddles as soon as possible!

This was the last shot we took, on our way to the train station. We meant to take a photo of everyone before we parted ways but we arrived with just a few moments before the next train so everyone broke up quickly, rushing to get home.

Many thanks to the Wereldfietsers for a great weekend out!