In early summer of my senior year of high school in Bilthoven, the Netherlands, I cycled from Eemnes to my school (about a 45-minute bike ride) when the weather was nice. Otherwise I would take the bus and the train.
I had an old bike with no speeds, but what was great about it was that it handled really well with no hands. On the way back from school I often battled a head wind so I didn’t cycle without hands much. But on the way to school I did it a lot.
So at one point I decided to see if I could make it all the way from home to school without using my hands except to get on at home and to get off at school. It required a lot of luck with traffic lights and there was one particularly sharp little bend in the bike path about halfway, just past the palace at Soestdijk, that I hardly ever managed completely.
Then one day I had good luck at traffic lights—either because they were green when I approached or because no cars were coming and I could run them—and I got the sharp bend right. I felt that this was my lucky day. It was now or never. It was still going to be tricky, because traffic in Bilthoven would be heavy, but I had a good feeling about it.
I probably ran another light or two because no cars were coming, but then came the crossing at school. It was super-busy of course, with cyclists and cars driving every which way, and I had to make it across that street for it to really count. I approached, having had luck all the way, but a car was coming. To hell with it, I thought. I’m never going to get this close again. So I kept going, gambling that the car would slam on its breaks rather than have a mess on the front bumper.
It did. So no mess. And I made it from Eemnes to Bilthoven with no hands. I was euphoric! I even wrote about it as my final Dutch exam essay a few weeks later. The assignment was to write about a challenge. I got a good grade. I still grin inwardly when I think about it, more than thirty years later. But don’t ever try this.
I knew it! You’re a dare-devil! Always was and always will be, hehe
I was, but since being a mom that has changed drastically. Wouldn’t want my kids to be semi-orphans because I had to go and get my adrenaline up!
So you lived in Eemnes. I was born in Baarn and spent the first 12-plus years of my life there. When you cycled back and forth you passed very close to the house I was born in, on Emmalaan about 50 m from the old highway, Amsterdamsestraatweg. But how did you get up the hill that passed by Buitenzorg without putting at least one hand on the bars? You must have had strong legs!
Hi Michiel, yes, I remember the Emmalaan! And the hill went up very gradually. I guess cycling the whole Wakkerendijk in superstrong headwinds in the afternoons made my legs strong. Those winds were so strong that sometimes I felt it wouldn’t be any slower walking.