Karl42
Well-Known Member
Last Saturday the 2025 Brevet season started for me with a very easy 200 km starting at the border between Germany and the Netherlands. Right at the start I met another recumbent rider on a Toxy ZR. I had not met him before, but he knew me from my posts in the german recumbent forum.
We had to wait quite a while at the start until the second group was allowed to set off, so we were pretty frozen when the time finally came. That's why my new friend pushed ahead at high speed to warm up again. I took a more leisurely approach and put on every piece of clothing I had with me. At some point during the day, however, the sun came out and it was very pleasant overall, and no comparison to the brevets at the start of last season, when I still had to contend with hail and freezing rain. But that was also in the mountainous Eifel region. Today we were in the flatlands.
The scenery on the route was therefore rather unspectacular, but there were a few nice sections along rivers, through the heathland and through Nijmegen.
I also liked the small side roads, some of which only had a small paved cycle path. However, it was very narrow there, you couldn't overtake, and I wondered how the two Velomobile riders got along.
As expected, there were no hills apart from a slight climb after Nijmegen, but there was sometimes a bit of wind in the afternoon, but overall it was a very easy and pleasant tour.
I tried out two new items of equipment. The first is a sun visor, which worked extremely well. When riding against the sun, I always had to hold my hand so that I wasn't blinded. That's no longer the case with this visor, and it's much better. Whether the visor also protects against rain remains to be seen, but fortunately that wasn't an issue on this brevet.
The other new piece of equipment is a 360 degree camera on the handlebars so that I can take pictures while riding without stopping. Let's see if this works out in the long run.
Here is my little video summary of the tour:
We had to wait quite a while at the start until the second group was allowed to set off, so we were pretty frozen when the time finally came. That's why my new friend pushed ahead at high speed to warm up again. I took a more leisurely approach and put on every piece of clothing I had with me. At some point during the day, however, the sun came out and it was very pleasant overall, and no comparison to the brevets at the start of last season, when I still had to contend with hail and freezing rain. But that was also in the mountainous Eifel region. Today we were in the flatlands.
The scenery on the route was therefore rather unspectacular, but there were a few nice sections along rivers, through the heathland and through Nijmegen.
I also liked the small side roads, some of which only had a small paved cycle path. However, it was very narrow there, you couldn't overtake, and I wondered how the two Velomobile riders got along.
As expected, there were no hills apart from a slight climb after Nijmegen, but there was sometimes a bit of wind in the afternoon, but overall it was a very easy and pleasant tour.
I tried out two new items of equipment. The first is a sun visor, which worked extremely well. When riding against the sun, I always had to hold my hand so that I wasn't blinded. That's no longer the case with this visor, and it's much better. Whether the visor also protects against rain remains to be seen, but fortunately that wasn't an issue on this brevet.
The other new piece of equipment is a 360 degree camera on the handlebars so that I can take pictures while riding without stopping. Let's see if this works out in the long run.
Here is my little video summary of the tour:
