Friday 10 August 2012

Day 14. 1512km. 7th of Aug. An encounter with Netherlands' finest police.

Today really has been eventful. After that I crossed the German border yesterday I immediately started looking for some place to set up camp and did so some 7km inside the Netherlands. The road 213 that I had been on all of yesterday turned into N346. The road looked just the same so I kept on. As I had now decided to go for a detour and not go straight up to Amsterdam, but hit Arnhem first, I looked up the routs heading south west. Both my GPS which is set to "bike mode" and google maps told me to cycle along N346. Great I thought, as it lead nearly straight to Arnhem, passing through a bunch of smaller cities.

The great thing about the Netherlands is that it is a very bike friendly country. A lot of the time when going down then N346 there was a bike path alongside it. After crossing a bridge however the bike path suddenly ended, even though there had been a bike sign instructing me to cross the bridge if I was heading for Arnhem. So I kept on going on the road... I think it was 3km to the next town, but half way, there was a rest stop, so I decided to pause and have a cup of coffee. Halfway through my coffee a police car comes into the rest stop. There was another car there as well, the driver on his phone, as you're not allowed to drive and use your phone at the same time. I paid little attention to the patrol car at first. Then both the driver and his colleague stepped out of their vehicle.

-you from Sweden? The sergeant asked, looking at my flag.

-yeahpp.

-Got a flat tire?

-Nope, just having a cup of coffee before I keep going.

-Where are you going?

-To London. They both laughed.

-Well, you are not allowed to ride a bike on this road.

-why not?

-Because it is sort of a highway. Someone called us saying that there was someone on a bike with a Swedish flag on this road...

As I've only got Kevlar in my tyres, I soon decided not to make a run for it.

-But both my gps and google maps show that I am allowed to ride my bike on this road... I explained, showed them the maps on the iPad and Garmin.

-well, it is a semi-highway. All roads that begin with "N" are.

Apparently those exist in the Netherlands. As the road I came on was the only one leading out of there, I asked them what to do now? I had to find another way, but that I was not allowed to go on the road I just came on, nor continue to where I was going. So they left me no option...

-So, can you give me a lift to the next town?

-haha, no, there is no possibility. We have NO space for a bike.

-yes you do. They had clearly not noticed that it was a foldie.

Two minutes later, my Brompton and gear was nicely folded into the back seat of the police car. I don't know, but it could be the first Brompton ever arrested and fastened securely in the back seat of a patrol car.




We had a nice chat in the car and when we got to the next town, they dropped me off, helped me get my gear together, we shook hands and off I went. People looked at us, and I could not tell you what they thought of this whole thing, but it must have looked peculiar.




A couple of hours later I made it to Arnhem. Making sure not to cycle on any N-roads.

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