With no shops open (some weird Dutch tradition) we strolled down the main street to the towns lake foreshore complete with beach, sailing boats and a strange 100 foot tall art deco water tower !
After a cuppa on the way back we grabbed the wounded Avanti from the hotels cellar room, ascended the 90 degree gradient steps and headed off eagerly on the stroke of 1pm to the towns bike shop to find that it and amazingly the other two bike shops in town were `geschloten` (closed) on Mondays !
With little else to do Kev decided to hone his riding skill and do a lazy 24 kms around the area claiming to have claimed a category 5 Dutch hill (a 1 meter climb) over a canal - the steepest we've seen so far on tour !
The afternoon gave us a chance to equip with maps, look at pannier packing, better suss out the Avanti`s grinding rotor noise and generally just take it easy with my flu battling hard to penetrate Henleys hard fighting immune system !
The day did provide one gem though when having our morning cuppa at a cafe Kev stated looking across the road that he didn't realize the town had 2 Rabobanks as the one he`d gone to yesterday was 200 meters away opposite our hotel - when I pointed out to him that were in fact already sitting outside our hotel he accepted that maybe looking for some more fish oil at the supermarket might in fact be a good idea !
We`re eager to get going so will breakfast early tomorrow and hit the bike shops upon opening the only positive being that there are 3 to chose from ! In the meantime its back to the TV !
PS. Forgot to mention that Aalsmeer is home to the worlds largest daily flower auction with some 20 million flowers being auctioned daily for distribution world wide ... wow !
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