Notts County Football Club

On the final day we woke up at 6am (local time) as the ferry was heading into the port at Hook of Holland, where an all you can eat breakfast was given from 6.30am – 7.30am, before departing the ferry at 8am. 

We had a short walk from the ferry to a nearby car park where the vans with bikes were parked, where we swapped our bikes for our bags. Shortly after we departed towards Amsterdam via the sand dunes.

The sand dunes from Hook of Holland is simply heaven for cyclists…winding left to right, with slight humps on a very smooth tarmac cycle lane. A

fter a very short time (because of the high speeds on these cycle lanes) we found our first snack/water stop and quickly head out towards the next stop; lunch. 

The lunch here was amazing! Dutch cheese, different styles of thinly cut ham, and the mustard soup with bread rolls was awesome. These Dutch know how to put on a spread!

We then headed off into the 3rd short stretch down the side of the river with no give way signs or anything to stop us; as you can imagine, we flew down here… and we soon ended up at the 3rd and final stop before our finish line at the AJAX Arena. 

This stop was just 6 miles from our finish line but we were to meet up in groups of 90 or so so a lot of us could finish the event together – better for photographs/publicity I can imagine, so it’s all good. Upon reaching the finish line we were welcomed with a glass of bubbly and a medal for all of our hard work, and then grouped together for some more photographs.

Some of the group then went directly to the hotel from here but myself, Norwich riders and Oldham riders headed to the AJAX Arena shop for a nosey – by the time we got back to our bikes at the finish line the 2nd group had already arrived, drank their bubbly and had their photo’s taken; so we headed back to the hotel with this group.

Once we got to our hotel (just 6 miles or so from the finish line) we put our bikes on the vans straight away which would take them back to London for us, checked into the hotel and went up to the room where our day bags had already been put. 

After a well deserved shower it was time to head to the hotel bar for a few beers whilst waiting for the celebratory dinner at 7:30pm; there was also some free wine getting dished about too. The celebratory dinner was damn good too with a large variety of different foods to choose from, followed by a variety of puddings and ice cream.

After we fed our faces I headed for Dam Square with the Stevenage lads in a taxi. We first went into the Players bar and seen some weird sights with a few hen nights and stag nights happening, but found we felt a little old in there with all the youngsters – so we headed for the red light area and settled in a bar called The Old Sailor. 

Here we met up with the Oldham riders and of course Jenny Warburton who I remembered from cycling last year’s event. This night in Amsterdam was great great fun and would recommend it to anyone. 

I of course almost fell asleep half way through the night in The Old Sailor and Steve from Stevenage took a photo and yes he put it on Twitter. 

We finally got back to the hotel after 5am and had to be up for 6am for breakfast the next day (as you can imagine we were rather tired the next day travelling back on coaches and trains).

I would like to take this opportunity again to thank my kit sponsors for this event:

Sponsor #1: Boothy’s Disco

Sponsor #2: Toni’s Barbers

Sponsor #3: Sherwood Cycling Club

Sponsor #4: Calverton Computing

Sponsor #5: Tecnico Solutions

To read more and view more images/video’s of the London to Amsterdam event organised by Prostate Cancer UK andThe Football League, simply do a social network search (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc) for the hashtag #l2a