Many Roads is a ride journal by Carst van der Molen. I am an interaction designer from Loenen aan de Vecht, founder of Restraum and member of BNO. To explore and change perspective I like going out for long bike rides. In photography I frame some of the many scenes en route.

My first ride above 100km happened by accident on a sunny May day in 2016. Or maybe it was a mayday. Construction work was happening in the house next to us and I was working from home as best I could. On this day working was out of the question. I wanted to get as far away as possible and rode 108km in high temperatures while drinking too little. Days, yes weeks after my muscles were still overtaxed. Before that I had only ridden more than 90km 5 times, last two years ago. I wasn’t good at conserving energy and my neck, back and bottom were hurting too much.

Fast-forward to 2021 when I passed the 200km mark. This time I had trained months doing long rides. In March I had made my second 100km+ ride. I had increased my ride distance methodically by 10% each weekend—backing down every few weeks. On my birthday in June I cycled 205km from Amsterdam where I lived to Oosterbeek where I was born, and back. It would take me two years before I dared to cross the magical 200km again.

Last year I was drawn by wandrer.earth and Veloviewer Explorer Tiles. But not until a few months ago I acknowledged that going far has its own draws apart from visiting new places. There is something magical about plotting your route on a map and doing large distances within a set amount of time. I was impatient and wanted to go further than my bike would take me, so I started plotting routes using train stations as the starting point. Loenen is near Utrecht in the centre of the Netherlands and there are many cities within reach. The persistent theme was making the remaining journey home by bike. Recently I have been skipping the train part again.

I hope you enjoy reading my travelogue. 😺

August 2023