Last weekend we celebrated easter. This always comes with a lot of food. Eggs, chocolate, cake and so forth. We had a nice brunch with the family and had planned to visit my parents in law afterwards.
I know my mother in law and she always has enough to eat to feed an entire orphanage, so I decided to go there by bicycle. The rest of the family went by car. The route from my home to my parents in law goes through the so-called 'green heart' of the Netherlands.
The green heart is a rural and green area in the western part of the Netherlands, surrounded by major cities such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague. It consists of meadows and polders, farmland, small villages and nature and it's quite an open landscape.
The distance isn't that far (about 40 kilometers), but it was nice to be outside and getting some exercise on a the day. I also had quite a nice tailwind, so I probably didn't burn as much calories as I had consumed that day 😂

I took my action cam with me and shot some footage during the ride, so you can get an impression of the area and see the great cycling infrastructure we have over here. It's such a privilege!

Most of the cycling paths are separated from the main roads. And in other places where cyclists and cars share the road, the cycling path is indicated with red tarmac.

Stats

Just like last year I've set myself the goal to ride at least 5000 kilometers. I'm tracking this with my Garmin and noticed I'm a bit behind my schedule. With over 25% of the year behind us I 'only have cycled 1181 kilometers so far, which is 23%. But I'm going to increase my kilometers over the next weeks. In the first place because we have daylight savings time now, so I can go for a ride in the evenings again. And secondly because I have to work towards a 200+ kilometer ride at the end of June 😀

The Garmin Connect is a great way of tracking your progress. You can set yourself goals and you can also 'subscribe' to the goals provided by Garmin. With these goals you can 'earn' badges. They have new challenges every month that allow you to earn these badges.
Although I don't really care about earning badges in general, it's cool to see how many I've earned in the past month:

These badges are earned for:
✅ 20 hours of cycling om March
✅ riding 40 kilometer in one weekend in March
✅ 20 cycling activities in March
✅ Cycle 675 kilometer in Jan-Feb-Mar
✅ Cycle 200 kilometers in March

Do you track your progress, hours on the bike, kilometers, altitude or something like that? What is your goal and are you on schedule to reach those? What app or tool are you using to track your progress?

I’d love to hear your thoughts about my blog. Feel free to share your perspective in the comments.

Friendlymoose