Having been invited to a meeting at “Aardzee“, which can be found right in the middle of what used to be “Oostelijk Flevoland”, I also had an opportunity to visit G., who is the recumbent/advanced cycle guru of the Netherlands and beyond. He holds court in Dronten, so it was a real scenic detour. I can proudly state that I was born in an abbreviation: N.O.P, or “Noord Oost Polder“, the second area of land to be reclaimed after the Zuiderzee had been closed off by the Afsluitdijk. Not Emmeloord, mind you, but N.O.P, because the area was so new, that Emmeloord did not even have an official municipal name for use in birth records. N.O.P. was a new area in the fifties and was set up as a utopia of sorts. Oostelijk Flevoland, which was reclaimed in the sixties was a “new” polder, set up according to a different planning model, of a few large towns, with Lelystad (named after Cornelis Lely, the engineer who devised the large scale reclaiming effort) as its main town. Farming in those areas is largely staples: wheat, potatoes, onions, to a massive scale. One of my first conscious sensory memories is the smell of onions being harvested in the late summer, and combine harvesters on the horizon, and the smell of chaff.
I used to own recumbents, having started out with a flevotrike, then an optima dolphin, and now nothing. Oddly enough, that first trike of mine was in G.’s workshop, so the circle was closed. I told him how I miss biking, and recumbent biking even more. Would I like a spin on his back to back tandem recumbent. I certainly wanted to, and so, twenty minutes later, we were on our way to the Knardijk, a place where even today, they excavate a great many ships from medieval times and even earlier. A back to back recumbent is very fast. I did a tolerable job, being G.’s stokemonkey. The air carried the scent of onions, of chaff. On and on we cycled along Rietweg, until we came to the Knarbos, and went in the direction of Lelystad on the Knardijk. I think the Polders are the closest thing to a prairie: endless space, a rational grid of roads and cycleways. I didn’t bring a camera, but I didn’t regret it. It was enough to be in the sun, with the wind rushing by, talking with G. Feeling at one with this enormous space, which is my heritage also.