Women riding in the Netherlands?

[Mimosa]

Hehe so you did the 'rondje ringvaart'

But you are correct there isn't much charity rides over here. There are a lot of touring rides and clubs.

Triathlon ... mhhhh ... lemme see.

I googled a bit and found this website (it's in dutch)

National triathlon rides (both pro and just for fun)
http://www.triathlonweb.nl/twn/show....info&ID=183007

International triathlon rides (pro stuff):
http://www.triathlonweb.nl/twn/show.php?chapter=Wedstrijdinfo&ID=183007

[VenusdeVelo]

Where were you "dutch" riding girls when I lived there ;-) ?

I think the issue for me with the touring groups is they were primarily male, and primarily dutch. And altho I learned to speak some dutch, I never found it comfortable to "force" anyone or a group to have to speak to me in English. My job was all English/Int'l so my dutch was limited to carrying on transactions at the market...at Etos, Albert Heijn ;-) He he That brings back memories.

I lived in Haarlem, it was a great city! The Ringvaart was easy to get to and ride. And 15 miles in, there was a very nice Italian-dutch man (I speak some italian) who sold gelato...so it was great incentive to go another 15-20 after that...

We started to enjoy some mtn biking too (I think it was in Alkmaar, etc. by the dunes) and they were nice respites from the city. SANDY riding though!! When it was dry out (not that it often was!!) that course was tough.

Mimosa, you'll laugh, when Albert Heijn had their grand opening in Haarlem they were giving away those really nice bright orange plastic "ah" shopping bags -- we ended up with about 6 of them, and we shop here with them at the store!! People always ask ... "where are those from...."

[VenusdeVelo]

Violette, also try going to www.expatica.com, to the NL site, and see if you can query on the forum boards and ask expats if they know of any....

[Mimosa]

I work in Haarlem and live in the Haarlemmermeer so I know what you are talking about

And still the main problem is indeed finding the womens groups around here. There is a club on the north side of Amsterdam which has a fair number of cat. 3 women (so I'll probably join them). And there are three womens roadbike trainings group, one has their meeting point at the east side of amsterdam, the other group at the east side of Amstelveen and the last one is further away at the north east side of Utrecht. But there are less then 500 women in the netherlands who have a competition license and most of them live in the south or east of the country.

And AH does make nice shopping bags, they also now have bags with a hamster on it.

[VenusdeVelo]

That's great you've found some groups...a little further to go, but it's a start.

The hamster, that's really funny. It's funny to an American at least, to see a hamster face on a shopping bag, it was almost like they were advertising "hamsters as food". We had that question posed to us when we had some family visit us in NL!!

I thought the hamster was a really funny campaign ;-)