TCW end of season

Twice a year, our club, the TCW (Tour Club Wageningen) arrange that its members can have coffee and cake at some café that is within cycling distance from Wageningen for the racing bikes and often it is near to a nice mountain bike route. Today 'Boscafé de Zweef' was filled to the brim and overflowing with cyclists. It was such beautiful weather, ridiculously warm for almost November and the woods were filled wth glowing autumn colours.

Before the coffee and cake, our small group did two routes. First of all we cycled the Malden route. That was almost completely flat and consisted largely of straight paths, even with some asphalted cycle paths. In some seasons it would have been boring, but there were lots of American oaks, which had spectacular bright autumn colours, quite stunning.

The original plan was to have our coffee break after cycling the first loop, but we were done with that so soon that we quickly changed our minds. The Mook route was close and that was much more of a proper mountain bike route, full of twists and turns and with a reasonable amount of up and down, some of it quite steep. It was also nearly all in woodland, which was less spectacularly coloured than Malden, but nevertheless a delight to see.

After that, we were ready for our coffee. The café was notable for having a glider hung from the ceiling, all decorated with fairy lights. It is next to an airfield for gliders and 'de Zweef' almost means 'the glider'.

Although some of the other cyclists there were from the faster mountain bike groups, most were on their racing bikes. Why is our group so relatively small? Surely it is obvious that cycling in the woods is much more fun, and surely not everyone wants to go fast? And our season doesn't end in October, we keep going. What more could you want?