Sunday ride--as it should be

We did the Amerongen loop today, which yielded me 72 miles (18.8 average). That's more like it, also because the route has a couple of "hills" in it and generally runs through terrain that isn't always completely flat. It's a pretty route also, as the other three members of the group (all new to it) remarked several times along the way. Through Hilversum and Soestdijk, you get the first little bump in Soest (Soester Eng). Then after the Amersfoort Zoo comes another little uphill section (Amersfoortse "Berg" ["berg" means mountain, hence the quotation marks]), after which you pass Leusden and enter Scherpenzeel through the backdoor. From there you can almost see the high point of the ride. I wasn't so good on the Amerongse "Berg": tried to do the whole thing standing up (I think it was 39x15), but the last 200m I had to sit down, and go up one cog. One guy who may have been doing hill repeats (we saw him turn around as we started our way up) actually chased me down (the horror: he had hairly legs and was big). When I turned around in Amerongen to wait for the others, Olaf and Wim were already in sight. I think it was a breakthrough moment for Olaf, who has had trouble on the hills. Coffee stop in Leersum, then back at a decent clip past Ginkelduin (third little climb), Maarnse Grintweg, Austerlitz ("climb" number four), Huis ter Heide, Den Dolder, Maartensdijk, and Hilversum. The other three had not been on the bike since last Sunday--I don't know how they do it. Beautiful day also: cool in the morning, and I rode in two layers of long sleeves. But at the coffee stop the knee warmers and the vest could come off, and we just had our post-Sunday ride pancake (giant, Dutch style; with bacon) in the sun, across the street from our house. If I could only get these guys to start the ride at 8 (this would require some interference with their active social lives, perhaps an unreasonable thing to ask--perhaps), we would also be back in time to enjoy a full afternoon of, eh, recovery mostly, I'm afraid.