“The weather underground is fabulous!” effused my subterranean guide who confessed to being a Dutch Freek.
Freek looked me in the eye, tapped me on the shoulder and said with a smile: “If you get lost or disorientated, just ring the bell on your handlebars. It carries for a mile down here. A little tinkle can save your life.”
Freek Vermeulen is an underground cycling expert and expedition leader. His office is a 10km trail beneath Valkenburg in the south-west part of the Netherlands. The entrance to the complex of limestone mine shafts and man-made tunnels is reached by Holland’s only ski chairlift. Europe’s only public subterranean cycle path happens to be directly below Holland’s highest point, Wilhelmina Tower, which overlooks the province of Limburg and commands wonderful views of the other Low Countries.
We began cycling down a country lane behind the tower. There were about 12 of us. I had joined a group of college students. Freek led the way. Ger Jansen, the other guide, cycled up beside me.
“The Romans were the first to mine the caves for limestone or marl. Most of the local buildings are built from it. The tradition died out at the turn of the century,” Freek told us as we freewheeled down a hill.
“The caves were used once in a while by the army for survival training,” he went on as he un-padlocked a large cast-iron gate. We were signalled through. “They were going to waste,” said Freek, his voice beginning to echo. “So we turned the tunnels into an activity centre with a difference.” He banged the gate shut, and we pedalled into the blackness.
I stayed at the back. All I could see were lights on the side of the tunnel walls. At their widest, the tunnels are about 1.5m, at their narrowest about 60cm. Maximum headroom is about 1.4m. You quickly develop a widow’s hump cycling in Valkenburg.
Ahead, I could hear screams of terror. From behind the unmistakable sound of PR. Ger provided a wallface-by-wallface commentary. As far as sightseeing tours are concerned, there were few sights to appreciate. The most memorable was perhaps the sight of a large pair of buttocks belonging to a girl called Doris which, with a heart-stopping screech of brakes, suddenly loomed out at me from the pitch dark as we came to a T-junction.
“You have to get off and push sometimes as the roofs can be low and the turnings quite tight,” said Ger as we rounded another bend to be confronted with absolutely nothing. I could just make out the occasional beam overhead and architecturally uninspiring roof support. Apart from that, it was just wall after wall of damp and not particularly attractive limestone picked out by the beam from my front light.
Occasionally we passed some graffiti and some bloodstains. “Your eyes soon get used to the lack of light and the sights can get pretty spooky,” added Ger as we bumped through a narrow stretch with a low ceiling.
Guided walking tours through the caves are also available, although people with respiratory or heart problems as well as abnormally high levels of common sense are advised not to try to journey down to not quite the centre of the earth.
An escorted ride on the cycle path takes around 90 minutes, depending on the amount of punctures and how many times you black out when you hit your head on the ceiling. The deepest you go is 30m.
Only 20 minutes from Maastricht, Valkenburg is a popular holiday resort. The Therma 2000 spa is not far away. There is also the Gemeentegrot cave, which sheltered 15 000 people during World War II, a comprehensive selection of Roman catacombs and the Drielandenlabyrinth (The Maze of the Three Counties), which is said to be the biggest in Europe. But the main attractions of the region are underground.
Freek talks up the facilities on offer below. “It is an all-weather indoor complex. The temperature is a constant 14°C and it never rains. You can cycle to your heart’s content every day of the year. You will never ever see a cloud in the sky.”
We saw a light. It grew larger as we got closer. Blinking and gulping in the fresh air, we had thankfully made it back to the surface. No one was missing. No one had thrown a claustrophobic wobbly. Our bracing potholing-on-two-wheels adventure was over. Or so we thought.
As we wheeled our bikes back to the shop and handed over our helmets, Freek announced, “Now you have to get back into town.
“You can go back down the same way as you came up. By the cable railway. That will take you two minutes and is the best way to enjoy the only view in the Netherlands. But the quickest and most fun way is to go down by the only toboggan run in the Netherlands. Then you can say you have done the three most exciting and thrilling activities you can do in the Netherlands.”
With that, I was made to sit on a bristly doormat and was pushed down a chute that looked like an elongated children’s park slide which had been soldered to a hand-me-down helter-skelter. The thrill lasted about 20 seconds. It was not that invigorating. My cheeks were indeed rosy by the end of it. But not the ones in view. - Saturday Star