The easiest flight path to the Netherlands from North America often lands in Amsterdam. So naturally, this is where we landed to. Having already been to Amsterdam before, we didn’t stay very long and mainly spent our time at the Rijksmuseum. Ideally, we would have liked to visit the Van Gogh Museum, but the tickets were sold out when we tried to go.

The Rijksmuseum itself doesn’t have too many works from Van Gogh, but we did manage to see one of his many self portraits. Van Gogh is famous for his exceptional artistic talent, unique style characterized by bold colors and expressive brushwork, and the profound emotional depth he infused into his artworks. His tragic life story, including struggles with mental health, further adds to the fascination and enduring legacy of one of history’s most celebrated artists.

We also got to see some paintings from Rembrandt, who had the biggest presence of all the other artists in the museum, with an entire hall full of his paintings. Rembrandt is famous for his extraordinary mastery of light and shadow, and ability to capture the depth of human emotion in his paintings. His unrivaled skill in portraiture and storytelling through art has solidified him as one of the greatest painters in history. Rembrandt’s artistic legacy continues to inspire and influence artists and art enthusiasts worldwide.

Also featured there is the Cuypers Library, a historical space filled with over 35,000 books and periodicals related to the arts and history. Designed by the architect Pierre Cuypers, the library’s grand and ornate interior features intricate woodwork and stained glass windows. It serves as a significant resource for researchers, art historians, and anyone interested in exploring the museum’s extensive collection and Dutch cultural heritage.

Naturally, since Amsterdam is a coastal city, we found a nice spot for a seafood feast with shrimp, squid, salmon, crayfish, prawns, etc. We avoided stuff like raw oysters after our experience in Portugal.

What I noticed this time as opposed to the other times, was the abundance of flowers in the streets. It’s really cool that the rose bushes can climb up vertically against buildings. This kind of beautification is really lacking in most major North American cities.

A peculiar thing I noticed were these parking spots reserved for Polestar cars only. Not just any electric cars, but specifically from Polestar – a brand that most people haven’t even heard of.

Overall, we had a short but eventful time in Amsterdam, revolving around our visit to the Rijksmuseum, enjoying the food there, and walking around its charming streets.

See more of Amsterdam here

For best results, training should be considered a full time job. One’s entire lifestyle must be directed towards this objective. This lifestyle will also require following the correct training program religiously over time.

All athletes are limited more by their minds more than their bodies

One needs to develop a winning attitude. One needs to combine physical fitness with mental fitness.

This chapter touches on a few mental opportunities for success:

• Motivation – Competitive cycling demands an inner drive to excel. Everything in your life must be focused on the goal
• Dreams, goals, and missions – high performance starts with a dream. This turns into a goal, and ultimately the mission. Are you willing to make any sacrifice, ride any number of miles, or do any workouts deemed beneficial to achieving the goal?
• Believe to achieve – there are bound to be setbacks. One needs to remain confident, patient and mentally tough to power through. Relive each day’s wins, big or small to boost self-confidence
• Mental toughness – when we’re at our limits, fatigue sets in, and the mind tries to make compromises. A fully committed rider gets through it
• Patience – success won’t come quickly. We can introduce incremental change, like: sleeping 30 minutes earlier each day, cutting out 10% of junk food from our diets, etc.
• Commitment and tenacity – there are moments where fatigue says to stop, but the fully commited and tenacious rider finds a way to keep going
• Consistency and routines – the mind and body like regular and standard schedules. Things like jobs, families, and other responsibilities may interfere
• Your high-performance team – surrounding each champion is a network of family, friends, teammates, coaches, etc.

This topic can get rather deep, so there is value in reading other books on the subject and speaking with other successful professionals from all walks of life.

By improving one’s mental approach to cycling, their training and racing will benefit greatly too.

Next: Chapter 2 – Physical performance
Chapter list: Chapter summaries