About me

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Last update:  27-May-2004

I have waited quite some time to add a page that's about me. Maybe you like to know who is the man behind the site or maybe you are just interested in tulips. Anyway this is my story and a little bit of my live.
If I knew building a site costed me so much time and effort I maybe never started this. Now that I have reached this point I think I just have to go on until I am too old to cycle or until I find a decent wife and start a family ha ha.

 

My name is Edwin Seldenthuis,born in the NW of Holland (Den Helder) in 1963. As everyone in Holland I had my first bicycle around 6 years. Cycling was just a way to go to school or town.
Years later I discovered that cycling is more than just moving on 2 wheels. Around 1980 Dutch racers (team Ralley) had lots of succes in the Tour de France and since then I was fan and began to like cycling. In 1981 I got my first racing bicycle, a present from my father.
During my study (mathematics) cycling and camping was a cheap way of going on holliday and in 1982 I had my first cycling holliday with a study friend in the hills of Belgium and Germany.
In the years after we have cycled a lot in France and there I learned to know my first serious climbs like Alpe d'Huez, Mont Ventoux, Port d'Envalira. Allthough my friend was a better climber I was not to far behind and in these years I learned a lot of things like using your gears well, control your breath and how to read a climb.


Me on Corsica (France)

 In 1988 It was the first time that I cycled for a holiday with a Dutch cycling organisation (Pyrenees). It was nice to met other fellow mountain climbers. It was quite tough doing a coast to coast tour through the Pyrenees in 6 days but I discovered that I was a reasonable climber which is offcourse also one of the reasons that I kept on cycling.
Since then every year I have one or more cycling hollidays in groups. Cycling is for me discovering a country in a nice way, physical tension, mental relaxation and achieving goals, being outdoor,...
I have cycled in most mountainous parts of W Europe: Alps, Spain, Central France, Dolomites, Vosges, Black Forrest, Corsica,...
I also organise a annual cycling week with some good friends. Most of the time in a unknown areas in one of the Alps-countries (France, Germany, Switzerland or Austria).

Since 1992 I collect data of passes and climbs. In 1993 I started to setup a database and a presentation program with climbs higer than1000m and all cycled passes. In 1994 I did the Marmotte and since then I measure climbs with an altimeter (watch) and later (1998) with a cyclo computer and voice recorder. I correct the altitudes with known heights and put a rough profile in my database. I discovered that a lot of profiles are different from my profiles. Also I discovered many mistakes in famous profile sources like the known french Altigraph books. Offcourse I realise that also my data contains mistakes but doing the whole process very accurate I have lots of faith in my data. Since 2000 I have my own site.

In the future I like to finish my database: at least adding all missing passes and heavy climbs and try to find the missing data. I expect that in the end about 3000 top names (and 5200 climbs) will be in the database. My last project is to connect my database with my site which will be finished at the end of 2003. My ideal would be to have one big European database maintained by a several enthousiastic cyclists.


The dunes near the sea. A area with a lot of cycle paths.

This is my cycling territory. I live in Alkmaar between the dunes and the lowlands - the typical Dutch areas below sealevel with there mills and lots of water. It's pretty flat, as flat as a pooltable we say in Holland. The highest top is in the dunes, about 20m. (but be aware I come from below sealevel!). The highest % of this giant is about 6% although a sign says 9%.
So now you understand that I like to the mountains. The difficulty for me is that all cycling in the mountains can only be on holidays. A weekend to the Alps is just to far away. So about 3 weeks a year I cycle in the mountains.
And .......if you live in a nice cycling area and like to invite me to have cycling trips don't hesitate. I will be gratefull.

If you have questions please mail me