“Didn’t you read about the weather in Holland?”

That’s what R, our bike tour guide, asked just after he exclaimed, “Those aren’t rain pants!” as he looked at my sodden jeans. We’d stopped to take refuge from the rain in a tunnel while R fixed his flat tire, the first of six (including three in one tire) on our first full day of biking and riding a barge from Amsterdam to Brussels. When I looked around, I saw that most of the other riders had rain jackets and rain pants. Some even wore rubber boots or sported waterproof shoe covers.

Despite the thunder and lightning, we couldn’t stop pedaling for anything but flats — or punctures, as our U.K. colleagues called them. We had to reach the city, almost 30 miles away, where our barge would dock.

Luckily, we were a good-natured group of cyclists. We’d assembled from the U.S. (only Iggy and me), Britain, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Spain. Everyone spoke at least a little English. There were also pods of French and German.

It was a wonderful trip!