{"id":191573,"date":"1963-09-07T00:25:00","date_gmt":"1963-09-06T22:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/?p=191573"},"modified":"2026-09-21T21:57:58","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T19:57:58","slug":"theo-megens-cycled-6000-kilometres-1963","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/en\/theo-megens-cycled-6000-kilometres-1963\/","title":{"rendered":"Theo Megens Cycled 6,000 Kilometres"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-group\">\n<p class=\"oa-subtitle has-large-font-size\"><strong>Tubantia, 7 September 1963<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>AALTEN \u2014 At half past one on Friday afternoon, 24-year-old Theo Megens got off his bicycle outside his parents\u2019 home at <a href=\"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/plaats\/aalten\/patrimoniumstraat\/6-8\/\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Patrimoniumstraat 6<\/a> in Aalten. For Theo, this marked the end of a 6,000-kilometre cycling journey that had begun on 29 May.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Theo, who clearly had cycling in his blood, had achieved his goal. He had set out to reach the Arctic Circle and to see the midnight sun. It had made a deep impression on him, although naturally he had encountered many other sights during such a long journey.<\/p>\n<p>The hundreds of colour slides Theo made during the trip bore witness to that and were certainly worth seeing.<\/p>\n<p>He was happy to talk about his experiences in Scandinavia. He had great appreciation for the hospitality of people in the north.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNaturally, I was largely dependent on myself: sleeping in a little tent and cooking my own food. But the support of local people was extremely welcome,\u201d Theo said.<\/p>\n<p>In Narvik, Norway, he met several fellow Dutch travellers who were touring by car.<\/p>\n<p>There had of course been difficulties as well, mostly technical. In total he wore out six bicycle tyres: four rear tyres and two front tyres. Replacements had to be sent from the Netherlands because he could not obtain them in the far north.<\/p>\n<p>Among the many souvenirs he spread out on his mother\u2019s table was a genuine reindeer skin.<\/p>\n<p>Theo had no definite plans for another journey yet, but one thing seemed certain: this would not be his last.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1963, 24-year-old Theo Megens of Aalten completed a 6,000-kilometre bicycle journey to the Arctic Circle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":54319,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-191573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191573"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191614,"href":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191573\/revisions\/191614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/oldaalten.nl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}