I missed the 2012 and 2013 event and I'm not going to miss it this year. It's the 24th edition of the former SRXConnection Meeting or the 9th Monoconnection Meeting as I prefer to call it. Still a good number of SRXes turn out for the event, although actual numbers of roadworthy SRXes are probably shrinking. This is due to wear, neclect and accidents.

So it happens that I pull off from home on Friday morning at seven o'clock. Only a few minutes later the road turns wet and soon the rain sets in. Didn't they predict a sunny warm Friday? I'm in a rage and consider turning back. Stuttgart I set as my limit. Fortunately the rain does not last that far. After the rain the morning passes uneventful at a leisurely 110 km/h. No such luck in the afternoon, traffic jam after traffic jam. Hardly have I passed the last traffic jam when the Dutch pull up a bridge over a canal. Not again! At six o'clock, after 11 hours in the saddle, I arrive at the campsite. Some familiar and some new faces greet me with pleasure.

The meeting takes its usual course: Socializing on Friday evening loosened up by Martyn's performance as a singer, ride-out on Saturday and a buffet and band in the evening. Halfway through the ride we pay a visit to the Woudagemaal near Lemmer. The world's biggest and still operating steam-powered pump station. The buffet is prepared by one more of Lambert's Drenthe College staff. It's delicious as can be expected from a cook of Drenthe College. Similar adjectives can be lavished on Martyn and the Backsound Band who entertained us in the evenings.

And suddenly it's Sunday morning five thirty-five. I'm home by five o'clock, having left my glasses behind on a German motorway. This makes it my most expensive meeting.

Please note, next year we celebrate the 25 th anniversary! Don't miss it.

On Saturday afternoon we paid a visit to the Woudagemaal near Lemmer.

From wikipedia: The ir. D.F. Woudagemaal is a pumping station in the Netherlands, and the largest still operational steam-powered pumping station in the world. On October 7, 1920 Queen Wilhelmina opened the pumping station. It was built to pump excess water out of Friesland, a province in the north of the Netherlands.

In 1967, after running on coal for 47 years, the boilers were converted to run on heavy fuel oil. It has a pumping capacity of 4,000 m3 per minute. The pumping station is currently used to supplement the existing pumping capacity of the J.L. Hooglandgemaal in case of exceptionally high water levels in Friesland; this usually happens a few days per year.

Since 1998 the ir. D.F. Woudagemaal has been listed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site list.