What people miss about the Netherlands

An online TV station for Dutch speaking people who live and work in other countries recently ran a survey to ask what Dutch people most miss about their homeland.

The winner was Herring, which people like to eat raw. However, "Cycling" came in at sixth place overall. This was presented in the results as 6th of out of ten.

Actually, "Cycling" came in at 6th out of 213 categories nominated by the public, and another ten related categories helped to water down the "cycling" vote.

The other ten categories about cycling were "The bike", "Cycling without a helmet in the dunes", "Cycle-paths", "Mostly cycle-paths and cycling", "Going along with friends and family by bike", "Wonderful cycling with a warm jacket against the headwinds", "The cycling, my bike, riding through Amsterdam", "Good Cycle-paths", "The bike", "Family, croquettes, real chips, licorice, cycling and the Dutch language".

I think it's notable what sort of cycling people are thinking about. Recreational riding with friends and family; having a nice time on cycle-paths through the dunes and not just any cycle-path, but specifically good cycle-paths.

Cycle-paths go together with cycling in one of the categories. i.e. to cycle you need cycle-paths. What is meant of course is the very dense grid of high quality cycle-paths as seen in The Netherlands. The practical type of bike that most people ride in the Netherlands is a factor. Helmets are not wanted.

In response, a similar survey was run on the English language Dutch news website www.dutchnews.nl.

This website's audience is English speaking people who currently live and work in the Netherlands. They picked up the top ten categories from the Dutch language survey and asked what people from other countries who currently live and work in the Netherlands think they'll miss most if or when they leave the country. The winning category stands out by a mile.

I've mentioned it before, and I think it still remains true, that people cycle in the Netherlands because it's pleasant to cycle in the Netherlands. Dutch people taken to another place will often stop cycling because conditions don't make the experience of doing so nearly as pleasant elsewhere. People who come from another country to live here are likely to start cycling.

That people cycle in the Netherlands is predominantly because of the enhanced subjective safety brought primarily by cycle-paths and also by segregation of modes without cycle-paths. It's really not "rocket science" and it's certainly not some vague nation of "the culture". The good cycling infrastructure of this country makes a difference to how people live and increases the standard of living of people who live here.

You need the contrast between one place and another to understand this. I've lived in three different countries and found that each has special things to offer. The Netherlands is probably unique in that a slice of the population not selected for being interested in cycling would place cycling in a top ten list of this sort.

Of course, some Dutch people with little, or no, experience of living in other places take what they've got here entirely for granted. They really don't know how lucky they are.

The website also carried out the same survey for Belgian people. In Belgium, frieten (chips / fries) were the winner. Cycling did not appear in their top ten. However this is not surprising. The Belgians don't cycle anything like so much as the Dutch do so they won't miss it so much either. Every country has things which people miss. Beer and really good Indian vegetarian food come top of my list of things that I miss from the UK. It's been decades since I lived there, but I still miss the weather from the New Zealand. The Netherlands has its high cycling modal share despite the weather, not because of it.

Drents Fietsvierdaagse

We're now part way through the Drentse fietsvierdaagse. It's one of the largest cycling events in the Netherlands. Approximately 11000 people sign up to cycle four days in a row. It's not a race. Most people choose the shorter distances (40 km is the most popular distance) and it's about having a nice time, not about speed or covering huge distances.

The local TV station covers each day as it occurs. Here's their coverage of today's 40 km ride, which went North-West from Assen. You'll see the varied demographic of the riders, from very young to no longer quite so young but certainly still active, people with disabilities as well as the able bodied, sporty types (they tend to wear helmets and ride the 80 km, 100 km or the mountain bike route) as well as those who are just out to have a nice time. The footage includes people involved with the excellent organisation of the fietsvierdaagse. There are many, of course, and they work very hard. I know it's in Dutch and difficult to understand, but I think it's still worth watching:


The riders pass many villages, farms, churches, galleries and other places. Many of these places have something going on for the riders. Some of the places in the second video may look familiar to people who've been on our cycling holidays as we send people to some of the same destinations.

About one in 1450 Dutch people take part in the Drentse fietsvierdaagse. However, it is just one of over 60 such three or four day events around the country each summer. The rate at which people take part in mass cycling events in this country is one of the things that still amazes me.

Here's a film showing the opening yesterday. This includes the band which cycled around the centre of Assen to open the event:

Holiday - and a car free island.

We took a few days holiday last week. This time we went just a few km North from here and stayed on a campsite in the countryside. I'm not going to show you all our family holiday photos, but a few photos of what we saw are perhaps interesting.

Swinging bridge in small fishing village. Note that there is just one lane for cars. Drivers have to negotiate passage over the bridge, while leaving the cycle part of the bridge for cyclists.

This formed part of the cycle path which led from our campsite to the village.

Home-made sign outside another village telling the drivers the names of all the children who play on the streets which they are about to drive through.

We took a ferry to Schiermonnikoog, a small island (half the size of Guernsey) just North of the mainland. It's really a holiday island, accessible only by boat. It's almost completely car free - tourists are not allowed to take cars to the island. The main means of transport is the bicycle. This is a queue for the cycle hire at the ferry terminal on the island. The ferry takes a maximum of a thousand people at a time, and almost all of them join this queue for hire bikes.

The only obvious "cycle path" on Schiermonnikoog leads from the ferry terminal to the island itself. To the left of this path is a road used by service vehicles (for deliveries etc.) which do drive around the island, as well as the bus service between the ferry and the hotels in the village.

This cycle path is needed because there are a small number of commercial vehicles which come off the ferry and a couple of buses which take passengers to the village and directly to hotels. In our day on the island we saw just one private car in use. Therefore, apart from here, riding even on the "main road" is usually a car free experience. In other places other techniques are used to empty rural roads of cars.

Many small children ride their own bikes around the island.

More tourists enjoying cycling on the island.

Cycle parking near one of the coastal cafes on the island

A video giving some of our impressions of Schiermonnikoog. We had a great time. It's really a wonderful place for a relaxing holiday, especially with young children. But perhaps not really the place for a "cycling holiday". With a size of just 17 km by 4 km, it doesn't take long until you're back where you started !

Back on the mainland... One day, the boyfriend of my eldest daughter came to visit. He brought his bike by train and we met him from the nearest railway station, in a village 12 km away. Like all Dutch train stations, this one has a lot of cycle parking even though it serves a village of just 2800 people. There are enough spaces for one in every eleven residents to park a bike at the station (I also made a video). We've covered railway station parking many times before.

The journey between the railway station and our campsite was made entirely on rural cyclepaths like this one, which connect the entire country together, and maintain a level of subjective safety which makes cycling accessible to all.

Cycling as a revolutionary activity

A couple of weekends ago we cycled over to the anarchist festival in nearby Appelscha. It was a very peaceful event, alcohol and drug free, with friendly people who had gathered from all around Europe and further afield to share tasty vegan food, indulge in lots of interesting discussion and look through books and leaflets on an abundance of stalls.

A sign in the tea shop read "First a cup of tea, then the revolution". I thought this summed it up quite well. While there were very passionately held beliefs amongst the group, there was little, if any, enthusiasm for violent rebellion.

Don't get the wrong idea. I like this.

Anyway, there were other aspects which amused me. One group of people from Scheveningen are organising a DIY Bike Festival in August. It's very much an imported "bike culture" event. For instance, they're going to have a "critical mass". This is quite a strange thing to see in an established bike culture.

The term "critical mass" as applied to cycling originated from "Return of the Scorcher", a film made by Ted White in 1992 where one of the interviewees reflected on how a "critical mass" of cyclists seen in China were able to force their way through motorized traffic. It was an appreciation of this, and a desire to have a real cycling culture, which resulted in the term being used to describe the events which now take place in many cities around the world where cycling is under pressure. I wish the organisers all luck and success with their event, but can't help but feel that to bring this back to the Netherlands is to misunderstand what it is in the first place.

"Step 1. Remove the wheel from the
bicycle" - not if you ride the type
of bike that most people in an
established bike culture ride.

It was also possible to pick up a nicely made leaflet called "a rough guide to bicycle maintenance" which apparently dates back to "the 2003 portland zine symposium" (all lower case letters are theirs, not mine). The first step in the instructions for how to fix a flat is to "remove the wheel from the bicycle". This is again out of place. Where there is an established bike culture where bikes commonly have hub gears, hub brakes, chaincases and other practical things, it is more time consuming to remove a wheel and most people will first patch the tube without removing the wheel. It's the wrong lesson in this context.

Tradional Dutch style pumps by the door of
the cafe in Appelscha. Forgotten sign of a
real cycling culture.

Just inside the door of the cafe was a collection of traditional Dutch style bicycles pumps. If you had a flat tyre, you were actually in the right place here.

The presence of these pumps, and the collection of bikes behind the cafe, are sure signs of a real, thriving bicycle culture. However, it's a bike culture that the Dutch often don't even realise is special.

I like events for "cyclists". I like riding unusual bikes. I also like to see people doing what the people in Scheveningen are doing, in organising their event. I wish them the best of luck with it. However, what I really celebrate, and what makes cycling in the Netherlands extraordinarily special, is that normal people on bikes, in their millions, go about their everyday business by bikes.

We saw another example the same day on the bike path home from Appelscha. This chap was moving an implausibly large object by bike. It is not unusual to see this sort of thing going on. People simply use the tools they have to hand, and those tools are often bicycles:

On the way home we saw this man with an implausible large object on his bike. You don't need a special "cycling culture" for people to do this, when there are proper cycle-paths which make true mass cycling possible, this is just normal.

There is a danger here for the Netherlands. Many of the things which make this country special are not appreciated by the locals so much as they are by those of us who moved here in order to be a part of it.

If the Netherlands takes its cue for what a cycling culture should be from countries with less cycling, then it is likely that what will actually happen is that cycling will become more marginalized, just as it is in those other countries. In fact, just as it is to a greater or lesser extent in every country but this one.

In this country, cyclists are not an out-group. Cycling is not a revolutionary activity in the Netherlands. Nor does it need to be made into one.

If you want to achieve a real cycling culture in a country other than the Netherlands, there is no other country which provides a better example. Sadly, China is no longer the inspiration that it was when it inspired the film-maker in 1992.

Cycling sisters

David is away this weekend at Cycle Vision so I thought I would write the blog for a change. What he doesn't know won't harm him will it?

A few days ago I was cycling home from college and whilst waiting to cross the canal a young woman and a little girl drew up beside me. The little girl looked at me, smiled, and said "fietsen leuk" - "cycling is nice". I smiled, agreed with her  and asked if they had time to stop and talk to me, luckily they were happy to do so. We stopped on the cycle path and chatted for 10 minutes and I took photos.

I discovered that they are sisters, the older sister is 19 and has just graduated and the little sister is 5 and has Downs syndrome. They often cycle together on this special tandem which they have hired from the local council for 4 years. They pointed out the waist and foot straps which keep the little girl safely on the bike even if she decides to ride "no hands" or looses concentration. Both parents also regularly cycle with the little girl and they have bought her a trike for later on for independent cycling. It was nice to meet them both, I forgot to ask their names, so thanks to the lovely cycling sisters.

Dutch utility bikes are slow up hills ?

The Amstel Gold Race is the largest professional cycle race in the Netherlands. it is known to be "tough and selective, mainly because of the 31 hills that have to be climbed, some with angles as steep as 20% (Keutenberg)."

Since 2003, the race has finished at the top of the Cauberg - a hill which has a pretty steep profile. The red sections are in excess of 10%:

Anyway, this hill is of course not only used by racers. Also the mail has to be delivered. And the local postman, Ed den Houten, is probably one of the most experienced hill climbers anywhere. You can see him in action in this video, taking on Michael Boogerd:


The presenter talks about how if you say you can ride up the Cauberg at a good speed, that's worth telling people over a beer in a cafe. However, the fastest man up the Cauberg is not famous, and is one of the guests at the table...

At 2:15 in the video you see Michael Boogerd and the postman during the Amstel Gold Race in 2001.

As ever, this proves the point that speed is in the legs, not in the bike.

More on what makes for a proper reliable everyday bike - which doesn't have to be slow, and more on all those silly excuses for why cycling doesn't happen in your country, including the one about hills. Buy practical parts for bicycles at our webshop.

Queens Day recreational bike ride

Yesterday was Koninginneddag. It's a nice event, very sociable. Judy and I decided that instead of staying in Assen we'd go to the village of Vries this time, have a couple of beers at the cafes, listen to a friend's music, and take part in the cycle ride which one of the cafes had organised. This was 33 km long, to be taken at a fairly relaxed pace.

Judy riding through the "desert" a few km from Assen

People celebrating in the middle of no-where.

We stopped at a bench to eat our sandwiches. At the left end of the
bench is space for a tree to grow through.

The plaque on the bench reads "listen to nature". As this is a stiltegebied,
or "silent area", nature is all you can hear except for the sound of passing
cyclists.

It turned out to be a very good spot for people-watching.

So we made a video showing some of the other participants in the ride we were taking part in.

Many of the riders were quite elderly. Over 65s make a quarter of all their journeys by bike in the Netherlands. They don't only ride short distances to the shops and back, but also quite often go for tours in the countryside. Retired couples are often seen on matching "his and hers" bikes, and increasingly these days they'll buy electric bikes to make tours like this a little easier.

Some of the other riders on the same route

Teenagers going in the opposite direction

And of course there was also plenty of evidence of people at the opposite
 end of the age range also cycling today.

America - land of the bicycle (or, do the Dutch cycle because they're Dutch ?)

Two quotes from bicycle history publications:

"The bicycle industry thrived in the United States at the end of the 19th century. As many of ten percent of all Americans owned a bicycle. In 1896, 250 bicycle factories manufactured around one million bicycles in the USA - nearly half of total world production."

"1896 was the year in which cycling soared to a height of popularity among the middle classes of the motherlands of cycling. Britain and France had about a million cyclists each, Germany had half a million, and estimates from the USA range from two to four million."

At the beginning, the Netherlands was rather behind in bicycle usage. The first cycle path in the Netherlands was built quite early but the organisation behind it came into existence only after an Englishman who moved to the Netherlands found there wasn't an existing club to join.

It looks like a modern "Dutch bike" but actually it's an
American bicycle built in 1904. It's never really possible
or helpful to say that something with as many contributors
to its design came from one just one country. Important
innovations in bicycle design were made in many
countries.

Once upon a time, the USA was the world leader in cycling. Many of the features of Modern Dutch utility bicycles can be seen on the bicycle to the left, made in the USA in 1904, and now displayed in an excellent bicycle museum here in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands was quick to embrace the bicycle, but as you can see, it was not always the case that it was a leader in cycling. After the Second World War, policy in the Netherlands became dominated by catering for motor vehicles. In some places, existing cycle paths were removed to make more space for cars. The cycling rate in this country dropped precipitously, and the downward spiral would have continued had it not been turned around after protests which were not about 'cycling' but about the safety and rights of children.

There is nothing about the culture of the Dutch that makes them cycle. It's the environment which invites people to ride bikes. Dutch people who emigrate give up cycling and foreigners who settle in The Netherlands cycle far more than they did in the country they came from.

Many places in the Netherlands were transformed twice during the 20th century: First to accommodate motor vehicles and then to exclude them again (1 2 3 4).

The Netherlands' modern day success in cycling came not by accident or because "the Dutch have always cycled". Rather, it came through continued deliberate effort in policy, campaigning and infrastructure design.

The first paragraph is paraphrased from page 12 of the Dutch Bicycle Master Plan 1999, one of several interesting documents linked to from here. The second paragraph is similarly paraphrased from page 122 of "On Your Bicycle" by Jim McGurn.

Who cycles in the Netherlands ? Everyone cycles in the Netherlands !

Average number of bicycle rides per person per day for the entire Dutch population for all seasons combined broken down by age and sex

To a first approximation, everyone cycles in the Netherlands. The graph above shows how cycling rates vary with age and sex within the Netherlands, expressed as the average number of cycle journeys per day made per person.

It shows a number of things: that cycling is very popular with school age children, for instance, and that it drops off a bit for working age adults as for some the commute is "too far" by bike. Males between 20 and 50 years of age cycle the least. This is because they're most likely to have a job requiring a long commute. Women follow a similar pattern, but there is a jump in cycling between "25 to 30" and "30 to 40" as this is the age at which women have children, and having children allows women to return to cycling. This first happens with children on their mother's bike and later with women accompanying their children on their own bike before at eight years old they are able to ride unaccompanied to school. Men don't get this chance so often so men cycle less.

This is due to women being more likely to be at home looking after children than their male partners. As a result, they more often cycle with young children to school, or make shopping and other utility trips by bike. This is what leads to the Netherlands uniquely having 55% of trips overall by women. Men cycle less on average than women because they are more likely than women to be making the longest commutes in Europe, and doing so by other means of transport.

Cycling stays with people through their entire life. Even the over 75s are predominantly still active. They make an average of around 0.3 trips per day by bike, or more than two trips each week.

The Dutch use their bikes for exactly the same purposes as people in other countries use their cars

Here we see the reasons for bicycle journeys. Only 16% of all cycle journeys are commutes. The largest percentage, 22%, are shopping trips, 18% are school journeys, 14% are social, and 11% are to go visiting.

This level of cycle usage, across both sexes, all ages, and for all purposes, requires infrastructure which has a high level of subjective safety.

But let's go back to that figure of just 16% of cycle journeys being for commutes. In all too many places, commuting rate figures are touted as "modal share". Actually, commutes make for just a small percentage of total journeys in any country, and that should be the case for cycling too. However, in many countries there is not the required subjective safety for everyone to cycle. In these countries, promoting cycling as just something for commuters and ignoring the other 84% of potential cycle journeys removes the need to make conditions suitable for everyone to cycle. This can never be the route to mass cycling on the scale that it is seen in the Netherlands.

I am not impressed with people touting "commuting" modal shares because they have missed out the big picture. What is important is that everyone should be able to make every type of journey by bike. We should be cautious of figures designed to impress which emphasize the easier demographics to attract to cycling - one of which is the confident young adult, often but not exclusively male, riding to work and back.

These figures came from the same source as last week's post, the Fietsersbond. Marc has also written about these statistics.

Joining in with the mass. Just how much do the Dutch cycle, and why do they do it ?

Use of different transport modes by time of day (in millions of journeys).
Fiets=bike, Auto=car, OV=public transport, Lopen=walking

New figures from the Fietsersbond throw light on the astonishing number of journeys per day made by bike in the Netherlands. The graph gives a picture of what's going on, but there's also some more detailed text accompanying it:

Dutch people cycle a lot. Of course there is more cycling in the summer than in the autumn and winter. But cycling rates also vary between days of the week. On an average working day, 5 million people make an average of 14 million cycle journeys. Monday and Thursday are the top days with a million more journeys than on the other days of the week. On Saturday, 11.5 million cycle journeys are made, and on Sunday 6.5 million.

Through the week, between 8 in the morning and 6 in the evening, more than a million cycle journeys are made each hour. The high point is between 8 and 9 in the morning with 1.75 million cycle journeys during the hour. In that hour, many journeys to work and school are made, and more bicycles are in use than cars. Cycling on a typical week-day:

Time	Description	Total
8:00	By 8 in the morning, 750000 cycle journeys have already been made. Most of them are to work.	0.75 M
8:30	Most children are now at school. Another 450000 cycle journeys pass in half an hour.	1.2 M
9:00	Most adults are now at work, and college students are now on the way.	2.5 M
12:00	Another 2.5 million cycle journeys during the morning for a variety of reasons.	5 M
13:00	1.5 million more rides. Primary school children (5 - 11 years old) cycle home for lunch.	6.5 M
14:00	Another 1.2 million cycle trips pass in the early afternoon.	7.7 M
16:00	Most children have left school, and they cycle to friends, sportsclubs etc. In the last two hours, 2.5 million cycle journeys were made.	10 M
17:00	Another 1.2 million cycle journeys pass in the late afternoon. Many people make shopping trips and school children head home from sports clubs. The evening rush hour is about to start	11.2 M
18:00	Most people are now home. Another 1.2 million cycle journeys have passed.	12.4 M
24:00	Another 1.75 million cycle journeys are made in the evening. Many club (sport) cyclists go for rides, night school students ride, club members meet, and people go out on the town by bike.	Over 14 M

In the day, 5 million cyclists have made around 14 million cycle journeys.

Nearly a fifth of all cycle trips are to or from school. Children
account for more than 2.5 million of the cycle journeys made
each day. Over half of all trips to primary school and a
majority of journeys to secondary school are by bike. It is
enabled in part by well designed complex intersections.

The scale of cycling in the Netherlands is quite phenomenal. If you go out, at any time of the day or night, you're not unusual, but are joining with a mass of other cyclists making their journeys. It's impossible to travel far on a bike without seeing other cyclists. I don't think I've ever made it further than 200 metres from my home (in a 100 m long cul-de-sac) before seeing at least one bike. Riding a bike is not in any way a political statement. It's just normal.

The figures above are national figures, applying to the whole country. The Netherlands has a population of 16 million people. That's just twice the population of London or New York. However, the cycling rate of the country as a whole is far higher than that of cities in other countries. By comparison, treating the country as a "city", the people here are spread out at a remarkably low density of just 400 per square kilometre, vs. 4800 per square kilometre in London or 10000 people per square kilometre in New York.

However, despite having the advantage of high density and the resulting short journey lengths, neither of these cities manage more than a small fraction of the cycle usage of this whole country. London has only around 2% of journeys by bike, and New York even less at only around 0.6% of commutes. In neither of those cities would you find masses of school children riding at any time. (more about population density and cycling)

Inviting infrastructure
The difference comes down to infrastructure which invites you to cycle. Cycling is not a difficult thing to decide to do in the Netherlands. It comes naturally because cycling is so convenient and so safe.

This high percentage of all trips by bike is only possible because almost everyone cycles in the Netherlands. If only a limited subset of the population ride bikes then it will remain a minority pursuit no matter how enthusiastic that minority might be. In order to achieve true mass cycling this must be a means of transport attractive to the whole population.

Read also a three day later blog post about the wide cycling demographic of the Netherlands. A week after this blog post was published, Mark Wagenbuur made a video based upon this post. Several other blog posts detail what brought this level of cycling about. Key to it all is of course a high degree of subjective safety and making cycling into a convenient mode of transport.

Amsterdam video

A nice promotional video from Amsterdam. You'll see a good cross-section of cyclists. It could, of course, be anywhere in the Netherlands.

I first saw this video a while ago, but didn't get around to putting it on the blog. Judy saw it (again) today and said she liked it - good enough reason to put it here in case any of you had not seen it before.

Cycling in church

It's Sunday, so why not a church story ? Yes, this video shows people riding a variety of bikes in a church.


Wilfred posted a couple of days ago about a recent bicycle party organised by a local bakfiets specialist. An event in the church next to the shop.

In the distance at the end you can see Wilfred's Mango, Velox Incendia, which still impresses me every time I see it. BTW, Wilfred, it's ready for collection after yesterday's service.

Also there are a variety of other interesting machines including a variety of bakfietsen, an old Flevotrike, and a Drymer prototype.

Previously I posted about people cycling to church.

More music

Amsterdamize picked up on this song by the band pEp here in the Netherlands. It's got a chorus about how they can "Pedal towards freedom, in the wind and the rain, it feels heavenly good". Nice.

I thought about posting this on here this morning, but was reminded as the last music I put on the blog was on played in the supermarket a few minutes ago evening.

The more important news that Amsterdamize reports on is that there has been a recount of the number of km of cycle path. I've suspected for some time that the official figure of 17000 km was an under-estimate. The new official figure is 29000 km. It's still just an estimate. I've noted before that while Assen claims to have just over 100 km of cycle path, the people who keep them clear of snow and ice in the winter manage to cover over 200 km.

The eternal uphill

Yesterday evening's ride home from work was a bit of a trial. Headwind the whole way again. It may be (very nearly) flat here, but flatness means nothing to get in the way of the wind, and headwinds are much worse than the odd hill. They're like an eternal uphill - you don't get to go down the other side.

On the way I came across this family on the way home from somewhere. They have three children. Dad was giving the youngest child on his own wheels a bit of help while Mum had the very youngest on a seat in front of her on her bike.

I've not idea how much of the 30 km from Groningen to Assen they were riding, but they felt safe because the cars were on the left of the trees.

Fietsvierdaagse

The Drents Fietsvierdaagse was last week. This is a four day recreational cycle ride which has been run every year for forty years. There are several start places, including here in Assen. This year there were 13000 participants. 11000 of them rode every day, and the others were people who joined in for a day or two.

There are several rides each day, all recreational rather than races (there are plenty of other events for those who want to race), and this video from our local broadcaster focusses mainly on people doing the "RollOnRoute" ride aimed mainly at people with disabilities and their family and friends. Cycling is very much an inclusive activity.

The routes go through a lot of villages, and of course all the cafes on route do great business. Lots of places open especially, and there are stalls selling all kinds of things.

We took part last year and enjoyed it a lot, but I was working this year and sadly couldn't spare the time.

You'll see a nice wide demographic in the video. Men and women of all ages, able bodied and people with disabilities, out there having fun. Sadly the event was marred by quite bad weather this year, but this didn't seem to dampen too many people's enthusiasm.

There are also videos and still photos from other days. Also, there is the official fietsvierdaagse website

School Triathlon

The circle shows the 20 km radius from within which children
cycle to school in Assen. The green spots are approximate
locations where friends of our children live and from where
they cycle to school. The red line shows the triathlon route

We're nearing the end of the school year and school activities are leaning towards the less serious. Yesterday my youngest daughter took part in a triathlon. All the children in the first year of education at her secondary school (most are now thirteen) were given a pink sheet of instructions with directions to a running track and swimming pool roughly a 35 km round trip distance. It is, of course, expected that every child will have arrived at school by bike and be able to take part in the activity.

The instructions start "at the front of the school, by the cycle parking". Part of her school's cycle parking is shown at the left. There are more cycle parking spaces than students.

Perhaps some of the more sporty minded children rode quickly, but I'm quite sure that for many children the journey was made at a more relaxed pace while talking with friends. At secondary school, constant supervision isn't usually necessary, but during the triathlon there were teachers out on the route at controls every few km to make sure no-one was taking a short cut !

Last year my daughter was still in primary school at this time of year. The last primary school cycle trip was a 150 km cycle camping tour. At that age they were accompanied by teachers or parents at all times when cycling.

Staying on the school theme... Last year I made a video of primary aged children going to school by bike on a perfectly normal (though cold) morning. That video has now had over 20000 views. It's worth seeing again:

Explanatory captions on this video are only visible if it's played on a computer and not on a mobile device.

While we knew that children cycled to school before we moved over here, we had no idea about the number of other school trips that they made by bike.

School bags dangling from flag poles are a common sight right now. When school is over, this is a way of announcing the fact.

While most live closer, some secondary students ride a 40 km round trip each day just to get to school.

Cycling as medicine

Fietsersbond, together with medical insurance company Zilveren Kruis Achmea, have a new book called "Fietsen als medicijn", or "Cycling as medicine".

A quick translation of part of the website:

"The book is about the relationship between the bicycle and health. Obesity, hart and cardio-vascular illness, diabetes and depression are at the top of the list of preventable problems. They cause much personal harm and result in high costs in health care. But there is one "all on one" house, garden and kitchen medicine: The bike. In the book, normal people tell how cycling makes them healthier and experts put the medical value of the bicycle in plain language, both for prevention and cure."

They go on with a few examples. e.g.

• Housewife Monique Ilbrink (120 kg / 260 lbs ) takes her children to school in a bakfiets. 'If I didn't cycle, I'd get fatter'"
• Former gardener Peter van de Ven cycled after his two heart attacks to become fit again. He is addicted to cycling and now seldom uses a car.
• Marco Meijerink tells how he can keep his insulin level better under control by cycling.
• Dr Willem Heckman uses the bike as an anti-depressive. 'A daily round trip of 40 km works just as well as a pill, but without side-effects'

There are other health stories on the blog, including how cycling saves employers money due to lower sickness costs.

Update January 2010: This book has now been placed in thousands of doctors' waiting rooms in the Netherlands.

Free bicycle for commuters

I really can't add anything to this story from the fietsberaad, so I'm repeating it verbatim below:

The minor road N302 in Harderwijk will soon be overhauled completely. A bicycle transfer point is provided for motorists willing to cycle the last stretch to work during construction operations. In addition they will be provided with a free bicycle.
plaatje

Overall 150 people will have a transfer bicycle on loan during work on the N302. In return they are expected to cycle to work from the transfer point at least three times a week (in a five-day working week) over fourteen months. Anyone meeting these requirements is allowed to keep the bicycle (at a value of 700 Euro) afterwards. The electronic entrance to the bicycle shed registers daily who is retrieving and returning his bicycle. Participants may choose from eight different types of bicycle. Participation is completely free. The underlying reason is that supplying and maintaining a bicycle transfer point is expensive, but a shuttle bus is far more expensive. By now over 150 people have applied for the free bicycle.

Cyclists do quite well over here when there are road works. We've more examples, including how road lanes are reserved for cyclists during road works.

See it for yourself. Cycling holidays in Drenthe.

If you're a regular reader of this blog you'll know that we upped sticks and moved here from the UK because it is the best place in the world to cycle. There is no-where else with the number of cyclists that this part of the Netherlands has, and no-where else with such wonderful facilities for cycling. Assen, where we now live, is the capital of the "cycling province" of the Netherlands, Drenthe. Groningen, a few km North, is the city with the highest cycling rate in the world.

The weather in May is generally marvellous for cycling, and it carries on right through the summer. Last Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day. Our children rode with their friends to the beach, while Judy and I went out to plan a new route for our cycling holiday customers. We took a few photos and a bit of video while we were doing it. As ever, we barely saw any cars, and also as ever, there were thousands of other people cycling !

If you want to see it for yourself, come on one of our cycling holidays.

We passed many cafes, pancake restaurants, and also you often find people selling things informally outside their homes.

In this case, an old bakfiets was parked next to a small country road, loaded with countryside produce.


A country estate on the route. This is the location of one of several museums on this route, and this location also has a petting zoo and a cafe.


This windmill still produces grain and oil in the traditional way. You can look around and buy the produce made in the window

You can also see it in the video.


We've several other blog posts showing cycling holiday routes and destinations, and a few more which you might like under touring and recreation routes.

Visiting the dentist

This cycle-path has been improved since the photo was taken

A few days back I had reason to visit the dentist. My dentist is very pleasant, but I can't say that visiting her is my favourite activity. I'm sure you have no desire to read about my teeth, but I thought the journey there and back might be of interest.

Most of it is on cycle paths like that shown in the first photo. The road next to the cycle path in this case is not a through road, but provides access only to the few houses along this stretch. the road ends at the point of the hill in the photo, just a few hundred metres from where I took the photo, but the bike path carries on.

The dental surgery is about 2.5 km by bike from my home. It would be slightly further by car, as I'd have to start off by heading in the wrong direction for a short distance.

My route by bike is mainly along the side of the canal and on very smooth and wide cycle paths. There are no big roads to cycle on at all

At this point the motorway junction is on the left, as is a major road. However, I ride on the access road here where there are no vehicles except those visiting businesses along here.

This is the only set of traffic lights which I come across by cycling to the dentist. A specific cycle traffic light which stops all the traffic on this multi lane road so that I can cross safely and peacefully.

On the other hand, If I had driven to the dentist I would have to pass through six major traffic light junctions like this one. This would make the journey take a lot longer than it does by cycling, and of course it would be somewhat less pleasant too.

As you see, there is a cycle path here too, so it's possible to cycle this way. However, you then have to go through all the same sets of lights, so I would not normally go this way.

So, back to the bike route. The last two photos were taken on the ride back home.

It just so happened that I passed the head and deputy head teachers from the primary school that my youngest daughter attended last year. They're on their way home, riding together along the bike path by the canal. Quite a common site. It's not only children who cycle to school. Driving to work would be rather inconvenient for these teachers as there is no-where for them to park a car.

This cycle-path has been improved since this photo was taken

And now we're very close to home, just the last little stretch along the canal and then I have two hundred metres of residential road to ride along.

Happily, my dentist didn't hurt me at all, and given such a lovely route it was quite a pleasant outing overall.

And why show this ? Well, it's just a typical journey. We didn't buy our home for its convenience for the dentist. Choosing a dentist came later. However, set off on any journey for any reason and it's probably going to be rather like this.

This map shows the route by bike in red and by car in blue. Only the traffic light on the far left has any relevance when you cycle. That's the one shown in the photo above. The two others on the direct route back into the city centre before the major junction default to green for bikes.

I also posted about a shopping expedition a few months back. Making mundane journeys like this attractive by bike goes a long way to attracting people to cycle for a large percentage of journeys.