I went for a ride through the countryside yesterday. It took just an hour and a half to make a ride from home, through one of the heaths nearby, and back again. In Drenthe, it's very easy to find somewhere quiet to go for a few minutes:
There are many stiltegebieden or "silent areas" within easy cycling distance of Assen. Even though they are just a short distance from the city, they are about as quiet as it is possible for anywhere to be. The cycle paths don't stop at the city boundary, but continue in all directions through the countryside, so every location can be reached without having to ride on busy roads.
On the way out of Assen I came across a bridge which was opening for a boat. There was soon a queue.
Heading into the heath. This is the start of the stiltegebied. When you stop, you have only the sounds of nature to listen to.
If passing cyclists make the cycle path not quite quiet enough, there are places to walk to and seats to sit on where it is even quieter.
It's like being in the middle of no-where
It was a very nice day, so lots of people were cycling.
Cycling is something the entire population does. On average, Dutch people use bicycles just short of 6 times a week.
Even though this is only a 15 km ride from Assen, it feels remote, as if it is much further away.
The building in the background is in the city.
Some of the cycle paths in nature areas are made of crushed shells. When you read of the 29000 km of cycle paths in the Netherlands, note that recreational paths like this are not included in the total.
Some have been upgraded to concrete.
All sorts of people ride. Here a group of women on racing bikes have stopped at a cafe.
My bike on the other side of a field full of poppies
We came to live in this part of the Netherlands because we found it to be both beautiful and wonderful to cycle through. Our routes go through all the most scenic parts of the area. Book a holiday and you can experience it for yourself.
Judy and I went out yesterday evening to plan a new cycle holiday route. It's a time consuming thing to do as we have to stop at every corner and note what is around so that unambiguous instructions can be written for our clients. Nevertheless, I also managed to get a bit of video of Judy as she rode.
We now have a new shortish family friendly route to one of the swimming beaches in Drenthe. On the way, it passes over another "stiltegebied" or "silent area" where there is little, if any, noise other than that from nature. There are ten of these areas in Drenthe, most of them not far away to cycle. This is possible because the noise from traffic has been dealt with remarkably well.
Anyway, we're still taking booking for holidays this year. If you're interested, get in touch with Judy.
Last Saturday, Judy and I rode past the local beach while planning a cycling holiday route. As usual, virtually everyone there had arrived by bike, and as the weather was so nice, lots of people were there.
The Knooppuntennetwerk is a network of numbered points on recreational cycle routes which is spreading across the Netherlands. It was the idea of a Belgian mine engineer called Hugo Bollen. After the coal mines closed in the area one after another he took on the task of designing a recreational cycle route system in his province of Limburg. The first network was created there in 1995.
Since then, it has spread within Flanders and been adopted by many Dutch provinces, starting mainly in the south.
These networks don't necessarily give the shortest routes between two points, nor the smoothest cycle paths. Their intention is to provide a pleasant countryside route for touristic purposes. They have been a huge success. Brabant spent between half and one million euros on putting up the signs (the cycle paths already existed) and has claimed a benefit of 13 million euros per year from cycle tourism as a result.
The video, made by Mark Wagenbuur, shows how the new signage and network is used.
Of course any signage, however good, doesn't tell you where to ride to or why you want to ride there. We use the network to some extent on our cycling holiday routes, but the knooppuntennetwerk in Drenthe is not yet complete, and they've not started in Groningen. In any case, not all the routes or destinations that we like to include on our routes will ever be on this network. As a result, while it is a very good system we can't rely solely on it in order to plan routes. However, if you come along to Assen on holiday you'll make use of all the types of signs shown in the video. There are a few examples on the blog of what our holidays are like.
Next week we have cycling holiday customers who asked for recumbent bikes to ride. They were delivered today so Judy and I took them for a test ride around Assen.
Judy tried quite a lot of bikes and trikes before settling on her new touring bike. To see what she ended up with, click here
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
Judy and I went for a another great ride through the countryside yesterday afternoon and having heard this wonderful Irving Berlin song sung by Ada Jones (recorded back in 1909), I made a bit of video to go along with it. As I have mentioned many times before, it's always a pleasure to cycle here precisely because you get to "keep away from the fellow who owns an automobile" virtually all the time, as you do on all of our holiday routes.
We were actually on the way to see the men's Ronde van Drenthe pass through Westerbork, which I also made a video of, though you see much more in the local TV station's coverage. Most of the area is quite flat, but the race route includes a 23% hill.
The winner was the Italian Maurizio Biondo who averaged 43.23 km/h over the 205 km course. Second place was taken by the local competitor Kenny Van Hummel. His team's car is often to be seen parked just a few hundred metres from our home.
Our speeds were a little slower. Speed really wasn't the point.
We've had a few very icy looking photos and videos on here lately, but it's not always cold here. We get much warmer summers than where we used to live in the UK.
Assen is quite a way from the coast, but nevertheless we have some really lovely places to swim in the summer. The photo is of one of over 30 artificial beaches which are within Drenthe, some of which are on our cycling holiday routes.
You can swim here surrounded by woods. The water is safe as it is not too deep and it is regularly checked for quality.
If you come for a cycling holiday in the summer, you may want to bring your swimming gear too. It's quite normal to arrive at the beach by bike. In another post there is a photo of bike parking at the beach.
Anneke, a regular contributor to this blog, drew my attention to this song, "Op Fietse" ("On a Bike"). It was recorded in 1997 by a Drents band called Skik. They are singing about how wonderful it is to cycle here in Drenthe, describing various parts of the province, how they can do whatever they want cycling around with the wind in their wheels, without a care in the world. Riding up to the German border before riding back again, across heath and through forests, along the side of canals. Wonderful. It really is just like that here. The song is in the Drents dialect, and the lyrics are here.
In 1997 this song made it into the top 40 here in the Netherlands.
I realised on hearing this that I had heard the harmonica before. It's in this video which was amongst a number of videos promoting cycling that I put on my website a few years back.
After some wonderful pictures of people having fun on their bikes, the titling on this one says "As we like sitting on the bike so much, why stand still in a traffic jam ? Cycling to work - a good thing."
If you're interested in experiencing for yourself what it's like to cycle in Drenthe, the cycling province of the Netherlands, where cycling is something so pleasant that it encourages people to sing about it, please take a look at our cycling holidays.
From Friday 9th to Monday 12th of January we are organising a weekend winter warmer cycle tour.
Perhaps you've not used all your holiday days this year ?
It's a chance to come for a short tour in and around Assen in January and see much of what this blog is about over a long weekend ?
The photo at the top was taken on January 13th exactly one year before the weekend. The weather is likely to be quite similar.
Either bring your own bike or take a hire bike. We can arrange that too.
We'll not be riding extreme distances, perhaps no more than 60 km per day depending on the group and the weather, and with plenty of stops at warm cafes and restaurants between views of the countryside, which looks spectacular in the winter.
This is a cycling holiday, of course, but we will also have a programme of activities within a very short cycling distance if the weather is really bad.
This includes a short form of the Study Tour presentation, and some of the infrastructure presented on the Study Tour will also be shown off on this tour.
Cyclists are looked after here. You can expect the cycle paths to remain passable whatever the weather, and for there to still be many cyclists using them in the winter.
All the photos were taken in the 2007/8 winter. There are many things to see in the winter, including the deer which live right in the city of Assen. Would you rather come over later in the year ? Take a look at our other cycle holiday plans later in the year. We will also be running a full Study Tour in May.
Last Saturday afternoon, Terry and I cycled from Assen to Groningen on folding bikes and returned by train.
Terry's is a Brompton, while I have a cheap bicycles4u folder. It's not really in the same class, but given that I don't need a folding bike often it's pretty good. It did just fine for this 40 km ride.
As is usually the case in the Netherlands, most of the distance was covered on either cycle paths away from the road or roads closed to cars.
The route is one of those possible on the cycling holidays we organise in this area.
Helen and Les Faber from Canada came to visit today (read their blog: Cyclemania). They've been riding around the Netherlands seeing different parts of the country.
I met the two of them at Noordlaren, just out of Drenthe in the province of Groningen, and together we rode south, through heath and forest, past ancient hunebedden and modern radio-telescopes eventually getting to Assen in time to catch a train to Utrecht.
The photos show Helen and Les riding on a country road just south of Assen and through some heath a little North. There are many small corners of the country that you don't so easily find without a local guide, as cycle route signs tend to send you on the more practical and direct routes.
There was too much to see in such a short time, so we covered as much ground as we could. I had a great time today and I hope Helen and Les did too.
Drenthe has a very varied landscape and really is a beautiful province. That's why we chose it as our home. It is not known as the "cycling province" of the Netherlands for nothing and many Dutch people come here for their cycling holidays. We organise cycling holidays here for English speaking people and we also have a slideshow of photos of Drenthe.
A few days ago I went on a ride through the countryside checking out a small addition to one of our holiday routes. I rode my long-suffering Pashley PDQ recumbent.
The music accompanying the video is expertly played by my friend Terry Clark. You can watch him play this piece on his blog.
