Mass cycling events, suppressed demand and the need for cycling infrastructure

This time of year is very busy in and around Assen with touring and racing events. The Fietsvierdaagse is a four day cycling event which attracts 15000 participants, people from all age groups and all walks of life.

Most people ride 40 km per day, a distance which is within the ability of just about everyone. Some village centres become virtual no-go areas for cars, but the routes run along the same network of cycle-paths and minor country roads as are used for riding the rest of the year.

The pace is very relaxed with people riding from one cafe to another as you can see in our video of one day last week:

There was also a prologue, a ride of 175 km covered by our local TV station, daily rides of 60 and 100 km for those who like to ride further and faster as well as a mountain biking alternative, an alternative where everything can be accessed by wheelchair, and a 30 km per day special kids ride:

UNICEF say that Dutch children have the best well-being in the world. Don't children from other countries deserve the same ?

But that's not all
This week there's a very different event in Assen. The European Junior Cycling Tour, or Jeugdtour, is the biggest junior cycle race in Europe, and perhaps the world. Competitors come to Assen from many countries in order to take part. The prologue was a short time-trial along one of the main roads in Assen this morning:



For this event a road was closed - one of the main routes by car into the centre of Assen. The parallel cycle-routes remained open for through cycling. But you see, even racers find they prefer to ride apart from motor vehicles...

The upper, wider, red line is a primary cycle-route from the west of the city to the centre. This is the bicycle road to the centre of Assen shown in full in a blog post from a few days ago. The narrower red line is the cycle-path which forms the secondary route on the other side of the canal. The blue line is the road, which was used for cycle-racing today. Both cycle-routes alongside the canal were maintained as through routes for cycling.

A comparison
It all seems so easy here. There is plenty of space to cycle and plenty of people make use of it. There's not really any suppressed demand in the Netherlands. People already cycle and mass events just give an opportunity for another type of cycling. When a road needs to be closed for a cycling event, it's easy to arrange for that to happen. Even the secondary cycle-route shown in the cycle-racing video above has a story to it. To make space for it, the canal was moved sideways by two metres. But it's not like this everywhere...

Ten years ago I had a part time job in the UK in which I took turns to drive a bus full of bikes across the country with other like minded individuals and we'd try to encourage the public to ride our bikes at events.

While the hours were long and the pay was short, I always enjoyed this work. There was actually nothing easier than encouraging people to ride bikes so long as they could do so on a closed track with no cars. People would queue up to take our bikes and ride around with a smile on their faces. However, talk to them afterwards about the possibility of cycling to work or for other practical purposes, "sharing" the road, and of course the smile would drop. This was when I first started to talk about the importance of subjective safety, a regular theme on this blog.

Junior cycle racers from Oxford ride
yesterday on a cycle-path outside of
Assen. Good cycle paths support fast
riders

I wrote about London's Sky Ride four years ago in a blog post in which I also described the inadequacy of London's plans for "superhighways". A year before that, when the event was still called "Freewheel", I wrote much the same. These highly successful events, together with the experience I had on the promotional tours, overcrowding of rare examples of paths separate from motor traffic and even the recent rather ill-judged comments from Sustrans in which they blame their users for the inability of their infrastructure to cope with the sometimes high usage level all add together to demonstrate a huge suppressed demand demand for cycling in then UK.

When is London, not to mention the rest of the UK, going to actually start making progress ? The "superhighways" were built, and they turned out every bit as bad as I said they would, and sadly this has resulted in deaths on the streets of the city. A grand announcement made in March seems to have turned into not very much at all and just this morning I read about how Quietways "could" receive funding in three years time. That's not a promise, just a possibility, but somehow the same man from London who told us 147 days ago that London was already forty years behind the Netherlands has managed to make a headline even out of promising another three years of procrastination.

Some people have less patience than this and we're amongst them. We want to help the process to really start. To that end, last week we invited Boris Johnson and six other politicians from London to come on one of our study tours for free (they have to pay their own expenses). Not one of the people invited has yet responded beyond a single very generic reply

As it happens, there were SkyRide events over on the weekend in the UK. D.J Cook made a nice video in Southampton and Mark Treasure wrote a very good piece about Skyrides and suppressed demand. The video shows well how poeple turn out in their thousands to ride if they will have conditions in which is comfortable to do so. Mark's photos do a good job of how people get home from mass cycling events in the UK, often riding on the sidewalk to avoid the roads. In the Netherlands they do this on the same dense network of cycling infrastructure as they used for the event itself.

Oliebollentocht 2012

At the start

Last Saturday, the 29th of December, was the day of the Oliebollentocht. This is an annual social ride for velomobilists, around 60 km in length. This year it the circular route started from Zwolle and it attracted 157 velomobiles which was enough for a new world record. 157 is about 1/10th of the total number of velomobiles in the Netherlands, though quite a lot of participants were not from the Netherlands but from Germany, Belgium and France. One guy rode his velomobile all the way from Austria to take part.

I started making a video, but several other people made better videos than mine. I've picked out two of them.

Harry captures the fun in part by playing around with speeds and mixing up the order of the event:


The Questchen's video also shows the ride well and because he was in the same group as me (we rode in four groups of about 40, meeting up halfway and at the end), I appear in this video at about 7:20:

Going home, lighting up the cycle-path
Almost the entire distance between here
and Zwolle was covered on cycle-paths
of this quality.

Zwolle is 70 km South from Assen, I rode there on my own on the morning of the ride and rode back again afterwards with Peter. Quite a lot of the riding was in darkness at both ends of the day, and I again supplemented my inbuilt B+M light with a Philips headlight which lit up the road very well indeed. Roughly half of the total distance was covered on cycle-paths, and the other half on minor country roads which mostly don't function as through roads for drivers.

Wide, smooth cycle-path in Zwolle
with priority over the road. Zwolle,
like all Dutch cities, has a
comprehensive network of
good quality cycle paths.

By the end of the day I'd covered a total of 202 km at an average speed of 27.5 km/h, including all the slow-downs which occur when riding in a large group, wheeling the Mango through parking areas, slowing down and stopping to read the map on the way there and back etc. Such an average doesn't break any records, but it's a perfectly respectable touring speed and as I've pointed out before, providing another example how it's perfectly possible to keep up a good speed on Dutch cycle-paths.

Traffic stopped, crossing as a group

The entire day was a pleasure, and as ever, the infrastructure helped to make it so. Where else in the world could such a mass ride take place with a lot of people riding rather larger than average bicycles, often two abreast, at a good speed, with no problems due to motor vehicles ?

Finally, thank-you to all those involved with organising the Oliebollentocht, especially Paulus den Boer who hosted the event and the many volunteer verkeersregelaars who gave up a day to direct traffic and by doing so made things go very smoothly indeed.

How efficient is it ?
I calculated a while back that a strong person doing a manual job probably generates about 1 kWh of energy in an eight hour working day. I cycled for less than eight hours, so this journey was probably made on less than 1 kWh of energy. It's remarkable how efficient cycling is, and a velomobile is even more efficient than a normal bicycle.

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:

Fietselfstedentocht - a jolly ride through the countryside

Last weekend was the Fietselfstedentocht. This is a touring ride for 15000 people each riding 240 km in a day.

The first photo shows Marjon and I at the campsite near Sneek. I rode the Mango there from Assen with a tent, camping mat, sleeping bag, clothes and food for the three days stored inside. Everything went back in on Tuesday morning to ride back home, the trip each way adding another 160 km to the total.

Marjon and Harry were riding their back to back tandem. It's a great machine for sociable riding.

The ride is not a race, and in fact there is a maximum enforced average speed of 25 km/h. If you start at your allotted time and ride faster than that then you will be stopped at various timed points along the way.

However, it was clear that plenty of people actually do treat it as a race. If you have an early start card, but leave late, you don't have to wait to be stamped at the timed points.

As it happened, due to our getting to the start late my card appeared to be for someone who'd started an extra hour and a half earlier, which was just as well as I completed the ride in less than the expected time.

While many riders were of the sporty disposition, on expensive road bikes, others were dressed up for the occasion, and all types of bikes were ridden. There seemed not to be many recumbents involved in this event.

I was especially impressed by those who set off on delivery bikes, single speed tandems and such like, but can't help but think that those with nearly flat tyres would have been better off pumping them up before starting ! It's a long distance without having to do more work than necessary.

Along the way we were offered apples, which I very gratefully accepted, and also soup and a milky drink, neither of which were vegan, so I skipped those. In any case I carried enough food and drink with me for the entire ride.

And this is what I had by the end. All fifteen required stamps and a medal ! I started my bike computer a few minutes before the start and stopped it just after the end, 8 hours and 20 minutes later.

The organizers did a wonderful job with this ride, and the many volunteers stamping cards and directing traffic with the police also helped the whole thing to run (as far as I can tell) completely smoothly. Also I have to thank Marjon's parents for their hospitality at the campsite.

And how did the Mango get on ? Well, it got me there, got me back again and in-between it was a very comfortable and fast way of riding the tour.

I've been practicing trying to ride a bit slower for a few days in order that I'd not wear myself out. The 80 km ride to the camp-site had a headwind all the way, and I averaged only about 28 km/h over that distance, conserving energy for the next day. At first I kept the speed down on the event itself as well. I didn't want to push past where there was not really room. However, after about a third of the distance it was clear that I wasn't working too hard, and the crowd became somewhat less with only "serious" riders remaining. As a result, I built up speed where it was safe to do so and stopped taking video.

Quite a few km were covered at over 40 km/h, I had several people draft me for quite a long way, and one very fit young racer rode next to me at 43-44 for a number of kilometres. The Mango makes this balding grey haired old man as quick as a youngster.

The last quarter of the ride includes very stiff headwinds on a very exposed dijk next to the coast of Friesland, and at this point the Mango was embarrassingly quick, still cruising at over 30 km/h when many were feeling the wind. However, my speed was moderated by a few short but surprisingly steep climbs.

The very last five km or so are where youngsters who still have energy discover their sprinting muscles and really fly. At that point I was caught and passed by some that I'd recently passed.

After the end I rode the 16 km back to the campsite, ate a bit of dinner, and slept quite soundly until the morning.

The Fietselfstedentocht is really a great day out, however you want to ride it.

There are more details of the Fietselfstedentocht in my previous post, in which I mentioned that Harry wasn't going to be able to use his ticket. As you can see, he and Marjon did in fact take part, so I bought him a new ticket. Oh, and yes, I've fitted a small solar panel on top of my Mango. I designed a small charge regulator to go with it - it keeps the battery for the lights topped up. Ideal for touring.
Read my review of the Sinner Mango Velomobile.

Nice weekend video. The Netherlands by bike in the 1950s.

Mark Wagenbuur has made a wonderful video combining views of cycling in the Netherlands in the 1950s.

The remarkable thing about it is how familiar all of it looks. There's exactly the same level of cycle helmet wearing as in the country now, roughly the same number of people riding on back carriers, children on bikes, "ordinary clothes", practical bikes and smiling faces.

More specifically, compare the scene at 1:15 with part of a video I made of the fietsvierdaagse last year. Even the four wheel "family sized" velomobile at 1:40 has a modern day analogue in the Netherlands.

And that bloemencorso at the end... We went (by bike of course) to one this year, but I've not put it on the blog yet.

Another video from the 1950s that I like a lot is this one. Sadly, though, Britain does look as it used to.

Recent events in London - and superhighways ?

Two recent events in London give a good example of what works for increasing the level of cycling and what does not.

First, Cycle Fridays. This is an attempt to get Londoners to cycle to work by accompanying them on the roads. On Fridays it's possible to ride with other commuters through the traffic to get to work. Six different routes to four destinations are on offer. On the best day so far, this attracted just 88 people shared between the six routes.

Second, the London Sky Ride. This involved closing 15 km of streets to provide a car free experience. 50000 people took part. Even that is only 0.6% of the London population, but it's orders of magnitude more than were tempted by Cycle Fridays.

I've said it before, and no doubt I'll say it again. If you want to see mass cycling, the experience has to be pleasant, safe and convenient. Riding in London traffic doesn't score very highly for any of these things, which is why it was less popular than "Sky Ride" which at least achieved two of them.

In attempting to grow cycling, Britain seems willing to try almost anything other than the only thing that actually works - which is... building proper infrastructure for cycling.

TfL's idea of a Superhighway.
Riding in in a blue stripe
with a bus in it.

London has made a lot of bold claims, but when you look at the details on the TFL website you find that their idea of a "cycling superhighway" is a strip of blue tarmac on the road as shown to the left (they've since removed this photo and put on some others which are equally unconvincing). They're not exactly aiming high. Even the artist's impression shows a bus in the cycle lane. This ought to be the "before" photo of a set of "before" and "after" photos, not what is being aimed at. It's really not remotely enough to attract mass cycling.

Segregation so complete as possible
in Assen. 2.5 m wide one-way path

Perhaps London ought to aim for something a bit more like this, which is not an artist's impression but something retrofitted to a few km of streets in Assen a couple of years ago. Get people away from the cars and they're more likely to be attracted to cycling.

Normal Dutch 2.5 m wide one-way
cycle-path. Behind the bus-stop.

Oh, and it's a good idea to make sure that bus stops are more like this, so that buses don't cut across cyclists. Buses and cyclists can co-exist very well, but not in the same lanes.

Neither of these examples of Dutch cycle-paths are described as superhighways, of course. They're simply efficient city cycle paths. Junctions on them have been shown previously.

Dutch superhighway by busy road.

The Netherlands also has "superhighways". They're called "fietssnelwegen" and are inter-city routes. These are built to high standards, 2.5 m minimum for single direction, four metres wide if bidirectional. So far as possible they have priority over side-roads so that cyclists can make uninterrupted journeys over long distances. The idea of these is to provide a network of fast inter-city routes right across the country which lure people from cars even over longer commuting distances. It has been shown that building even these is cheaper than not building them.

I have a similar path, though with somewhat more separation from the motorway, on my commute. It's designed so that high speeds are possible and I typically stop just once in 30 km.

Another thing London needs to address is that they are simply not aiming to put the routes close enough together for them to be effective. This was researched by the Dutch back in the 1970s, results were published. A very fine grid of subjectively safe cycle routes is essential for a high modal share. This successful policy has been followed ever since, leading to the Netherlands having the highest cycling rates in the world. Why try to re-invent the wheel ? And why do so badly ?

A miniature cyclist

That cyclist is not drawn to
actual scale.

Shortly after writing the text above I noticed something else very odd about the first fake photo from London. The cyclist is scaled down relative to everything else and is no taller than the gray car which is about the same distance away. This gives the impression that the cycle lane is wider than it is.

And another thing. I've had a few people say that London adding cycle lanes is a good thing and that I shouldn't be complaining about it. Here's the explanation: Yes, adding cycle lanes is a good thing. However, if they're going to describe them as "superhighways" then a bit more effort is called for. Compare what's on offer with a mere "fietsroute+" in the Netherlands, or indeed just an average "cycle-path".

London is planning down to a level such that it will fail to product a high modal share for cycling.

Update 11/10/2009: London has produced a video display which works by pedaling an exercise bicycle so you can see how the "superhighway" will look. This also doesn't look particularly impressive.

9/11/2009: TFL changed their website to get rid of the "artists impression" with the miniature rider above, replacing it with the super cheesy "supercyclehighway-man" seen on the right.

In other news, the "superhighway" is now revealed to be a 1.5 m wide cycle lane on the road, with the only unique feature being blue paint. Given that the minimum recommended width for an on road cycle lane in the UK was already 1.5 m, with 2 m being recommended in areas with more motor traffic, this doesn't sound all that "super"

What's more, the standards where we live now call for single direction cycle paths to be a minimum 2.5 m wide, and bidirectional paths to be 4 m wide. They are separated from the road by a minimum of 1.5 m. That's the measure of a "cycle path" here, without the hyperbole of calling it a "super" anything.

Finally, to see more about cycling "superhighways" in the Netherlands on a completely different scale (intercity routes which will cover the entire country), look at the other posts tagged with superhighways. These join up a dense network of routes which already cover the whole country.

We operate cycling study tours and would be very pleased to be able to help London to come to grips with what is required to achieve a genuine cycling revolution.

For more on the London "superhighways", click here. Don't worry that decent infrastructure costs too much. It's cheaper to invest in it than not to. Even the benefits to employers add up to rather more than is spent. So go on, London, do a proper job !

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.

Closing the roads

On the last weekend there were two events in Assen which required roads to be closed. There was a run in one part of the city, and a continuation of the series of "Dikkebandenraces" - "wide tyre races" (this refers not to mountain bikes but road racing on normal bikes for children to take part as an introduction to road racing). The latter is one of number of such races run one after another each year. Many competitors in the Tour de France started with the dikkebandenraces here in Assen.

Anyway, that's just a normal weekend. Also in the year we have two triathlons (winter and summer), the jeugdtour (the largest youth cycle race in the world), the Vuelta a Espana (Spanish tour, starting this year in Assen), the Fietsvierdaagse (a four day non racing cycling event with 15000 participants - there are over 60 of these across the country during the summer), a walking vierdaagse event (there are probably more of these than of the cycling four day events), and many others. Also, just a few km down the road are the Ronde van Drenthe, the Erik Dekker Classic (famous local cycle racer's own event), and many more which I've forgotten to list all of which require roads to be closed. Across the country there are hundreds, if not thousands, of events each year which involve closing the roads.

So why mention this ? I was reminded of its significance by reading about the Etape Caledonia held in a remote and relatively unpopulated part of Britain yesterday. It's the only mass participation cycle event in the UK for which roads are closed, and yesterday it was sabotaged by people putting tacks all over the road. A pressure group calling themselves "Anti Closed Road Event" claims to have nothing to do with this.

What can I say about this stupidity ? Sometimes it's embarrassing to be British.

The photo is from the winter triathlon in Assen last year

Sport weekend

There are a lot of sporting activities here this weekend. We've got the "Top of Holland Trophy" football and handball competitions, which have attracted over 150 teams from several countries to the city.

Also, and perhaps of more interest to people who read this blog, there is the "Ronde Van Drenthe" a few km south of here. UCI rated road racing on the doorstep. There are both Men's and Women's races.

We've international competitors at that one too, from as far afield as Australia, New Zealand, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland and Russia, and including national teams from the UK, USA, Germany and Italy. There are also a number of Spanish competitors, which reminds me that there is still the Vuelta a Espana to look forward to. That's starting right here in Assen at the end of August. Also we have the Jeugdtour, the largest youth cycle race in the world which is organised each year here in Assen..

This weekend I intend to ride down to a cafe on the route of the Ronde van Drenthe and have a beer or a coffie while waiting for the competitors to go by.

I also forgot to mention the Assen triathlon last weekend, but I did cover the winter triathlon last year. The video shows young competitors preparing for the jeugdtour last year. I can tell it's racing season. I couldn't keep up with some of the other commuters on the cycle path yesterday. A short video of the racing we saw the next week is here:

Triathlon

Another event in Assen yesterday was the Winter Triathlon.

There were about a thousand competitors, either as individuals or in teams for a "relay". Most people took part in a 10 km run, a 50 km cycle ride and 20 km on ice skates, but there were also sprint events where the distances were halved. Ages ranged from 20s to 70s.

I'm a hopeless runner and can't skate, so triathlon isn't really my thing, but I went to watch for a bit.

The cycling and running events involved the police being out in force closing roads.

It seems relatively easy to get road closures here compared with back in the UK.

London Freewheel

A couple of months ago, Fernando in London bought a basket and support from me to transport his dog, Fosse. Yesterday, Fernando kindly sent me some photos of the two of them taking part in the London Freewheel ride last week.

This was the second year of the Freewheel, and it was wildly successful: 100000 people were attracted to ride their bikes on 12 km of closed roads in the capital.

The success of the event shows just how attractive it is to be able to cycle without having to be constantly concerned about motorised vehicles. It's a good demonstration of how increasing subjective safety results in more people cycling, even if the improvement is just for one day.

Clearly the pent-up demand to cycle that is present in most places also exists in London.

Imagine the rate of cycling that London could achieve every day if the infrastructure in the city was redesigned with emphasis on increasing subjective safety for cyclists so that it was always to the level experienced on the Freewheel.

I have more posts referring to subjective safety.


Fernando's basket is the extra large size that I make for transporting dogs, and it's mounted on a sturdy front rack.

I have another photo of Fernando and Fosse together, accompanied by photos of other people with their dogs on their bikes.

We organise holidays over here in the Netherlands where we always have this degree of subjective safety. We would also be very pleased to have the transport planners from wherever you live visit to take part in a Study Tour so that they can see the result of achieving this.

Cows on bikes

There were a lot of cows on bikes to be seen on our ride around the countryside today.

These cows know what they're doing. They've got proper bikes with mudguards, chainguards etc. and they're smiling as they go. No special safety gear, either, and the front light is pointing at the ground as so many end up doing. Clearly the painter of these cows knows about bikes.

Nice clogs too.

So, what was this all about ?

There are many cycle rides organised here by many different organisations throughout the year.

A few weeks ago there was the "Boerenfietstocht" or "Farmer's Bike Tour". It wasn't for farmers so much as by farmers to show people all about what goes on in the countryside. So, there were boards up next to fields and farm buildings to give people information about where different things are grown, how long they take to be harvested etc. If you want to show people things like this, how better than to organise a cycle ride and encourage people to ride along and see. It's also a good opportunity to sell refreshments along the way.

Whether barley, potatoes (in this case grown for potato meal), maize or a number of other things, there was a sign telling you what was going on, and why.

All of them had the cycling cow in the corner.

We missed this event this year, but perhaps next year.

We have, however, managed to join in on several other events. The turnout can be large (15000 on the fietsvierdaagse) or a bit smaller, but there are always people going out on their bikes...

I think most English people assume that clogs are just for tourists these days, but they're very practical shoes for people who do physical work as they protect your feet in the same manner as steel toe-caps. Quite a lot of people wear clogs around here.