SINGING CYCLE-PATH: Here you can officially sing as you cycle. No need for un-natural pauses in you song as someone cycles past
What do you get for Christmas for the Dutch cyclist who already has "everything" ? How about a cycle-path for singing on ?
It's a stunt by the Fietsersbond, the Dutch cycling union. It's not (yet) official policy that cycle paths are designed for singing. But it's also a sign of what cycling is in the Netherlands. Apart from those places where things have gone wrong, cycling is joyful here, just as it should be everywhere else.
I came across this great music and video on our local TV station yesterday evening. It's a local Dutch band, Anthony's Putsch, singing about "going for a ride with my mother". Not all their songs are about cycling of course, but Dutch bands often seem to sing about cycling because it's something they all do.
It's absolutely vital to get children to cycle. To encourage parents to ride with their children confidently and with a feeling of security and safety as shown in this video requires comprehensive safe conditions for cycling which are normal in the Netherlands. This is what has made cycling into a common experience which binds the nation. Why is this not normal everywhere ?
"M'n fiets is gejat" means "My bike was nicked". The singer goes on to complain that having your bike stolen is an awful feeling, that he doesn't want to have to walk home, that he has no money to buy a new bike, and that his old bike is half drowned at the bottom of the canal. Add some "la la las" and that's the song. You may recognise the tune.
We had a busy weekend again. On Saturday, some of us joined in the time trial at Nijeveen about 40 km south of here. Peter and I rode down there together to take part.
Peter made a video of his ride in the time trial:
My ride looked similar, but the scenery didn't go by quite so quickly... I have an excuse in that the tyres I've currently got fitted are terribly slippery in the wet, and it rained during the event. However, everyone who'd done this time trial before seemed to be slower this year than last - except for Peter who rode two minutes faster than last year with his new Mango. H@rry was the fastest of the three Mangoteers on this occasion.
Peter has the first of a new version of the Mango - the Mango Sport Red Edition. While the Mango Sport remains the lightest weight Mango, the Red Edition is a luxury version of the light weight version. The weight is a little higher than the more stripped down Mango, but it's still a very light weight velomobile and comes with everything built in - even including extra features such as USB outlets on the dashboard to run your MP3 player. There is more about the Red Edition including links to photos here.
While Saturday was all about riding quickly, Sunday was completely different. Judy and I met cycling holiday customers for a coffee in the morning, and in the evening we took Nipper (of the Bicycle and Ukulele blog and Taunton Tweed Cycle Chic) away from where he was staying with his wife and children to ride around for a bit and to visit a local cafe.
Nipper is a member of the Night Owls band from Taunton in the the South West of the UK. That's quite close to Burnham-on-Sea and Highbridge, where I lived for many years. He knows a lot about the sort of problems that cyclists have in the area.
Without his band, Nipper played and sang on his own at the cafe, using a compact ukelele which fitted easily into his Brompton's bag. He was terrific, and the local crowd showed their appreciation with much applause and free beer !
Sadly I didn't have a camera with me which could record sound, but together, the band sound like this:
Here's a video of Batiste en David performing "Hier op mijn fiets". A translation of the chorus: "Here on my bike, I feel like a king. Here on my bike, sitting on my throne. Here on my bike, waving to people. Here on my bike, feeling the sun..."
I think the video was made in Tilburg - a town which has recently been criticised for the quality of its cycling infrastructure, and the resulting "low" rate of cycling. However, that's only "low" for the Netherlands. i.e. higher than anywhere else.
Cycling is always a happy thing to do in the Netherlands... There are other examples of cycling music on the blog.
The photo, taken from a copy of ligfietsen magazine, shows the cycling plan for Tilburg next to a photo showing a narrow cycle path. You expect to be able to ride side by side here - that cycle path is obviously somewhat narrower than the usual four metres for a bidirectional path.
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.
I've occasionally told people that every possible kind of cycling is popular in the Netherlands. It really doesn't matter whether you're interested in road racing, utility cycling, recumbent bikes, antique bikes. It's all here. Here is another, completely different, type of cycling:
The video shows the Crescendo Cycling Brass Band from the village of Opende, just a few km from here. They formed in 1973, taking over the activities of a former military bicycle band. There's an Assen connection in that the first performance took place here in Assen at the TT race (Assen has a famous motorcycle racing circuit).
It's really very impressive how they ride in formation while playing their instruments. You'll note that specially adapted bikes are used for many of the musicians so that they can, for instance, drum and steer at the same time. The bikes used have back-pedal / coaster brakes.
The photo on the left shows the Nederlandsch Wielrijders Muziekcorps just prior to the second world war. Click on the photo for some more images.
Many thanks to Mark Wagenbuur for suggesting this video.
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.
