The Netherlands is an oil producing nation (or "only an energy poor country would build cycle paths")

A few days ago we went on a family outing to one of the places where Vincent van Gogh lived in Drenthe. It was really a very nice place to visit, and will be an option for our cycling holiday routes this year. While in the area I also took a detour to look at something altogether more industrial.

Many people don't realise that the Netherlands is an oil producing nation. From the 1940s until 1996, oil was produced in this area of the Netherlands. Many pumpjacks still stand as a memory of this time, but the only one I've seen running is that in the video (it's for tourists and doesn't still produce oil). I suspect that Google's Street View doesn't include images of cyclists riding on cycle paths past oil pumps in many other places.



It's another of those myths and excuses - that only a country with no natural resources, without oil and without a car industry would support cycling. However, here's a nation which started supporting cycling right at the time when its oil production was highest.

While the pumpjacks (jaknikkers in Dutch) no longer operate, oil is now being produced in this country again. There's a new technique, involving pumping steam underground which comes back up with oil and gas. The gas is burnt in a power station which contributes to the local electricity supply as well as generating more steam.

Oil is flowing out of the ground in the Netherlands right
now through these pipes.

You may have guessed already that oil isn't really "my thing". I'd like to see less of it being burnt. However, I find the technology pretty impressive. These pipes are amongst those through which the steam and oil flows at present.

Assen is where the headquarters of NAM are based. That's the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij - Dutch Oil Company. It's not a particularly famous company in itself, but it's a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell (itself a Dutch company, of course and one of the largest employers in the Netherlands) and ExxonMobil - two companies which are known around the world.

And it's not only oil. Some readers may have heard of the Groningen Gas Field. The largest deposit of natural gas in Europe is right beneath our feet here, and pumping stations for gas are distributed around the local landscape, pumping from both this large field and several smaller ones. These stations are small and only really noticed if you look for them. One of them is about half a kilometre from our home. I cycle past it quite regularly, as do thousands of other people:

Two more videos about local oil production:




Another pump, this time outside the NAM building in Assen. NAM is one of the largest employers in this city:

Related blog posts have shown how the cost of running a car in different countries is not related strongly to the cycling rate, nor indeed to how easy it is to afford to buy a car. Contrary to many opinions expressed in other countries, The Netherlands really has not pursued anti-car policies.


I mentioned a car industry back a bit in this post. They don't make cars any more, but surely most people have heard of DAF trucks. In the last week, proposals to increase the speed at which you can drive, and thus burn more fuel, have been raised in both the Netherlands and the UK have this week. Jaknikkers still operate just across the border in Germany.

A Carnival of Cyclists

Originally a sharp religious division ran diagonally through the Netherlands. South-east of it lived Catholics and north and north-west of it lived Protestants. Nowadays almost 43% of the Dutch are non-religious, but once every year the old division becomes very clear again: at Carnival.

Only the originally Catholic south really celebrates Carnival.
The celebrations for this year officially started at Sunday 6th March and stop at midnight the following Tuesday. In the south of the Netherlands this party is taken very seriously by young and old. And how better to reach the festivities than by bicycle.


Which creates a Carnival of cyclists... all kinds of people on all types of bikes in all sorts of costumes. And they are almost all showing the colours of the city, in this case: red, white and yellow.

Carnival in 's-Hertogenbosch is considered the oldest in the Netherlands and was already celebrated in 1385. The Dutch honour their traditions!

A few photos from the last couple of days

A few photos from the last couple of days. First, a page out of the latest Vogelvrije Fietser (Fietsersbond magazine). Subscribe to this newspaper for a year and you get a free bike. Not a bad deal.

This month, the Vogelvrije Fietser also linked to my bell test from a few months back.

Our eldest daughter Eliza, on the way home from school.

Bikes outside the post office, so close as possible to the door.

There is a lot of rebuilding going on in Assen at the moment. Due to it, directions have been put up to direct people to park their bikes elsewhere, but many bikes get parked next to the sign.

Judy took this photo while waiting for the traffic light to change on the way to college. There's another crowd of cyclists on the left too (at this simultaneous green junction).

The scene in a suburb of Assen yesterday, on a cycle path featured previously.

Photo from a stop on our afternoon ride today

Passing the pagoda in the Asian area of the Assen arboretum

Approaching a pile of logs

Photo of logs.

Photos taken, Judy heading back home again

Bicycle road on the way back into Assen on a quiet Sunday in March.

Bike basket that I made this week, with red and green willow.

Potholes on Britain's roads. Some things never change

I read a while ago that Britain's roads now have a pothole every 120 yards. I can believe it, given the state that the roads seem to be in over there. Now that we're accustomed to Dutch roads, British roads which appear on the TV always look rather badly maintained.

This is a regular topic on British cycling blogs, and the stories keep coming up. There were claims over the last year that London's potholes increased markedly over winter and that there could well be in excess of 2 million nationwide. That article points to the high level of motor dependence in the UK as a reason why the country suffers so badly from potholes.

It's clearly a big problem, but is it being addressed ? Rather, there seems to be a problem of people trying to talk themselves out of having to fix these problems. What actually counts as "a pothole" in British roads ? Gloucestershire says that a hole needs to be "the depth of a "golf ball" (1.6in, 40mm) and the width of a 'large dinner plate' (11.8in, 300mm)" before it is regarded as needing to be repaired, while Suffolk says "unless the defect is on a minor road, when it must be about the size of a "dustbin lid" (23.6in, 600mm) to warrant urgent action."

The terrible quality of surfaces is yet another problem for cyclists in the UK, who almost always have to "share such roads" with a lot of motor vehicles. There are documented examples of riding through potholes causing death to cyclists, and also of swerving to avoid them having the same effect. When not lethal, injuries can be extremely unpleasant and painful, and result in claims against councils. I was lucky enough never to fall due to a pothole in the UK, but nasty jarring bumps when riding on busy roads did nothing to enhance my cycling.

And what's happening about it ? Well, in London funding for fixing potholes has been cut.

Here in Assen (and I think it's pretty much standard Dutch policy as I've seen it elsewhere), defects which occur on the roads due to winter conditions are patched up even before the ice has melted. That's what you see in this photo from our local newspaper (from last winter, that's how long ago I started this post.

However, the city also has a policy of renewing whole road surfaces before problems occur. There is a rolling programme where road (and cycle path) surfaces are resurfaced every few years - and this isn't only a skim over the top but involves digging down and replacing what's under the surface as well. When this is done, the work is synchronized with the gas, electric, telephone and other companies to prevent it being dug up again soon afterwards.

Cycle paths of course don't suffer from the same degree of damage because they don't have heavy vehicles on them. Most are exactly the same as before winter, and of course nice new smooth surfaces like this remain nice and smooth.

Why isn't the same thing done in the UK ? Why are the roads in a mess ? It's not a new problem. John Lennon wrote way back in 1967 about there being "4000 holes in Blackburn Lancashire".

The photo at the top, of a large pothole on a British road, comes from the Guardian article. As it happens, someone who I used to work for also just blogged on potholes, from a totally different perspective.

The worst cycle path in Drenthe revisited

At the end of last year, our local newspaper produced a list of the worst cycle paths in the province.

This news story caused a reaction. A list of 41 plans have been drawn up, of which 38 will be executed. Seven of these plans are on the list produced by the news paper. The province is putting in a million euros and an additional two million are coming from other sources to improve these recreational cycle paths. The problem cycle paths are almost all part of the knooppuntennetwork of recreational routes.

The work to be done includes replacing existing asphalt surfaces, and changing asphalt to concrete. The concrete surfaces, a new one of which is on the left, are especially wonderful to cycle on.

I quite like finding something slightly less smooth sometimes, but actually it is very pleasant to have conditions like this even on paths in the middle of no-where.

Don't forget that we organise cycling holidays here. Going along the "worst cycle path in Drenthe" is optional, but actually it's rather nice already, and now we know it is to be improved.

See a later post about improvements to cycle-paths in Drenthe.

There are several other posts about Drenthe, the "Cycling Province" of the Netherlands, where we live.

Of the 41 plans, 3 stand on a reserve list, and will be taken care of only if one of the others turns out to be problematic at the moment.

Cycling vs. driving

Note that the explanatory captions on this video are only visible on a computer and not on a mobile device. If you watch on a mobile device you will not understand the video. Since I made this video, the cycle-path along the canal has been completely resurfaced to a very high standard.

I made this video a few days ago, showing the first four km of my commute by bike next to the route which I'd have to take if I drove to work, or indeed if I insisted on cycling on the road which I'd use to drive.

The map shows the bike route in red and the car route in blue. The five sets of traffic lights which are on the car route are shown with a black background. The white background traffic light is on the bicycle route, but this defaults to green for bikes (all three of those include similar maps showing bike and car routes to different destinations). That single traffic light is the only which exists between my home and work 30 km away. However, if I was to drive then after coming off the motorway in Groningen there are several other sets of traffic lights waiting for me before I get to work.

Cycle routes are more direct than driving routes. That's the case whatever direction we set off in. This is about the best possible case for driving, but cyclists are still prioritized such that it's possible to come close (and perhaps "win" if parking at the far end is included).

I've featured several examples before of where cycle routes are more direct than driving routes. There are also many examples of where Dutch cyclists get to dodge traffic lights on this blog.

Unfortunately, the video is rather small inside the blog page. You may prefer to watch it directly on youtube.

When drivers stop and open windows

In other countries it usually doesn’t mean a lot of good when a driver stops for a cyclist, lowers his window and starts ‘a conversation’. But this is the Netherlands. The other night I was waiting at a traffic light at a nearby but unfamiliar junction. Some road works were in progress. There I was, in a small side street waiting to turn left on a big arterial road into the city. It took a real long time! Way too long as it was cold, raining a bit and there wasn’t much traffic. Not even on the arterial. Just one car was waiting there to turn left into the side street where I was standing. When that car got green the driver made the turn but suddenly stopped as he got passed me. He lowered his window and raised his voice to speak to me. “Sir!” Slightly confused I looked at him; what could he have to say to me? I was just a lonely cyclist waiting for the light to turn green. “Have you pushed the button?” My surprise could be read from my face and before I could think of a response he continued. “It’s because of the road works, sir. You have to push the button now. If you had, you would have gotten green before me.” Clearly this friendly man knew the junction better than I do, including the green phases. He must be one of the few residents here. So I thanked him and after he assured me “it happens to many people sir” he continued in his big dark blue executive style car. I dismounted and walked back to push the button I had overlooked. Sure enough, within seconds the light turned green and I could also continue home. It’s great to live in a country where there is a lot of mutual respect between drivers and cyclists. Not very strange when everybody can be either one. But I must admit, the level of consideration from this driver was remarkable, even for the Netherlands.