588 cycling in the Netherlands

It's real. 

All that hype you've heard, about how everyone in Amsterdam rides a bike? About how the Netherlands, facing the oil shortage back in the 1970s, decided to get everyone to bike? About how in the '80s and '90s they built out bike infrastructure, and then made driving a car a pain in the butt?

It's all true. 

Is it perfect? No. We don't live in a perfect world. But by golly, it's pretty darn good. And it's not just Amsterdam. We've been in three cities here now, and there have been lots of bikes everywhere. 

Sure, there have been cars, too. Even freeways. And some cars that pass as bikes and are technically ok in bike lanes (don't get me or the other bike riders started on scooters, which are also technically legal in bike lanes but scoffed at). 

But driving in the city center truly looks like a pain in the ass. And freeways seem pretty uncongested, even at rush hour.

Biking in the city center of Amsterdam seemed pretty chaotic, at least for an introduction, so we opted to rent bikes and ride to the nearby city of Haarlem. That's my bike above. It was aluminum and had a seven speed hub, drum brakes and a built in lock. Super easy to use, pretty comfortable. Maybe not the best on hills, but not the worst either, at least as far as going up and over bridges. (There aren't many hills in the "low countries.")

This was Deb's bike, the more popular step-thru style. (I think they gave me the cross bar because I'm an American man, a breed assumed to have fragile masculinity.)

Getting going was a bit shaky, people here really know how to ride bikes. (It's a bit intimidating getting passed by a pregnant lady with a kid on the front of her bike and groceries in the back, texting on her phone.)

But we got the hang of it. The infrastructure, separated bike lanes, bike traffic signals, bike prioritization, made our ride quite relaxing.

It's real!

As long as we're here, might as well talk about some of the bikes we saw. Most people ride the classic beater "dutch bike." This is a single speed step thru with a built in lock where the back brake would be, coaster brakes and a bike rack. But there are plenty of cargo bikes, and ebikes.

Out in the burbs, or smaller city we visited first, I noticed most ebikes (and there were lots) tended to be high-end mid-drives, ridden by older people (presumably with the disposable income despite the high income tax to buy a $3-6k bike). In the big city, the ebike of choice for younger people is the cheaper 20" fat tire bike. Moped-style is more popular, often with two riders.

These little quadricycles are happening too, although not nearly in the same numbers. In the big city they mix it up with cars, I did see a couple in bike lanes in the smaller cities.

This is actually the only three wheeler I've seen so far.

Well, I could go on about the other great and liveable things we've seen here, but the blogger app is choking up with all these photos, so goodbye for now. Ride safely!