We arrived at Kathryn’s dream cycling destination: no hills and dedicated bike lanes that go everywhere. But, despite meeting those expectations, cycling in the Netherlands did reveal some surprises.
Before I had persuaded her to take up regular cycling, Kathryn had said she would take a cycling vacation only in Saskatchewan or the Netherlands. That didn’t quite work out for her, since her first big two-wheeled adventure was cycling the Camino de Santiago from Portugal to Spain, with a lot of hills! However, we finally got the chance to explore the land of windmills, tulips, canals and Van Gogh when we arranged a 3.5-week pet-sitting assignment in the southern Dutch city of Den Bosch.
My impressions of cycling in the Netherlands had been largely based on photos of Amsterdam: lots of bike lanes and people wheeling everywhere. Turns out that picture is also true in the rest of the country. However, our adventures there uncovered other surprises, revelations and deeper understandings.
1 Very few helmets
First, very few people wear helmets. We wore ours and other people we saw with helmets were probably tourists too. Why is that? According to Yes Cycling, cycling is safe enough that no one feels the need. They feel safe for several reasons: 99 percent of the population are cyclists, there are dedicated bike lanes, and most bikes move fairly slowly.
The numbers back up this feeling of safety. For example, between 2000 and 2013, 274 road fatalities were recorded in Amsterdam, including 77 on bikes and 74 walking. But, you know what they say about statistics. Are the walkers injured by collisions with cyclists? How many cyclists are injured in crashes that don’t involve cars? We have a loved one who had a terrible concussion from a bike accident that did not involve a car, so we kept our helmets on.
2 Road bikes are not a thing; granny bikes rule
My second surprise was that, while cycling is part of everyone’s life, we saw very few people riding road bikes – just a few dozen over the 24 days we spent in the Netherlands. I visited two large bike stores and saw none for sale. Same with mountain bikes, which is not a surprise since there are no mountains!
Everyone rides the upright city bikes – aka omafiets, which translates as grandma bikes. You sit very upright, with elbows in close to your sides. Kathryn said it felt much wobblier than riding a road bike.
Statista says there are 23.4 million bikes and 17 million people in the Netherlands. This is the highest ratio in the world! The family home where we stayed had 11 bikes for five people, including one cargo bike and one road bike; the rest were upright granny bikes.
I guess when a bike replaces your car, it doesn’t need to be nimble and speedy but comfortable and able to carry two or three people. The Dutch use bikes for 27 percent of all trips and 25 percent of trips to work. In comparison, Americans make 0.9 percent of trips by bike.
Granny bikes come loaded with fenders, luggage racks, maybe a basket out front, chain guard, kickstand, lights, and frame locks.
We couldn’t believe all the variations and methods for carrying stuff – including other people. Luggage racks over the rear wheel were often padded to allow another adult to sit there comfortably. Many bikes had a rear child seat, and some even had a second seat, for small babies, mounted right on the handlebars in front of the rider, with a windshield to protect the baby. We also saw many cargo bikes with a big bathtub-like compartment either in front of the rider or sometimes behind. The compartments had bench seats for young children and some even had racks for clipping in a baby carseat!
The Dutch people I saw piloting the big cargo bikes made it look easy, but it is not. I tried riding one and let me just say, they take some getting used to because the front wheel, which turns, is a long way out in front.
Kathryn rode a bike, borrowed from our pet-sitting family, that had coaster brakes – where you pedal backwards to stop.
“I haven’t ridden a bike with coaster brakes since I was 12 years old!” she said.
3 Cycling popularity not that old
I was curious about how cycling became so big in the Netherlands. It was not always the case. In the 1970s, the oil crisis, a spike in car fatalities and the loss of historic downtown buildings to make way for wider roads all resulted in a push towards more cycling. Dutch cities began experimenting with car-free Sunday rides and started adding dedicated cycle lanes. Little by little it became more and more popular.
4 Feel like a local
Kathryn’s biggest surprise about cycling in the Netherlands was how much it made her feel like a local. We had taken our bikes on the train to Utrecht to cycle to Castle de Haar. While waiting with other cyclists at a traffic light, others pulled up behind us. We were surrounded by a big group of cyclists that moved off together when the little bike icon turned green.
“I feel like I’m part of the peloton!” Kathryn said. “That’s the closest I’ll ever get to the Tour de France.”
She concluded later that, if you want to feel like a local while travelling in the Netherlands, you must get on a bike.
5 Just how extensive the bike infrastructure is
Cycling in the Netherlands is quite different from Canada and Portugal – the two places where we have the most experience. The biggest visible difference is the number of dedicated bicycle paths. They clearly make cycling safer and so more people cycle.
The Copenhagenize index measures 600 cities’ cycle friendliness and two Dutch cities ranked at the top: Amsterdam was #2 and Utrecht was #3 in the world in 2019. Surprisingly, Montreal and Vancouver in Canada made the top 20!
6 Protocol at intersections
Cyclists, not pedestrians, are kings of the road. In Portugal, if you stand anywhere near a crosswalk, cars come to a screeching halt to allow you to cross. Not so in the Netherlands. Drivers speed by pedestrians yet wait patiently for cyclists to cross at intersections because all the drivers are cyclists too at some point in their day.
Intersections that have traffic lights for cars also have separate, smaller traffic lights for pedestrians and cyclists. And each have their own lanes for crossing too.
7 More good infrastructure: route planning made easy
Poring over maps and asking other cyclists for recommended routes are common activities for me. Our Canadian friend Hans, who grew up in the Netherlands and regularly visits family there, told us about the knooppunt system for route planning for cycling in the Netherlands (and Belgium).
What a fantastic system! Each bike path intersection is numbered. In the online knooppunt planning tool, you pick start and end points and it gives you the list of numbers that make up your route. While you’re biking, you simply look for the knooppunt signs and numbers along the way. Even better, the planning tool provides a summary of your route numbers that you can print and tape to the top tube of your bike!
(Hans is an avid Ottawa cyclist. Have a look at his cycling blog called Hans on the Bike.)
8 Free bikes!
Both Kathryn and I are fans of impressionist and post-impressionist painting and, in particular, Van Gogh so a visit to the Kröller-Müller Museum was a must. The museum, which has the world’s second-largest collection of Van Gogh originals, is in the middle of a national park – the Nationale Park De Hoge Veluwe. Surprisingly, the park provides free white bicycles at each of its three entrances. The 1,800 or so white bikes encourage you to park your car and explore the park’s trails by bike. Kids can borrow bikes too. We even saw a special cargo bike carrying a wheelchair!
9 Proper bike racks
Bike racks for cars are much more serious here. Every rack I saw had a full set of brake lights and turn signals, plus a copy of the car’s license plate. In all Canadian provinces, the law says that when carrying bikes, your license plate cannot be obscured, but none of the bike racks sold in Canada have a place to install a license plate. Fines range from $50 to $500 CDN depending on province and driver’s and police’s attitude. I wish we could get Dutch racks like this in Canada.
10 Bike locks are so quick to use
Every bike I saw had a frame lock. In Portugal and Canada, I’ve seen these for sale but had never seen one in use. I was surprised at how handy these are and how quick to use. The key stays in the lock while you ride. When you stop, you can lock your bike in about two seconds: you turn the key, slide a button down, a metal pin moves between the spokes to stop the rear wheel from moving, and you remove the key. When you want to unlock your bike, you insert the key, turn it, and the metal pin swings out of the way.
I avoid adding things to my bike when I think of pedaling that weight up Portugal’s hills, but when roads are flat and your bike already has fenders, luggage rack, lights, kickstand and a child seat, what is one more pound for a lock?
11 Taking bikes on the train was easier and harder than we thought
The Netherlands has an awesome train network. Trains are frequent, run on time and go most places. (Check out www.ns.nl to get an idea of cost.)
We had planned to take trains and rent bikes cheaply at train stations. However, we discovered that you must have a Dutch bank account to make use of the OV Fiets system. If you do, then you can get an OV card that gives you 40 percent off the fares and lets you rent a bike at the train station for just €4.50 for 24 hours.
Instead, we took our granny bikes on the train. The bike needs a €7.50 ticket for the day (in Portugal bikes ride the trains for free) and most trains have spots for three bikes in several of the cars. If these are full, you catch the next train. We did the train-bike combo twice during our visit. Other long-distance trips we made by a rental car since that was actually less expensive.
It’s pretty easy to load your bike onto the train. All stations have elevators to get your bike down to the train platform. As the train arrives, you watch for the bike icon on some of the doors – those are the cars that have space to store bikes. You roll your bike on, leave it in the space, and find a seat.
While it’s possible to take your bike on the train, most people do not. One Dutch lady even asked us how it worked because she had never taken her bike on the train before.
Watch our video that shows our day trip around Gouda by train and bicycle.
Funny postscript
So that is what surprised us about cycling in the Netherlands. Kathryn was right. The Netherlands is flat. Very flat, despite what Google bike navigation had to say. When we planned a ride to Utrecht, Google warned of “steep hills” with a 34-metre cumulative climb over 41 kilometres. In Portugal, on a 40-kilometre ride around Alcobaça, we would see about 500 metres of climbing. This tells me the Netherlands are flat! They are also a great place to explore by bike.
We visited the Netherlands in August 2023. Find out where we are right now by visiting our ‘Where’s Kathryn?’ page.
Hi!
Oh my goodness – the granny bikes look heavy, but I do find those cargo bikes fascinating! The wheel chair one was really cool!
I have recently heard that e-bikes are quite common in Germany and that many public bike racks have charging stations. Did you see many e-bikes in the Netherlands? We see them everywhere here, and have to double check every time we get passed by a rider whose feet are barely moving.
Also, I’ve heard that it can be quite windy riding in the Netherlands, but this was not one of your listed discoveries. Maybe that is more true by the Sea?
Yes, they were indeed heavy! We saw many e-bikes in the Netherlands too but no charging stations in bike racks. The e-bikes certainly aren’t needed for hills, but we figured people used them just to get where they’re going faster. We’ve also heard it can be windy but we didn’t find it too bad — perhaps just the weather when we were there. We were just by the sea briefly and not riding bikes that day, but it was gusty there. We’ll have to go back again to test all these theories!
Bill, a fantastic installment! Well done, Sir! I agree with you: the cargo bikes look like they must be very difficult to drive, with the front wheel ‘way out in front like that. The bike with the smaller child’s seat in front of the adult’s seat looks interesting, but I wonder where the child would place his or her feet without getting them dangerously tangled in the front wheel. It looks a little dangerous to me, especially if the child were slightly older, with longer legs. The wheelchair “cargo” bike: what a terrific idea! It looks like it might be heavy to pedal with all the extra weight, but to get someone in a wheelchair around like that is a great idea. I really enjoyed the videos, especially about the operation of the windmill. I love windmills and lighthouses. It looks like The Netherlands is so far ahead of us here in Canada in respecting and caring for biker safety. It’s too bad our own season for comfortable and safe biking is so much shorter than in The Netherlands, but we could still incorporate some of the road and biking lane designs here – if cities would only plan ahead for them. The bike route planning tool: amazing idea! Thanks for a wonderful and informative look at such a beautiful part of the world.
Yes, cities around the world would do well to study the cycling infrastructure in the Netherlands before building or repairing any roads. Ottawa is trying… but there’s a long way to go. We thought the knooppunt system could be set up on the NCC’s bike paths relatively easily. Just number every intersection and build a computer program. How hard is that for the NCC bureaucrats….wait, I hear it now…your laughter rolling across the ocean.
As always, enjoyable blog! I sent it to my son-in-law since he enjoys biking. His response “Very interesting. Perhaps most interesting is that the transition to bikes is relative recent (1970s). I’ll have to visit someday”. Also sent to my brother who lives in Yellowknife, who cycled in France last year, and soon they leave with another couple to Germany for a 7 day ride, but this year with E-bikes!
E-bikes for Germany sound good, especially if they’re going into the mountainous areas!
Love it! Very similar experience on our 3 wk trip, only had a car for 2 days, mostly train. Loved KrollerMuller! Talk about head winds! But bikes were actually hard to get in NL. Very bummed OV Fiets not an option as you said, hope they change this in light of all the bike tourism. Bike share was not in most of the places we went. Bike stores will rent you a heavy old clunker but they are closed on weekends, had no websites, etc. You just have to show up and talk to them. It just takes more planning than you expect. At a Nat’l Park, underwhelmed by the wonky share bikes left on the rack (+no cell service to access them) we were told ‘We are Dutch, we all bring our own bikes here’…it’s a Natl Park! You should expect travelers.
Exactly! It is strange that they don’t make bike rentals easier for travelers! We were lucky to have easy access to bikes from the family we were pet-sitting for. Making the OV Fiets bikes available to travelers would be a game changer.