A different take on cycling

A bike parking in front of a home

We recently returned from a bike and barge trip in Holland and Belgium. Of course I had heard about the prevalence of bicycles but it was hard for me to imagine how important bikes are to everyday life there.

Bike with a kiddie seat in front

Everywhere we went we saw bicycles and not just one or two, bike lanes and pathways were crowded with bicycles. There were special traffic lights for bikes, and many many miles of beautiful pathways in the countryside. Our guide told us that kids in The Netherlands ride bikes from the time they are small.  They ride to school in all seasons and in all weather because that's the only way to get there. Dutch bikes are thoughtfully designed for everyday transportation. They have plastic chain guards so you don't get your clothing dirty and some have platforms welded to the front to support boxes or bags of groceries. For children too small to ride their own bikes there are seats in front of the adult rider.

We saw the lycra-clad folks on road bikes whizzing along in neat lines outside the cities but most of the folks on bikes were in ordinary street clothes.  There were gangs of teenage boys riding together and laughing loudly, seemingly delighted to pass the odd-looking tourists in their helmets. Only the roadies seem to wear helmets in The Netherlands. There were women with bags of groceries on their bikes. There were construction workers in their heavy boots, hard hats and reflective vests.  We saw women cycling in high heels and folks older than we are out on their bikes on the canal paths. On a ferry we met four people who were cycling to a nearby town for lunch on a Sunday afternoon.

Toinne parking our bikes on the higher level in the garage

Then there are the bike garages. We parked in one that had 4500 spaces and that wasn't the largest one in the country. In Utrecht the main garage will eventually hold 12, 500 bikes and, as The Guardian reports in this article, some think it will be too small. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/07/worlds-biggest-bike-parking-garage-utrecht-netherlands

The big bike parkades are located near the central train stations so that people can park their bikes and then take the train.  Some people have two bikes, one to get from home to the train and one to get from the train to work. They ride in the rain and in the snow and hop on their bikes as we would hop in our cars. Car drivers are used to cyclists and they wait patiently behind until there is room to pass, even if there is a line of 20 cyclists on a narrow rural road.

A bike parkade

The Netherlands, of course, is a smaller country than Canada. There are  approximately 17 million people in The Netherlands and 36 million in Canada.  The area of The Netherlands is around 42,000 km2 while the area of Alberta is roughly 662,00 km2 so there are more people in a smaller area to make use of the infrastructure. I can't help wondering if the city of Calgary, for instance, could ever be more like Amsterdam in the way it accepts and provides for cycling as a way of life. There is sometimes the heavy snowfall and cold temperatures but there are still usually 6 months where the pavement is free of ice and, during the winter, the city does clear some of the more heavily used pathways into the downtown core. I wonder what it takes to create a culture where a bike isn't either for kids, roadies or people who want to ride on mountain trails.

Maybe the terrain also has something to do with it. Holland and Belgium are not 'flat' but the hills are relatively gradual. I found I could easily tackle most of them by hanging back from the cyclists ahead, shifting to a lower gear and the powering up the hill. The steepest hills seemed to be coming off ferries or climbing up to an overpass over a busy highway. Rarely did I need to shift gears in the middle of the hill and it was a totally different strategy than riding the hills at home where I tend to put the bike in a low gear, find a fairly low cadence so I can keep my feet moving and so I don't get too out of breath. The bikes we rode had 8 speeds and I found 6 sufficient for my needs.

Richard's noble steed for the trip

The bikes we rode were of a totally different design than our bikes at home and we wondered how we would adapt.  All have lower beams rather than the high bar of the triangular frame of the road or mountain bikes making it easier to mount and dismount. The riding position is more upright, perfect for sight-seeing without crooking your neck. Our bikes had gearing in an internal rear hub and a grip shift to change gears.

Since coming back from Holland I'm trying to regard my bike differently, as a vehicle for transportation as well as a vehicle for recreation and fitness. I don't think I'll ever get to the point where I see the bike as my primary mode of transportation but I now consider the possibility of riding to pick up a few groceries or to an appointment. I don't have to go fast and I don't necessarily have to put on all my bike duds. I do wear a helmet which most of the Dutch and Flemish riders didn't. I also wear my cycling shoes since I like the clipless pedals on my bike. One of the things that drove me slightly crazy on the bikes we rode was I couldn't clip in and pull up on the pedal to get it to the correct level for starting off.

I enjoyed the trip and I'm intrigued by what it would be like to live in a bicycle-centric culture.  I also wonder what the rate of head injuries in Holland is compared to Canada where helmets are more common. Are the Dutch more skilled riders since they ride almost from birth?  Are the speeds slower so injuries are less severe? That's something I'll have to investigate. In the meantime it was an eye-opening trip to a small country with rich agriculture, great art and miles and miles of places to cycle.