Those crazy Dutch… and their bicycles No comments yet

There is one thing you can’t miss, if you ever come to Holland, and that thing or things, better said, are bicycles. There are bikes everywhere, on every street corner, before every pub and especially in front of every train station.

Above – the biggest bicycle parking in Holland, in Amsterdam, Look at the platforms on the right of the picture – those are all bicycles,

Yes, my dear reader, the crazy Dutch people and bikes go together like peanut butter and jelly. For me it’s impossible to think about Holland and not to think about bicycles. It’s such a specific and wonderful thing. I, for one, would kill a few people (I have a list somewhere) to see the same thing in Bucharest, it just makes sense.

Above – My banged-up Gazelle bike in the Veluwe national park

Therefore meet my not-in-such-a-good-shape-but-still-wonderful-typical-Dutch bike with the help of which I have travelled many roads, mostly to work and back, that is. I love this bike, mostly because the wheals still turn. And I love the bike lanes the crazy Dutch have put everywhere and I love that you can ride you bike everywhere. I love bikes.

Above – Check the wooden baskets on the bike, there is a young crazy Dutch inside. Picture taken last year in Amsterdam

And the Dutch love their bikes too. And you can see some weird contraptions which, for some reason, are still called bicycles. Bikes with big wooden baskets for carrying the young members of the family, bikes with smaller baskets for carrying groceries, other stuff and occasionally a dog or two (I’ve seen a dog in a bicycle basket with my own two eyes), bikes with some sort of a second, smaller bicycle attached to them, bikes with some sort of a one-wheeled trailer, tandem bikes, bikes with a small gas engine, bikes with an eclectic engine, big bikes, small bikes, all kind of bikes, there is something for everybody.

There is one thing you should keep on mind when thinking about Holland – it rains, a lot, I mean like a lot. Or, let me put it this way. When I see the sun for me it’s almost a party. It’s that bad. Therefore the crazy Dutch had to develop some crazy way to ride their bikes when it rains, or, with other words, daily. I’ve noticed 3 approaches to this:

• The “Umbrella” method: keep one hand on the handle and with the other balance the umbrella and pray the wind doesn’t blow too hard. My least favorite method due to it’s inefficiency as it’s uncomfortable and usually the wind blows, so you get wet anyway but you also punish yourself with a grueling balancing act
• The method called “Don’t care and just let the rain do it’s job, after all, a little water never killed nobody, right?”. Wrong! People who say this (Simon) probably forgot about a little thing called pneumonia – which involves getting very sick and becoming very familiar with your own bodily fluids. And you wouldn’t believe how many people use this method. Sure, it’s convenient, but it still sucks to get wet all the way to your underpants and a little further.
• The “Rain pants” method: make use of a rain coat plus the fabulous invention of rain paints. This is my favorite method and I gladly use it. To use it you have to put any drop of pride you might have away and dress to something that resembles a clown with baggy pants or some sort of lost poncho-wearing Mexican on a bike. But it works!

I can go on for hours and hours about the Dutch and their bikes, it’s such a Dutch thing and I love it so much. Therefore tomorrow I’ll hop on my very Dutch and somewhat shaky Gazelle bike and hit the road and while pedaling up and down I’ll be watching those crazy Dutch. Read on.

P.S. Unrelated to the Dutch but related to bicycles I included a clip about driver awareness when it comes to cyclists.