Bicyles....

Bicycles in The Netherlands

From the very first minute (well at least after you leave the airport) you set foot on Dutch soil you will notice the extreme number of pedal bicycles aka bikes; they are really everywhere and are very different than the types of bikes found in North America. The typical Dutch bike, if you can call any of the bikes typical, looks about 20 years old, has the appropriate amount of rust on its black frame, has no gears and only back pedal breaks. My bright yellow mountain bike definitely sticks out like a sore thumb and I tell myself that is why I have not been brave enough to try riding it yet. They say the average bike goes about two weeks before it gets stolen and the done thing then is to return the favour and still another one to replace your stolen one. My trusty mountain bike purchased from a police repo sale about eight years ago, carefully sandblasted and painted a lovely shade of bright sunshiny…..no glow in the dark yellow….and plastered in Kona stickers so that it could be thought of a fancy imposter in a sturdy K-Mart body. It does have really cute chemfifi stickers appropriately placed so that if I suddenly forgot the colour of my bike I could identify by this trademark name. Well anyway…trusty banana I shall christen by bike as joined the two other derelict bikes at the entrance way of my apartment building. At least it doesn’t have the two inches of dust like the other two rejected/dejected/forgotten bikes have finely thickly plastered on their chipped black finish. I think after twenty-five years something is considered an antique??

Speaking of yellow bikes, I have to share with you a tale of another yellow bike that I came across when listening to CBC radio one after noon. This was a tale told by a Canadian expat living in the lowlands and who was the proud owner of a bright yellow bike. Unlike the dull and nondescript bikes that Dutch people all around her were riding she pedalled proudly on the seat of her yellow bike. The bike was momentarily parked at a bike rack while its rider went to run a random errand…or I could make up a really juicy story here as I cannot remember why the bike was left alone…so it was a dark and stormy night…wait now that is a different story. Keeping in mind the two week rule, this bike was about to come to the end of one of its nine lives…when the cheerful owner (so said cheerful because you have to be cheerful to ride atop a bright yellow bike) came to retrieve her bike it was no where to be seen. An empty parking space existed amongst the sea of black two wheeled beasts. The rider was heart broker, her love was lost. She had to find a replacement for her much loved yellow bike. She rode the bike lanes and country paths for many a year an empty place in her heart; until one day while riding in the middle of the country and across a bridge spanning one of The Netherlands’ many canals she was almost blinding by a vision of bright yellowness…the long missing bike was approaching her. She stopped the cyclist and said ‘Hey you, that is my yellow bike.’ And to her surprise the cyclist very quickly got off the bike and returned it to her. So ends the tale of what was once the only bright yellow bike in The Netherlands…at least now it has company.

Not all Dutch bikes are dull and boring black…many bike owners do amazing things to jazz up their only means of transportation. Common means of fashionistizing a bike include intertwining plastic flowers and vines around the handlebars; covering your seat in a cool plastic seat cover that could be patterned with polka dots, flowers or advertisements for the local pizzeria; augmenting the storage capacity by attaching a wicker basket at the front or a wooden crate at the back or slinging a two sided pouch at the rear. What you do not see is hockey cards in the spokes or ribbons from the handle bars. Some bikes are spray painted or painted with a brush with many different shades of the rainbow and subsequently plastered in stickers of flowers or fish or a certain ‘green’ leaf. I think these paint jobs and stickers are a valiant attempt at hiding the age of the bike or perhaps the identity of a stolen bike.

There are few basic rules to follow when riding a bike in The Netherlands…well really only one basic rule…Bikes have the right of way ALWAYS. Well there are a few more other handy hints:
• Bikes will not stop at pedestrian crossing, although two tonne trams will;
• Bikes will go up one way streets;
• Bikes take priority over helping move 700 kg of IKEA furniture (see early post of IKEA hell);
• Wearing of said safety helmet will make you the laughing stock of the city;
• Bike lanes are the red bricked paths…so it is a good idea not to walk on them;
• Bikes at night without lights are illegal to ride…but that doesn’t stop people from doing that so you have to wear night vision goggles when walking at night.
• Bikes are supposed to be equipped with a sound making device one would naturally think of as a bell, but instead most bikes rely on the squeak of the front wheel or the rattle of the mud guard to alert you to your impeding running over. A good thing to do is to unearth that extra pair of eyes at the back of your head so that you can watch for impeding crash/doom from all directions.

One of the most amazing sights that is related to bikes is the bike pool parking lot at the train stations. At any one station at any one time there are more bicycles than there are people in all of Lunenburg county. There are double decked bike parking garages that hold thousands of bikes at the fancier and bigger train stations. At the smaller stations bikes stand at attention, although some with cracked seats and flat tires stand limply at attention, in never-ending rows. These bikes are so tightly packed together that when I walk by them I want to practice for the longest chain of bikes tumbled in a bike-domino chain world record. Some of these bikes are covered in cobwebs and their wheels are threading with leaves. Where have their owners gone? What have these bikes done to deserve this abandonment? Perhaps after a night of binge drinking the bikes’ owner forgot where they parked their car? Is it a case of Dude where’s my bike? At the train station in Delft (which I have encountered frequently on my trips to IKEA) there are four rows of what appears to be a thousand bikes in each row…I had assumed that the bikes there must be representative of the bike trends from the last few decades as it did appear that some of the bikes had been there that long. I was absolutely dumbfounded by a conversation that I had at my spa afternoon on the weekend…Delft station was to undergo refurbishment over the summer and all abandoned bikes were removed at the beginning of June. So these thousands and thousands of bikes that are parked at Delft station have only been there for a few months. In particular there is one abandoned bike that I have fallen in love with in Den Haag. This bike is midway through my walk to work along the Mauritskade. I approach it blindly coming slightly uphill (and in The Netherlands, slightly uphill means very slightly…meaning marbles would not roll done this slightly uphill section of the road) and just after I pass a copy shop. It is attached to the railing over a canal that is next to the royal stables. It is a lovely looking bike and I am not sure why someone would want to abandon it. It has been lovely painted…well upon close inspection you would see that the love might have been slightly blind as the paint extends over the wheel rims and onto the handle bars. The frame has been painted a very girly shade of pale pink. There is a flowery seat cover. And there is sits apparently abandoned. Was I right to feel happy when I walked to work last week and it had a friend parked next to it…a ‘new’ bike chained adjacent to it…a kindred spirit that perhaps could share the space for a few hours or so.

The other tale about bikes is what people carry do while on their bikes…
• I have seen people walking or do we call it ‘bike riding’ their dogs. The dogs look very happy and they seem very well adjusted.
• I have seen people bike riding with three kids on the bike…what balance and strength that must take to keep the bike upright.
• I have seen people text while biking; talk on phone while riding; eat breakfast but have yet to see people put on mascara…that must be something reserved for cars!!
• I have seen people carry a week’s worth of groceries on their bike.
• I have seen people carry full length 2” x 4” while biking.
• I have seen people wheel alongside their wheelie suitcase while bike riding.

In fact if you can think of it, people probably do it on a bike in The Netherlands…

One day real soon I will venture on the yellow bike and it won’t be too bad…