A Two Wheeled Wonderland

It’s easy to see why Holland is known as a two-wheeled paradise.

It’s flat, of course. Dutch Pancake flat in fact. The first place we’ve ever been where flat properly means flat.

And cycling tracks are everywhere. 

Everywhere? Really? Yes! … take a look at these maps …

Here’s a map of the national and regional cycling routes in England and Wales …

Not bad! And the same for France …

But this is what it looks like for Holland!

Everywhere!

Many of these cycling routes are on smooth, dedicated bicycle paths with no motorised traffic allowed. They’re cleverly designed too, often offering the most direct way to travel between two villages, making a bike journey much quicker and easier than the same trip by car.

This might explain why there are more bicycles than people in Holland! 13 bikes for every 10 people, the highest ratio for any country in the world.

Or why more than a quarter (28%) of all trips are made by bicycle … especially commuting, shopping or visiting friends. Again, the most in the world!

It follows that most car drivers also ride bicycles, which is probably why they’re so polite to cyclists. Giving way every time a cycle path crosses a road, patiently waiting to let us on to a roundabout.

In fact they’re so polite, they go straight to the top of the Clare & Andy Driver Courtesy League, pushing the Irish down into second place.

Holland is so well set up for cycling, it sometimes doesn’t feel quite real. It’s almost too easy, too nice. It can feel a bit like a cycling theme park or a bicycle-touring version of The Truman Show!

Adding to the theme park impression, we found Dutch people to have similar characteristics to the staff of a well known company, famous for its mouse and princesses.

Extremely friendly but also a little formidable. 

The Dutch pride themselves for telling it straight, no beating about the bush, and not minding at all when others do the same to them.

This can come as a surprise to those of us who live in a country where people will skirt apologetically around any difficult request with “I’m sorry but would you mind…” or “Excuse me but I’m going to have to ask you to…”

Take this exchange.

Having checked out of our hotel, we’re sitting in the hotel cafe for a few minutes waiting for the rain to clear before we set off. Suddenly we hear a rather severe voice behind us … 

“People, you have to leave!”

“Oh, OK”

“No, you have to leave now.”

We gather up our things. “Thats no problem, we’re going”

“We need to clean up. We have to close. You can’t stay here. You have to go.”

We scuttle out and shelter in the hotel reception instead.

Fifteen minutes later, after the rain has stopped, the same lady comes up to us in the street all smiles and chattiness. She wants to know where we’re going, tells us about her years living in Turkey and is genuinely interested in how we are finding the trip.

She’s so friendly, we might have been best buddies!

Another part of the fun of cycling in Holland is jumping on and off the water buses that ferry you across the many waterways.

Over the five days we spent cycling through the country, we roughly followed the route of the River Meuse so must have enjoyed at least a dozen of these boat rides.

Another interesting thing about cycling through different countries is discovering their individual quirks. In Holland for example, many cafes don’t open until 10am in the morning which might work well for sleepy locals but is not so good when you’ve arrived early on an overnight ferry and really need a coffee to get your legs going.

The announcements on the ferry had told us many times that we had to use the cycle paths in Holland and should never ride on roads unless there was absolutely no alternative. We tried our best to stick to these rules on the long caffeine-free ride through the centre of Rotterdam but became so confused by the sheer number of cycle tracks that we often went wrong, collecting several straight-talking telling offs along the way.

When we eventually did sit down for breakfast, we were so hungry we added a traditional Dutch snack … deep fried bitterballen. It’s a type of croquette that became popular in the 1800’s as the perfect way to transform yesterday’s leftovers into today’s lunch. Yum … but not necessarily for breakfast!

After escaping Rotterdam, our first day became a lot more scenic. We pedalled through the famous windmills of Kinderdijk, the island town of Dordrecht and the Biesbosch nature reserve before pausing for a couple of days in Gorinchem, described officially as ‘the most beautiful fortified town in the Netherlands!‘

It was strange to think we were sometimes cycling across reclaimed fields that are below the level of sea water. Fields that are incredibly verdant and vivid green from all the rich fertile soil and water, protected by strong dykes on all sides. It’s a unique agricultural landscape.

Much of this land was reclaimed in the 16th and 17th centuries using a state-of-the-art technology for the time, the windmill. Having literally created much of the country, windmills are rightly celebrated across The Netherlands, many beautifully restored and still operational. Using a range of intricate mechanisms, they cleared the land of water, milled grain into flour, cut timbers and made gin.

Visiting the mill in Gorinchem, we enjoyed a lovely experience thanks to the miller who demonstrated the sails and showed us its inner workings. It didn’t matter that he was the only Dutch person not to speak a word of English as we communicated happily using gestures, grunts and laughter.

Somehow he must have sensed our interest as he stopped the sails by pulling hard on a thick rope like a human break and beckoned us through a locked hatch to visit the very top of the mill. We climbed a precipitously steep ladder with the help of a supporting rope and clambered around the rafters to watch him grease the mechanism with some animal fat that hung like vines from nearby hooks.

He then invited Clare to climb onto the sails for a quick spin. Only joking, it was just for a picture.

From Gorinchem, we followed the river south, stopping overnight in Oss, Grubbenvorst and Heerlen before coming across some surprising hills in the far south of the country, just before we crossed into Germany. 

As always it was fascinating to cross a border and see the immediate differences between the two countries.

Suddenly there were a lot more Mercedes cars around, the typical Dutch gable roofs had been replaced by a more functional triangle and for bicycle tourists there were less cycle paths, more potholes to avoid and the drivers had become much more impatient.

Coming from England, it felt normal!

But we missed the two-wheeled-wonderland we’d been cocooned in for the previous five days. Unlike Truman Burbank (Jim Carey’s character) … we didn’t really want to escape.

But our time in this bicycle touring paradise was up, so as he would say … “Good afternoon, good evening and good night!”

Clare and Andy

685km pedalled (426 miles)

3235m climbed (mainly in England!)

37 hours in the saddle