FootePrints Unlimited

Amsterdam, June 2017

The bike culture in Amsterdam is quite marvelous. It’s also bloody terrifying. 

I’d read about bicycles in guidebooks and we’d watched the the Rick Steves video about Amsterdam. We both thought it was pretty cool that Amsterdam has embraced this environmentally friendly method of public transportation but we weren’t at all prepared for the reality.

On our first afternoon in Amsterdam, after connecting with our host and settling into our VRBO apartment, we set out to explore the city. We crossed the street and immediately found a statuesque woman with long blonde hair and a very annoyed expression on her face bearing down upon us with her bicycle. She shouted something at us in Dutch and, after the briefest of deer-caught-in-the-headlights moments, we quickly darted to what appeared to be the safe side of the sidewalk. The blonde flashed us a scornful look as she rode past. I muttered, “Erm, yeah, Amsterdam. I seem to recall bikes being a big thing here.”

We quickly learned that bicycles rule the road in Amsterdam. Pedestrians do well to keep out of the bike lanes at all times and to carefully check for bicycles when crossing the street.

We saw this poster while wandering around the Museumplein – “Tourists stay out of the fucking bike lanes”. They really mean it.

We did our best to respect the rules of the road, however, the sidewalks were often clogged with parked scooters and bicycles, especially bicycles, some of which looked suspiciously derelict, like they hadn’t been moved in months or even years. Nonetheless, bicycles have the right of way and we soon learned to yield in those instances when we had to momentarily step off the sidewalk into the bike lane. Unlike in Canada, where bicycle safety courses in school taught us to ride single file, bicyclists in Amsterdam reserve the right to ride two abreast. As pedestrians, we found ourselves frequently walking single file as groups of cyclists whizzed past.

We saw people of all ages and social classes riding bicycles in Amsterdam, from old guys wearing coveralls to smartly dressed business women. We saw couples riding bicycles built for two but even more frequently bicycles built for one adult and one child or sometimes even bicycles built for three – one adult and two children. Toddlers and preschoolers often rode along in wooden bins attached to to the front of specially designed bicycles while even younger babies were often strapped to their bicycle riding parents in baby slings or simply carried in their parent’s arms.

While bike helmets are the law in most of Canada, we rarely saw an adult in Amsterdam sporting a bike helmet; only some of the young children riding independently wore helmets. Given the sheer volume and speed of the bicycle traffic, and just traffic in general, we inwardly cringed at the lack of helmets on infants and young children, especially the babes carried in arms. As Ron pointed out, it could be disastrous if one of the parents found themselves momentarily off balance because a bike tire got caught up in a tram track.

Don’t get me wrong, we have tremendous admiration for the bike culture in Amsterdam. It would be great to see more accommodation for bicycles in Canadian cities. Bicycles are a part of the charm of Amsterdam. And once we learned to swivel our heads 360 degrees, like owls or that girl from the Exorcist, in order to check for oncoming bicycles, we truly enjoyed our walks around the city.  🙂

Continue reading The Path of the Gods