A view from the cycle path

What It Really Means to Go Dutch - interview on The Bike Show

2013-05-03T00:05:00.000+02:00

A couple of weeks ago, Jack Thurston from The Bike Show kindly interviewed me. He did a splendid job of editing my ramblings down into something coherent and published the result today. You can hear the interview by clicking on the play button below, introduced by no less a cycling hero than Eddy Merckx ! If you can't see the play button, click here So what does it really mean to "Go Dutch

The Netherlands sets the best example, but don't copy anything just because it is "Dutch"

2013-04-01T04:30:00.001+02:00

While Germany is a genuine leader in renewable energy, and Danish design is known across the world, it is the Netherlands that should be looked to as the leader in cycling. There is no "good enough". Everything could be better. Works on cycle-pathsare common in the Netherlands because standards are improving. Dutch cycling infrastructure is a moving target. Observers from other countries

Keep Old Roads for Bikes ! How building new roads can benefit cyclists

2013-03-25T04:30:00.000+01:00

When new roads are built in the Netherlands, the old road is often retained to function as a through route for bicycles. Maps from the 1940s show a direct through route for all traffic. My understanding is that the ring road was originally built in the 1960s as this area of the city was developed. The noise barriers were installed in 2007 when the ring road was widened to cope with increased

London's new plans. Serious campaigning must start now

2013-03-08T14:49:00.000+01:00

London's Evening Standard and other sources added 10% to make headlines more impressive. Like everyone I was surprised at the sudden announcement in London about investment in cycling. In typical London style, the press release quoted lots of baffling but impressive sounding numbers. As so frequently happens, these were mostly reported verbatim without any analysis, though some news sources

What do we want ? Gradual Change. When do we want it ? In due course

2013-03-06T16:33:00.001+01:00

This morning I read yet another comment from a member of the British cycle campaigning establishment which said "It’s taken the Netherlands 40 years to get from where they were in the 70s to what you see there now". This excuse is used often in Britain seemingly as a reason why British campaigners should be happy with less than the Dutch have. New Scientist magazine in 1981. Just eight years

"Nearly Car Free" areas

2013-02-25T03:00:00.000+01:00

The Dutch term "autoluwe" refers to any place with few cars. There is no translation in regular use in English but I think we need one. I propose "Nearly Car Free" or NCF or a way of describing these areas. It's perhaps a little cumbersome, but it's descriptive and difficult to distort its meaning. Woonerven (Home Zones) are Nearly Car Free but woonerven are residential areas. Shopping streets

Exaggeration considered harmful. Hiding the real story about cycling.

2013-02-12T15:50:00.000+01:00

Click for the original copy I just received a rather triumphant press release from Cambridge Cycling Campaign. It's a "good news story" about "5000 more bicycles" which I expect will be reported verbatim elsewhere. However as an ex resident of the city it instantly rang bells for me and I think it deserves a little analysis before blindly reproducing the claims. The central claim is that

Cycling to the post office in the snow

2013-02-08T21:02:00.004+01:00

It snowed on and off today. This didn't stop me riding to the post office to send customers' parcels on their way. As you'll see from the video, it actually didn't stop many people doing what they normally do by bike. If you wind through to 2:35 on the video you'll see what the city centre looks like on a snowy day. Cycling in winter is something that is normal here for everyone, not just an

The Third Track

2013-01-25T20:09:00.001+01:00

My father used to point out that historical dramas on TV always got one thing wrong. When horses were shown pulling carriages along unfinished roads, there would be just two tracks. That's not how it used to be. In the past, there would be a third track in the middle created by horses' hooves and a track either side created by the wheels of the carriages. If there are just two tracks then that

Ice cold in Assen

2013-01-24T19:01:00.000+01:00

200 m from our home, a main cycle-path into the city clear of snow. This is a result of the tight grid of primary routes. It felt a little parky when I took our dog for a walk last night and on returning home I noted that someone had asked me about how we get on cycling in the winter. How cold is it ? What condition are the cycle-paths in ? I decided I'd take some photos today and write a

Oliebollentocht 2012

2013-01-04T17:32:00.001+01:00

At the start Last Saturday, the 29th of December, was the day of the Oliebollentocht. This is an annual social ride for velomobilists, around 60 km in length. This year it the circular route started from Zwolle and it attracted 157 velomobiles which was enough for a new world record. 157 is about 1/10th of the total number of velomobiles in the Netherlands, though quite a lot of participants

Snow. What tyres to make it safe ?

2012-12-06T10:19:00.000+01:00

Judy a hundred metres from our home. The cycle-path is clear of ice and snow We had four cm of snow last night, the first real snow of the winter. It looks wonderful, but snow can be dangerous for cyclists especially if it is not removed from the cycle-paths and if it becomes compacted. Marathon Winter Studded Tyre Assen is quite good at clearing snow, but there can still be small patches

Avoiding potholes

2012-11-01T15:41:00.001+01:00

Slight puddle before. could get worse over winter I've mentioned before that Dutch roads and cycle-paths don't often suffer from potholes. There's currently a patch of slightly rough surface between our home and the local shops, but that's as bad as it gets. I can't think of any actual potholes on any roads or cycle-paths that we use. The reason, of course, is that standards of maintenance

Consistent, Convenient, High Quality Cycle-Paths Encourage Cycling

2012-10-22T00:01:00.000+02:00

To achieve a high degree of subjective safety and through this convince the whole population to cycle, cyclists need to be kept away from motor vehicles. A comprehensive network of cycle-paths, as seen here in Assen, is a particularly good way to do this. The first underpass runs top right to left on this image, completely avoiding this Roundabout on the ring road - previously shown when I

They came, they saw... September 2012 study tour

2012-10-08T13:08:00.002+02:00

We've been running study tours since 2006. We started doing this it became obvious to us that there was a rather large gulf between what was thought in the UK, where we then lived, to be best practice in infrastructure for cyclists and what was everyday normality in the Netherlands and used by millions of people every day of the year. This blog started as a supplement to the tours. It was a way

Off road car parking. NL vs. UK

2012-10-04T19:39:00.000+02:00

The photo on the right, from the Crap Waltham Forest blog, shows how High Road in Leytonstone in London has been transformed to move car parking off the road. This has resulted in narrowing of the carriageway and a worsening of conditions for cyclists. Click on the link for more details of the harm that is being done as well as comments about the continuing confusion of some cycle-campaigners

Langholm - An example of how British villages are blighted by traffic

2012-09-29T12:02:00.001+02:00

The video above was forwarded to me this week. It shows how the centre of the village of Langholm in Scotland is blighted by an incredibly busy road passing through it. The description underneath the video is well worth reading: Transport Scotland justifies the 30mph speed limit through Langholm High Street claiming it is ''...unsuitable for a 20mph limit due to the strategic classification of

"Team building ?"

2012-09-15T13:35:00.003+02:00

On Thursday Judy and I both finished all the work we had to do by mid-day. In the morning, Judy had been busy organising holidays while I'd packed 20 parcels and taken them to the post office in the usual way. For some time we'd been planning to visit a bicycle museum 25 km West of Assen. Over lunch we decided that's what we'd do in the afternoon. Museum owner Anne Maris I got to try out an

Van blocking the cycle-path

2012-09-03T00:01:00.000+02:00

Van "blocking" a four metre wide cycle-path Just like anywhere else in the world, maintenance vehicles in The Netherlands sometimes stop on cycle-paths. I took this photo on the way to the shops a few days ago (the same route as in this video). Of course it is a bit of an irritation when vehicles like this stop on the cycle-path. However, usually they pull off the cycle-path, and when they

The importance of the mundane, why the mundane must go everywhere and why "mundane" must be very good.

2012-08-31T10:17:00.000+02:00

Chatting in safety on "just average" Dutch cycle-path. Occasionally we've covered exceptional examples of cycling infrastructure on this blog. It is not only this blog, or only the Netherlands that produces such infrastructure. Such projects, big and impressive, often large bridges, tunnels or cycle-parking facilities, are photogenic and prestigious. They can also be the subject of press

Red carpet for pedestrians

2012-08-20T00:01:00.000+02:00

Groningen's great success in cycling has lead to problems which are not so common elsewhere. One of these is the enormous number of bicycles which need to be accommodated. Sometimes the pavements (sidewalks) are so attractive for cycle parking that there is little space left for pedestrians to walk on. In some of the busy areas where cycle-parking puts pedestrians under pressure, Groningen

Timelapse and last chance

2012-08-16T11:59:00.000+02:00

Timelapse Our friend Sander Markamp made this time-lapse view of Groningen. Bicycles are not the theme, but it's Groningen so you'll see lots of them anyway. I thought many people would like the video: Study tour deadline In the next few days we'll stop taking bookings for the September Study Tour. For more details, or if you already know that you'd like to come along, please visit the Study

Solving the problem of pavement car parking in residential streets

2012-08-06T00:00:00.000+02:00

Ruysdaelstraat in Assen a few years ago Ruysdaelstraat now Residential areas frequently suffer from problems caused by car parking. This can take the form of cars parked on the road getting in the way of other drivers, cars parked on the road causing cyclists to have to swerve around parked cars (can be dangerous especially for less confident cyclists) or cars parked on the pavements (

The first Fietsroute+ in Groningen

2012-07-16T00:00:00.000+02:00

Not all major cycle-routes are given a particularly grand name in the Netherlands. While other countries use terms such as "superhighway" for mere cycle-lanes, in this country, more modest terms are used for very good and direct cycle-paths. One of these terms is "Fietsroute+", favoured by the Groningen-Assen region. My mother helping me to demonstrate the Assen-Rolde Fietsroute+ The first

A reasonably speedy delivery

2012-07-07T16:00:00.001+02:00

The cycle-paths on this route are all wide and smooth like this. Earlier this week, a customer in Meppel ordered a few dynamo lighting parts. It's within cycling range, so I asked if he minded waiting until Saturday so I could deliver them in person. I made the delivery this morning and I took photos on the way. I'm catching you up The customer's apartment turned out to be 44 km from our