HOW EASY IS IT TO BIKE IN THE NETHERLANDS? | JONESIN’ FOR TASTE
Biking is one of the major ways to get around especially if you don’t have a car. Although it can be a little nerve racking especially if you haven’t spent much time on a bike!
I’m sharing some of our crazy, and sometimes incredibly embarrassing, stories along with showing you why it is so safe to bike here.
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ABOUT JONESIN FOR TASTE
I grew up wishing that I was connected more with my Hawaiian and Mexican heritage. Now as a multi-cultural family living abroad in Europe, I’m teaching my kids to be proud of their heritage and to learn more about the cultures that influence us.
We have grown so much as we have learned more about other cultures and gained confidence in our own place in the world- so can you!
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Do you want to jump into dutch culture and explore the netherlands bikes are a popular way of getting around and for good reason with the extensive bike paths it’s a convenient and cheap method for getting around hi i’m jade jones and i run johnson for taste my family and i moved to the
Netherlands in 2019. you can learn more about that here so in theory bikes have the right of way in the netherlands however you still need to be observant of the traffic around you and use caution when crossing the streets or navigating intersections without traffic lights
Soon after we moved here i was taking my kids to school and on the way home i was stopped at the tram stop when i was watching a woman who was trying to cross a very busy street she ended up getting hit by a large very large like construction truck and
Dragged down the street while we in object horror watched on so that was a really good lesson to me to use it’s still extreme caution especially when in the busy downtown areas writing downtown is definitely more intimidating than riding in the outer city and more residential areas
And you need to exercise a lot more caution um if you aren’t used to riding a bike be prepared to be passed up by like everyone omas and oppas grandmas and grandpas pregnant women moms driving back feets and kids balancing friends on the racks on either the front or back of their bikes
You’ll feel pathetic just accept it about six months after we moved here i was coming back from dropping my kids off at a summer camp and i went to go jump a curb to get onto a bike lane um i didn’t make it instead of jumping the
Curb i hit a sand patch my shoe went flying off my the back of my pants got stuck on the handlebar and i ended up doing like a 180 and on the ground facing the direction or the opposite direction from which i’d been going um to make it more embarrassing somebody
Saw and as this woman wrote up she wrote up with this like look on her face of like you are special and uh and she just wrote up and she was like alice and i was like yeah all this could and then i shuffled over to go get my put my shoe
Back on and then ride home bikes are really safe to ride in the netherlands and here’s a reason why i’ll show you an intersection so i thought i would show off behind me you can see this is a like a major crossing so you see there’s bike path right here
There’s a walking path um and then for the cars so the bike paths are all red and that’s how you know where everybody’s supposed to go everybody has their own little signal but you can see hold on so you can see right here here’s for the people there’s for the bikes
And then the cars are over there i think that’s part of the reason why it’s so safe to bike here it’s just because they have things set up so well so you can see the bike path right next to me so even with such distinct pathways for bikes
Cars and pedestrians that doesn’t always mean people stay in their lane literally my daughter and i were riding to go take her to a music class and she was riding her bike right in front of me and this old man stepped off of a busy walking path into the busy
Bike path and she had to like slam on her brakes and i was shouting at the man because there were multiple people behind me um and he was completely oblivious to what was going on thankfully she did not hit him because that would have been
Really sad um but again like you have to be really aware of what’s going on around you especially because people bike really fast and pedestrians aren’t always paying attention especially with kids around and you don’t want to cause an accident despite accidents happening occasionally it really is so safe to
Bike here most people don’t wear bike helmets which is an interesting thing coming from the united states where helmets are so emphasized um but it is so nice to be able to bike places that we would love to go to it’s certainly much faster than taking transit or walking
Um and it takes only a little bit of practice to become more confident in writing a great bonus for me was it’s a natural opportunity to work out i have four kids and we moved here right after not too long after the youngest one was born and so it was a nice opportunity
For me to squeeze in some exercise and help me improve my post baby body even if you are new to the netherlands and not super confident on a bike get on a bike start practicing ride around a neighborhood ride around a park and get used to it be brave
And participate in this aspect of dutch culture make sure to check out some of my other videos about expat life happy adventuring
17 Comments
Loved your reaction keep on the good work
I am a born and raised dutch woman. Which means I have been on a bike before I could walk. I have had classes in school and a lifetime of experience cycling. Its safe to say I am not a beginner cyclist. Having said that. Take it from me, you will fall off of your bike at some point….we all do…its how we learn. In my life this is what I learned…;
A) always upkeep your bike: as a small kid my bike broke underneath me…the front wheel fell off and I was thrown head first towards the ground. Au! Scraped my knees and hands. A rusty bike can become a broken bike in a blink of an eye. So make sure the equipment works.
B) When its cold there can be ice on the road you can't see so be mindful while riding: you'll hit the ice and your bike will become a zamboni. Don't panic and jerk the handlebars cause it will make you fall. Just remain calm and glide it out.
C) Accidents happen: just cause you have the right of way doesn't main you'll get it. You can be in deadman's corner or the car driver gets distracted for a second. Always cycle like the car hasn't spotted you. I myself got run over by a car on a cyclepath….clear sightlines,shark teeth on the ground, warning sign "beware of cyclists" and a (rare in the Netherlands) STOP sign…..still he ran me over cause his daughter distracted him for a second. What saved my life was my preparedness. I saw it was gonna hit me…no escaping that no matter what I did…so I hit the brakes and steered away from the car….every inch helps and it makes the impact less. Instead of going through the windshield I went flying over the front of the car…..saved my life. I still love to cycle thou. But for example on a roundabout I make eye contact with the car driver now to make sure they see me. Stuff like that.
On a bike you go +/- 12 A 15 Km per hour then you don't need a helmet
Weeks
Hi Jonesin, Watching this video you [imho] could benefit from a few important tips, pointers & suggestions about riding a bike in The Netherlands. 1. If you're not all that comfortable riding a bike: Wear a helmet & get some practice in a safe environment such as a park. 2. Every Dutch person is / was a bike rider. Use that! 3. Signal / show your intent [hand signals]. Don't do anything to surprise / scare other road-users. 4. When encountering other road-users such as cars: MAKE EYE-CONTACT with the driver! It helps a lot to indicate 'something is up!' and it helps to adjust direction, speed etc. 5. TRUCKS are BIG, slow to react and have a lot of what we call 'dead-space' The windows and mirrors on a truck do not provide a 360 degree view. Large areas around a truck can not be monitored by the driver. These areas are BIG and LETHAL!.
!! Never cycle right next to a truck!! Always give a truck the 'right of way' Better safe than DEAD. Make eye contact with the truck driver, when crossing paths… SERIOUSLY keep well clear of trucks; Sneaking through to get to the front at a traffic light is a major cause of death for cyclists. Despite all this cycling is safe, affordable, and will get you everywhere while staying fit. Enjoy!
I loved hearing about some of your honest experiences and the truth about the stress of riding in high bike traffic areas! That was a scary experience though with the woman, I am always saddened to hear about horrors like that. It is definitely much safer there than here in the US, but it doesn’t mean it is perfect. I sure wish we had red protected bike paths here in Utah, but we are making some progress with a safe bike network.
Just a small correction. Bikes do not have right of way. To them similar rules apply as to cars. Kids learn the rules in primary school.
And falling is part of learning. Everyone has fallen a few times.
Bikes do NOT have right of way in the Netherlands. Bikes have the same rules as other traffic, so from the right on a crossing of EQUAL roads the bike has right of way.
The only thing is that if you do hit a bike with your car you have a very feeble case, but you can't just take right of way on a bike.
all the kids hates it….their parents loves it because they dont paying for the bus, OV….psss Normaly the kids get a new bike from around 500 – 1000 euro (if you are stupid)
Its healty. kids who bike are thin….who dont become fat…. look early in the morning outside the big city's. Around 07.00 till 10..00 all the kids fietsen, biking to school…..
older then twelve….tell about the Boeggie man…….. in the trees….JOKING!!!! …..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Lr7bJBa2AM&t=28s
Very important in fall an winter; make sure you can be seen! Its getting dark early. (only light between 9am and 4pm) Have good front and rear lights. Not just one led flashing.
Imagine a car driver must see you amid a sea of shimmering wet cobble stones and flashing commercial outings.
Yeah, you have to be careful with pedestrians. Also, especially when they are jogging, with music on their ears. They might decide they have done their 4km and just turn 180 degrees and cross the cycle path right in front of you.
Always ride your bike defensive. If you are dead or wounded it doesn't matter that you were in your right
Bikes don't have the right of way. They TAKE the right of way.
Yeah! Cyclist don't ware helmets buts lot and lots will wear Head phones and ear phones, when doing so they are in their own little WORLD and don't pay much attention to anything else. 2 or 3 times I've ran into some of these cyclist when they decided to turn in front of me without hand singling, For some crazy reason here in EINDHOVEN they are in certain areas putting 2 way bike lanes on one side of the road, during rush hour it's a MAJOR problem, there will be a MAJOR pile of bikes waiting to cross an intersection blocking the thru 2 way bicycle traffic trying to cross from both sides. During the peak hours on these dual sided bike paths when people are trying to get around a slower cyclist I've seen several times when handles bars would get crossed up end result a crash with 2 or 3 people scraping themselves off the ground, I was one of them, man I felt sorry for the other guy who crossed over the line onto my side he took a good fall. And now we still need to deal with the speeding scooters! A lot of these guys are dare devils! Speeding e-bikes and e-scooters they are the Silant killers not really killers but they are so quite they'll zip up onto you and scare the crap out of you so I'm always looking out for them. I've seen a few good confrontations between them and regular cyclist, worst yet pedestrians! Last straw, toss in some of these ex-pats who will have no clue about riding a bike, Oh lordy I hope the man above is watching over them. Most of this will be happening within the inner city aeras. Lucky for me I work for myself so I get to pick when I want to go to and from work, some times I'm the thick of it and some times I'm not.
I myself I'm an American now living in HOLLAND for a 2nd tour I started riding bicycles way back in the 60's where there was no such thing as bicycle paths and bicycle lanes so I'm comfortable with sharing the road ways with cars and so on. Where I'm from San Jose Silicon valley some roadways which once had 3 lanes for car traffic, they removed 1 lane totally and gave it to the cyclist, so instead of building new infrastructure for bicycles they gave 1 whole lane to the cyclist, it's about time! In San Jose once a month we'll have a bicycle party everybody is invited it'll weave through San Jose for about 20 miles with food truck following, we'll pull into a parking lot somewhere food trucks roll in and open up shop, other people are selling bike trinkets people are partying eating and drinking with BOOM boxes BOOMING AWAY! Then were on the road again! Some of these bike parties will last into the late hours of the night at one gathering they think they had roughly 8,000 participants. On these nights we'll just not take up 1 lane but we'll take up 2 sometimes all 3. So party on! Ride on! And most of all be careful! MAHALO!