I Bikepacked Across the Netherlands | Bicycle Superhighways! American Reacts

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All right, there’s this video here. I bikep packed across the Netherlands. Bicycle superighway superighways. So, uh, stripey bread is the name of this channel. I’ll have links down there. Let’s check this out. Thanks for watching with me. Bike packed across the Netherlands. So, this will be kind of cool to see like cuz we don’t have a whole lot of bike paths here in general. We do have one that kind of randomly goes from uh one town that connects goes through a couple towns down that way. Used to be an old like railroad track or something and it’s kind of like that in the middle of nowhere a little bit, but it follows along the side of a highway for most of it. I think recently I traveled over 150 miles across the Netherlands for 3 days on my bike to explore firsthand the urbanism, beauty, and bike lanes of the country. I would be wild camping to save money and using my cheap mountain bike as it was all I had. Not ideal, but it did the job. This journey taught me a lot. So stay tuned for a wild bike packing adventure across the world’s biking capital, the Netherlands. This video took a lot of effort, so it would mean a lot if you could subscribe as over 99% of you aren’t subscribed. And support me on Patreon where all money goes directly to my university fund and you get All right, I just subscribed. Uh, I guess I’m the 265th subscriber. Maybe this channel will go uh will grow pretty big here soon. Probably a newer channel. You get early access to videos and more. This was the route I took starting from Utrect going to Amsterdam down the coast through the Hagen Roterdam then south to Breida and Hindovven after Isn’t that through the tulip fields when he goes through? Isn’t the tulip fields somewhere towards the top up here? Oh yeah, right there. Tulip experience Amsterdam. Yeah, it’s somewhere in here. Yeah. And then you got the tul the toper tulip through the Hagen Roterdam then south to Breida and Einhovven. After arriving in the massive Utre train station, I explored the beautiful city for a while on foot, strolling down the canal streets and past the historic churches. The lack of cars in the city made it a very pleasant place to hang out in, and I had my first encounter with the famous Dutch underground bike parking lots, which amazed me. I then returned to I’ve seen those in a video, or at least the one in is it Utrich? Is Utrich the biggest one? I think the the world’s largest underground bike uh garage kind of thing. Not quite sure. This is going to be a fun video to watch. turned to my bike and set off towards Amsterdam. I would be following the picturesque and winding river vet route. I got my first taste of biking in the Netherlands and it was amazing. Everywhere I went, there was highquality bike infrastructure and I didn’t feel unsafe once. This was one of my favorite parts of the journey, passing through cute towns and along fascinating draw bridges. Even though there was no separated bike path, this narrow style of road prioritized bikes and made me feel safe. Such a drastic change from last video. He’s like, I didn’t feel unsafe the whole time. And then he reiterated how safe he feels a couple times. And it’s like the last video, the entire time Evan was like, yeah, no, I feel unsafe. I feel like I’m going to get ran over by a car. I got to like jump over this guardrail and like walk through the edge of the forest essentially and almost get attacked by poison ivy just to avoid the vehicles. An idea every country should implement. I eventually reached the outskirts of Amsterdam and it was okay between Amsterdam and Leiden, I guess, is where the tulips are and stuff. All right. All right. So, it’s up that way. I think sort of he went close to them at least, right? He didn’t go through them probably. I don’t know. It was amazing riding through bike lanes that passed under skyscrapers and alongside incredible infrastructure. That would be cool. The center of Amsterdam was busy and exciting with edgy shops in the red light district and I explored for a couple of hours in the early evening. I then exited the city center and headed east along an incredibly straight bike path. Hold on. Which way did he go? So I guess between Amsterdam and and Leiden is the tulip field exited the city. I don’t see Leiden. Leiden should be over to the left, right? Can’t remember. city center and thought maybe down. Oh, wait. There’s ship wall skippool or whatever. Leiden’s farther south from there, right on the way towards Guda or how or something and headed east along an incredibly straight bike path, grabbing supplies for the night from little along the way. However, the constant air traffic overhead from nearby Skipple Airport kept me entertained. At 8:00 p.m., I made it to the pretty town of Harlem and stopped at McDonald’s for a recharge. Think that’s where Sky lives. As the sun set, I headed east from Harlem and entered the nearby forest looking for a place to wild camp. After I didn’t know there was a forest there. Hold on. Where did he from Harlem and entered the near Oh, I guess I can see it on the map. It’s this strip of dark brown or dark green. Sorry. So, he goes through this foresty patch. Okay. On the way to Xanort, the nearby forest looking for a place to wild camp. Not too long, I found a secluded spot, put up my little tarp setup, and fell asleep soon after. Soon. Are we allowed to wild camp when I go there? I know he did. I don’t know if you’re allowed to. I don’t want to just be like camping in the middle of woods in between a couple towns and like have somebody come over and be like, “Hey, what what are you doing? You can’t be here.” You know? Uh that would be pretty cool to go camping sometime over there. Lighten is towards the sea, I guess. Okay. Those are the dunes. Is that p past the forest spot? Goes through the forest spot and then up to the dunes. Somebody says no. I don’t know what they were saying no to. Okay. No, I can’t just go camping. Okay. So, he’s probably should he probably shouldn’t be doing that then. Possibly. Soon I will release a comprehensive guide to wild camping and bike packing in the Netherlands. So, subscribe to see that. Although it rained in the night, I was surprisingly comfortable in my tiny setup. And I woke early to the sun at 6:00 a.m. for what would prove to be the longest day of my trip by far. I So San Xan for that’s the dunes then, I would assume, right? And it’s probably pronounced Sanfort I would I would think instead of Xan. Isn’t the Z’s kind of pronounced like the S or something? I packed up, making sure to leave no trace, and made my way through the small hills towards the town of Xanvort, famous for its F1 track. I then headed south along the great coastal cycle path, gently winding through the peaceful sandjunes for miles, and I didn’t see another person for an entire hour. The next town of Nordwick was very empty at this time in the morning. So I continued through and made my way to the H, the capital of the Netherlands. Here I explored the embassies, city center, and Chinatown. And the city definitely had a different vibe to the areas of the Netherlands I had previously passed through. Soon I continued south along canals towards Delft, a beautiful town sandwiched between the H and Rotterdam. The town really represented the best of the Netherlands with beautiful, quiet canal streets and incredible bike lanes that strongly made me consider packing up and moving to the Netherlands. Next, I reached Roderdam, a city that all it took was Delft. He got to Delft and he’s like, “You know what, guys? This is the spot. I kind of just want to like move here. That’s awesome. That had been completely destroyed in World War II and had been rebuilt as a modern city. very different to anywhere else in the country. There are massive skyscrapers. Wait, what’s he Is he talking about? I got sidetracked. There was like a massive truck that drove by and it like glared through or something. Is this uh Roderdam? He’s not in Roderdam yet, right? What? Okay. Yeah, it was Roderdam. Also, thank you, Mandy. Can you react to road and street design in the Netherlands from the channel’s Treecapes? Yes. Uh, as soon as we’re done with this road, let me find it real quick. Road and street design in the Netherlands. My microphone is not in a good spot for typing. by streetscapes. Okay, there we go. I’m going to pause it, of course, so we can finish. Okay, cool. It does not have a thumbs up, so I did not react to it. Yeah. Uh, we’ll do that as soon as we’re done with this one. Awesome. Thank you for the, uh, super chat and the suggestion. city that had been completely destroyed in World War II and had been rebuilt as a modern city very different to anywhere else in the country. There are massive skyscrapers with crazy architecture and wide boulevards everywhere. This meant that cycling here was slightly worse than other places in the Netherlands, but still infinitely better than anywhere in the US. And that’s not the first time I’ve heard that talking about uh Roderdam because Roderdam is such a drastic change from like the rest of the Netherlands. And from like a lot of different videos and stuff that I’ve gathered, Roderdam was built kind of more for cars when they rebuilt it. they had that mindset of carb, you know, it was after because they because the Netherlands didn’t like get turned into like the biking, cycling, infrastructure uh capital, whatever that it is today until like the 70s or something, right, when they started doing that because the car stuff was just getting too out of hand. So, you know, but the cycling infrastructure works in old places cuz old places have been walkable. you know, when you got a city that’s a couple thousand years old, it’s built for walkability, um, not over cars, right? So then Roderdam was rebuilt with cars in mind, kind of like how American cities were, I think. And then that kind of made everything different. So that’s why Roderdam is like one of the worst places, I think, in the Netherlands for cycling infrastructure or like just getting around, I believe. I could be completely wrong, but I think that’s what it is. Wild camping is illegal. You know what’s fun to watch is stealth camping videos. Um I I may have mentioned this before actually. There’s a there’s a cool couple cool channels that I watch, but like like stealth camping like it’ll be like like like a big pipe under the ground that goes like under like a drainage pipe that goes under a road for instance. Like I’ve seen stealth camping videos where they’ll take like a couple tarps and some magnets and then like put the tarps up on the inside on the end with the magnets to hold it up and then block off the light and then they cook their dinner camp the whole time with the goal of not getting caught. Spend the whole night when it’s daylight the next day. Pack up and leave without getting caught or whatever. Uh entertaining videos though. Not something I’m necessarily going to be doing but myself just watching them, you know. I crossed over the massive drawbridge in the center and continued south with it now being sunny. In this section, I was fascinated by the incredible infrastructure around the huge metro area, including big rail yards, cool draw bridges, and roads that just worked for everyone, especially bikes. After door direct, I finally reached the edge of the Roderdam Hag metro area and I soon approached the massive bridge crossing the mouth of the mighty river Ry. This was impressive and cool, but also a bit scary being so high over water protected only by a little fence. After this bridge, I finally reached some authentic Dutch. She should have went over the was it the offod or whatever that one. It’s like the longest bridge in the Netherlands, right? It goes over the uh what is it? The Iselamir or something or whatever that giant the thing that used to be part of the sea. Now it’s like freshwater uh big giant thing of water in the middle of the country there. That road that would have been cool to go over. Dutch countryside where I passed through cute villages and along perfect empty roads. How’s it going, John? Everybody else, uh hello. Hello. And somebody said uh that they suggested that video earlier. Uh I didn’t catch that ear. I mean it’s it’s hard. I’m not reading every single chat. So I do apologize for all that. So but anyways, hello to everybody and sorry if I missed your your message. Eventually I reached the town of Brada. And this is my favorite town of the whole trip. The center was beautiful with historic streets and a big church. and I stayed here for a while in the evening. As the sun started to set, I headed south to a big wooded area where I put up my tarp and fell asleep almost straight away. As the sun rose on day three, I packed up and headed back to I wonder what about Brea specifically he liked. I mean, there’s a lot of beautiful towns, beautiful cities in the Netherlands. Uh, no hate on Brea at all at all. Just curious why that specific one because it sounded like he loved Delft a lot when he went through Delft. So maybe he love Delve then he got a bread and he’s like dang I thought Delft was good looking but dang would you look at Brea. You know what I’m saying? Like I wonder what specific because everybody has different things that stand out to them. You know some people are going to be drawn to like the old Gothic style architecture. Other people are going to be drawn to like the like the canals and you know different places, different towns have different styles too. You know what I’m saying? Somebody says the beer probably. He went to a good pub, didn’t he? To Brada as I needed to charge my phone at a McDonald’s as my power bank stopped working. After that delay, I returned south and arrived at the fascinating town of Baron Lasowl. This is the one that’s got this is a confusing town. This is like like there’s like a lot of like Belgian enclaves or something in it, right? like where it’s like you might even have like a house where like your kitchen’s in Belgium but like your living room’s in the Netherlands or something or like a restaurant where alcohol serving times are different in different countries. So like in part of the country serving time starts at this time or or whatever and different parts of the dining area depends on what country you’re in. It’s it’s weird. Yeah, I’ve done a a reaction video to this place and I’m sure there’s a ton other videos that also cover it. Maybe I’ll I’ll get back around to doing, you know, another uh reaction to that place again because I’m sure there’s a lot of information, a lot of cool stuff in that that city that wasn’t covered or I forgot. I have a bad memory, too. And a lot of the times these videos are something that I might have checked that town out, but that might have been three years ago and it might have been one video 3 years ago and I’ve watched 700 videos since then. You know what I’m saying? And and I forget a lot of of what goes in my head. Uh I can’t retain all of it, right? I try though. Split between Belgium and the Netherlands. The borders went straight through streets and houses and it was a great way to enter Belgium, a new country for me. I then continued along an extremely straight bike path before turning to the east. From here, I followed an endlessly long canal covered by trees through Belgium for a few miles, listening to music and stopping to eat. Eventually, I left the canal and entered a big forest with straight bike paths slicing through it, and I then re-entered the Netherlands. After traveling through more pretty forests, I finally made it to my destination, the campsite with my family, completing this epic adventure. In conclusion, this was definitely the best adventure I’ve ever done, and I learned how cities and infrastructure should be built everywhere. I definitely plan to do bigger and better bike packing adventures soon, including across the whole of Europe next year. So, working on Patreon where you can get early access to videos and 24/7 direct messages. So, this video was only Yeah. a couple months ago. So, I guess the next next year’s the whole Europe thing. That’d be cool. Maybe next year uh we check that video out. I’ll probably forget by then, honestly.