In the Netherlands 27% of all journeys are made by bicycle. That and more figures in this video. More information and sources in the blog post: bicycledutch.wordpress.com/?p...
A trip to Amsterdam in 2003 turned me into a cyclist for life. I have never owned a car and I live in the USA. Everyone will tell you it’s impossible. It is possible. The best benefit for me is reduced stress. Cycling is just more pleasant. Love your channel!
Justin Lee Miller amen there, also. Much CHEAPER THAN A CAR😋 I also don't own a car in case of bad weatehr/cold. I take public transportation. (employer pays 90% of bus card) 😊 I save nearly 1,200 a month by switching to not owning a car😂
Do you live in a flat area or maybe you use your bike only around your city? Come to Spain to deal with our hills even into cities, you will swear for an engine or at least an assisted e-bike. Only electric scooters have a future over here and not until you could find recharging points everywhere. For example I used to have my past jobs at around 15-20 kilometers which was rather hard bicycling considering the hills but now my job is 42 kilometers away (84 daily) and in order to get there I have not one but three mountain passes.
We had to take the bike of my grandma away because she is 85 years old and wouldn’t stop riding the bicycle. It became unsafe for her to participate in traffic. But that just shows how integrated our bicycles are in our culture
And they had to fight tooth and nail for it because, like in North America, they had people whining every step of the way. Good thing nobody listened to the naysayers. It's going to be a long road, but hopefully NA ends up like this in the end too.
Which proves that the Dutch are wiser than many other nations in that respect. People need cleaner cities and healthier bodies, two things which cycling can provide.
I used to cycle to secundary/high school every day all year, which was 10km away. So 100km a week, and I went to that school for 6 years. So I cycled halfway around the world in those years XD (100x40x6=24000) I miss those days, I could eat whatever I want and not gain any weight, and cycling was so easy because of all the muscle I built up. I've been in Ireland for the past 3 years, and I really miss cycling. I can and do cycle here, but it's more a sport than a way of getting somewhere, because of the hills, the distances between towns and lack of cycle lanes. Just 2 more months until I'm reunited with my Dutch bike and the cycle lanes, yay :D
Bravo Holland! I've been commuting to work on my bike for the last 3 years. Every day all year round, regardless of the weather. Love it. Greetings from Poland
I hope the future in Canadian cities looks more and more like the Dutch cities. Cycling is quiet, affordable, good for personal fitness, good for public health, and a ton of fun. All this electric car stuff may be a necessary improvement for environmental reasons, but within cities, cycling has way more benefits to offer to civilization. Hooray for the Netherlands, leading the way. And thanks for this channel, eh? From Canada.
Your country is an example to the rest of the world in doing it right. Thanks for sharing the information. Your various videos really drive home in a good way what it could be like with a better bicycle infrastructure. Living in Canada I moved from a small city that was just barely looking at making it better for bicycles to a another small city that has moved towards trails and roads that make bicycling better. It is like night and day. I realize that we have some disadvantages here in Canada with poorly laid out cities and winters that can be severe in places but not everywhere and not everyday. If governments are really wanting to do something on green house gases, roadway infrastructure problems, insurance claims (the list goes on and on) then they should be seriously pushing to give precedence to bicycle infrastructure incentives for every city.
"some disadvantages here with vast distances between cities" Well, just start with the daily groceries shopping ! Because I guess that your supermarket isn't in another city ? And going shopping is (after going to school and work) what "we" (the Dutch) mostly use our bikes for. With daily groceries I mean just milk bread fruit and vegetables, stuff you want daily fresh. It also helps that we have small packaging for most products. I have been to Canada in the early 90's and I was 'shocked' about the size of product packaging ! 1 gallon was the smallest can of milk I could find...... that's enough for a month..... Everything was mega sized and if that's still going on today, yes, then shopping by bike can be a real challenge !!
I don't know where you were buying your products here in Canada but we always have had small containers. People here buy in bulk because the merchants have made the price for small items really expensive. Therefore the more you buy the cheaper it is. So there is more bulk items around. As far of riding a bicycle to the store for an item rather than a car is a mind set that is very slow to change here. There seems to be a general mentality to have to get everything done immediately so the bicycle is seen as a inconvenience.
It was one of those mega store concepts, I don't know the exact name anymore. In the 90's my parents and I hired a huge camper and made an ultimate/epic tour around the Rocky Mountains. Starting at our Canadian family home in Richmond Vancouver I remember we went to (almost) all places between Seattle to Calgary. Nairn falls, Banff, Lake Louise, Jasper National Park, Harrison Hot spring resort , Othello tunnels, Golden, Kamloops lake, Victoria, Butchart Gardens, Whistler, Edmonton, Vancouver Island. Just to name a few places in our 30 (30 !!!) days trip. We did all the tourist stuff, and shot more than 100 rolls of slides and photo's !! (this was way before digital photo) It was the most beautiful vacation ever ! (and the absolute most expensive) PS, what I remember the most was this, after landing in United States Seattle the first thing we heard on the airport was, "How much money do you have and when are you going back?"..... also when we got slightly lost (no GPS in the 90's) nobody would tell the way unless we paid them..... But at the Canadian border the first thing we heard was "Welcome to Canada, we hope you will have a fantastic holiday and here's a free local road map" ......what a difference !
Steve, with the poorly laid out cities. Come and look at some of the old cities in the Netherlands, they are a nightmare. But not for cyclists. They changed many inner cities to cycle and pedestrian only.
in 2017 there were more deaths in cycling accidents that in cars. not sure how many were head injury related. Edit: Here is the article by Bicycle Dutch, bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2018/04/25/more-cycling-fatalities-than-deaths-in-cars/
@@Chorizosabroso it was the first time ever though, and probably counting electric bikes, which are more dangerous as people are less adjusted to them. And while 6 yo ride their bikes, you need to be 18 for a car... But I think the main factor was that the number of car deaths went down, so that is a good thing.
There only cruising around not doing dumb stuff. I think its okay as long as there actually careful witch they are probably beyond that since they've been doing it for so long
- All of them wear no helmets - No special riding gear, normal street clothes - They are all using comfortable sit-up and city touring bikes It is a mistake to only market specialised, overspecs items and make people buying products they don't need. Such examples are high-tech off-road bikes with 28 gears, or 5 kg racers, or brake systems that can make the bicycle flip over with two fingers operation, or forcing people to wear helmets and extra equipment. That's my address to the bicycle industry. Look at the above. This is business, not a few enthusiast only.
An expensive hobby for enthusiasts, that has become of it in many countries. Not an economical (and healthy) form of every day transportation for short distances, as what it should be. The same happened before to motorcycles.
I think it's no small coincidence that you barely see an overweight person in this video. Cycling does so much for the health of a nation that I can't believe there is so much hostility directed at people on bikes in my country (which has an obesity epidemic)
Same. Normal people riding normally with their luggage/bags etc doing their thing, travelling. In the UK there's always sports cyclists in full lycra and helmets and goggles with some mountain type bicycle.
@@Pleezath it's because they prefer cycling rather than riding a motorcycle or a car unlike other countries. Some countries would rather get a loan for a car or a motorcycle because they don't like cycling and it's easier to be ridden.
The fact that in a biking country where people bike everywhere they need to, they only bike 1000km a year is also impressive. It means things are close by. For comparison, my route for a fitness bike ride in an American suburb is 14km total. a 4km round trip to work on a bike sounds heavenly.
There are still improvements made in Amsterdam, now they are creating a ring around the center with "fietsstraten' . bikeroads: cyclepath so wide cars can join at low speed. Because there is good alternative for cars just outside this ring very few cars are on the bicycle main road. Now it is really easy to ride around the center instead of through it. The difference in cyclepaths with only 10 years ago is tremendous, It is not so long ago that a substantial part of cycle paths were made of concrete tiles which especially on busy spots became very bumpy, now allmost everything is in red asphalt, and they get wider and wider. Another thing I love is the system of signs with numbers, junctions have numbers and there is a map at every number. These signs are mainly for recreational cycling. Last weekend I have ridden 4 1/2 hours in Drenthe without any planning ahead, totally relaxed, deciding which way to go at every 'knot-point' with very low risk to get lost.
@@Prettype4rls to school it takes me around 35/45 minutes at a normal speed of like 17km/h and when i bike rlly hard at like 25km/h it takes me 25/30/35 min depending on the like air forces (i forgot whats it called)
Ik fiets altijd naar mijn werk. Van Vleuten naar Utrecht. Stukje van niks, zo'n 3 km, heerlijk. Als ik met de auto ga ben ik langer onderweg. Sowieso is het in Nederland zo goed geregeld voor de fietsers 👍🏻
I've just made a cycling-trip along the Belgian, Southern England and Normandy coastline. I was glad to be back after two weeks... The French try to direct everyone to the Autoroute, the British towards the Motorway. It's often difficult not to end up on those - I did several hugely dangerous highway-kilometers around Dunkerk, in the dark and in the pouring rain, in order to get to a ferry. There was just no other road to be found... We're really privileged here.
@@timdowney6721 Nothing to do with fewer cars. Almost every grown up who drives a bike also drives a car. Cars all over the place here but roads and bicycle are most often seperated. Infra structure is much better here.
@@timdowney6721 better infrastructure More understanding from car drivers. Riding different bike (not MTB, but normal bikes in which you can sit straight,)
What all these videos forget to mention is that many people WALKS to the shops. A bicycle is not needed when the shops are 550 meters away. This holds for many people.
Well the point of these videos is advocating more people to use bicycles instead of cars. Walking is an even better option of course. But I find it more practical and faster to carry groceries in my bike's basket.
I do about half of my shopping on foot, but when I go to the market which for food is way better & cheaper I go by bike. When I have to carry heavier things I certainly prefer the bike, for example soil.
It's not a good thing to have 393 million guns. Just see what that causes; -school shooting at least every weak -mass shootings yearly -police shootings every day -robbery with guns every day
Interesting statistics: It seems my average speed is a just little higher than that of the average Dutch cyclist (13.6 km/h) even though I ride a Brompton folding bicycle here in UK. Also, I have been slightly further in the year since I got that bike. (1333 km). I take some satisfaction from this information.... I am 74 years old, and have a replacement valve in my heart.
@@TiaMat99 Thank you for your enquiry. I do apologise for the delay in answering it: I cannot say that road safety for cyclists in UK reaches anything like Dutch standards.. but then, nowhere else does... not even Denmark. To keep myself safe here, I try to stay off shared routes with motor traffic. Whilst the number of exclusive cycling routes is increasing, slowly,, all of them just STOP at junctions with the motor road network... and relatively few of them make useful connections to where we need to go. This makes the longest of them leisure rides only. My least favourite cycling infrastructure in UK is the narrow painted-line "cycle lane" at the edge of a normal road. It encourages cars to pass closer than NO "lane" at all! Note: I have cycled around the villages to the north of Amsterdam, having taken a ferry across from Central Station. It was a guided cycle tour and the high spot of my whole Rhine cruise holiday.
I wish I could ride this calm in Brazil's roads. We need to be always alert because of a plethora of problems: motorists at +80 km/h (wich isn't even considered fast here) who think their time is more important than your life; bad pavement with loose stones, nails and broken glass; robbers everywhere; and when there are bike lanes, it's nobody's land (everybody parks, drives, rides and walks there). A dutch's nightmare.
I never owned a car and don't intend to. People try to act like it's funny, but I like to breathе fresh air and to be fit. A bike is so much healthier than a car in any way you look at it. It is also more fun.
From 12 to 17 years old so 5years long i used to cycle 24km/day and a minimum of 201school days means 4824km/year. It was a normal city bike that weighed over 20kg too. And also i cycled to work after school and to friends. Take that americans!!!
I biked 25 miles (~40km) per day for a similar period as an American. When I worked it became more days per year. It was the safest place to bike I've ever lived in the US (I got hit 5 times in 4 years), and the shortest commute by bike I've ever had available by bike in the US, ESPECIALLY by ratio to driving distance. It was about 1.3 times the driving distance. Everywhere else I have lived required biking at LEAST 2 times as far as the drive was, and the last place I lived required biking 6 to 8 times as far (depending on whether you were willing to illegally do a short stretch on the highway/motorway). Currently before COVID-19 hit I was biking to work 3 time per week, because that's all my worn-out knees could manage between it being a much hillier commute and the fact that my commute is now 53km per day by bike. There is a war on cycling here - please don't be too stuck up when some cycling refugees move there. I really hope I can save up for it someday...
Also I also cycled everywhere for friends/shopping - although for me a weekend shopping trip was about 20km extra, so I NEVER did it as a separate trip from work. If I forgot to pick up an ingredient I just had a shitty meal. My bike was about equally heavy to yours. So don't brag too much - almost all American cycle commuters probably do more than that. On the flipside, it's nothing to brag about for either of us. Beyond a certain point it's just suffering and "bragging" about how awful your life is... Build your cycling life better. You have a lot more ability than us to do so
@@hngldr How does that compete? 'safest place to bike' and 'got hit 5 times in 4 years'? I've been in 1 bike accident in 43 years. How can you call 5 hits in 4 years safe?
@@ffortissimo I'm saying it's NOT safe, and that I'm jealous of how little he has to bike and how safe and nice of a place he has to bike in, and that if Americans had such nice and safe places to bike, we would bike just as much
In Slovakia, Trnava is developing it's cycling infrastructure, today we have approx. 20-30 km of separated cycle paths (there are plans for 100 more kms and also plans to connect Bratislava-Trnava and surrounding villages with a bike highway) and the first automated parking tower in Slovakia. Thanks Netherlands for inspiration :)
That looks like paradise, no helmets and exercise get a boost of endorphins = happier nation I'm sure.! Only thing puzzles me: how do you find a park amongst 12000 bike rack then find your bike again??
Depends on how drunk you are to find your bike again. But on a more serious note; it's like second nature to find your bike again. Also nowadays, I just take a picture if I park at a train station for a two weeks trip or so.
I often memorize where I put my bike by finding an easily recognizable spot to put it close to, though I will admit to almost losing my bike more than once because I didn't remember where I'd parked it
In the bigger facilities (like Utrecht Centraal) there are numbered rows and each bicycle rack also has it's own number. So you can either memorize it or make a picture
@@Beun007 I think you really have a problem with the Netherlands, if you don't like it here, then get your ass out, we don't like people that are this negative.
I'm an American who is forced to choose between ride a bike to work or be unemployed. People like me who cannot drive due to handicaps but are otherwise still capable of locomotion and working a job are effectively discriminated against in car-dependent locations. The lack of any safe alternatives for those who are unable to drive (but otherwise would drive if they could) is like a building not having any ramps for wheelchairs.
@@TheChrisEMartin all bikes have at least 3 gears, most have 7-8 and many have up to 21. old skool bikes without gears are very very rare. Also these days 42% of sold bikes are electric (combination of human force and electric motor)
@@TheChrisEMartin the bikes a fine. They are just not the mountain/sport bikes you know. This "old fashioned" bike is not a head first kind of bike when you hit the brakes like a mountain bike. because we sit straight. Also it looks less ridiculous and ride better. And we rode a lot faster then 12.9. the number is so low because so many old people ride the normal bicycle.
13km/h for e-bikes average speed? That doesn't sound right at all. If you'd say 13mph (which translates to ~20km/h) it sounds more sensible. Most people, on normal bikes, do about 15-20km/h I'd say. E-bikes 20-25km/h. Maybe the measurement includes waiting for traffic lights/standing still? In that case it doesn't really say much about cycling speed but rather traffic speed which is not a steady thing at all.
It sounds about right to me. I ride a dutch bike and rarely top 15kph. You are confusing the more sporty type of riders we have here to those who ride to get places, where speed is not a top concern.
Wouter post I think you are right. For a normal bike the average speed is at least 15kmh. And when you ride an e-bike it is definitely more I would say about 20kmh at least.
Elderly people on e-bikes don't ride that fast on their Leisure rides, they probably bring the avg speed down. Since they're probably the majorty of e-bike owners. But I agree, when i'm riding to work i do 20-25 km
Funny, I have an Ebike, since a year and a half, yea my average is clocked at 16.6 kph. However, that is over the life of the bike swiched on. Basically I have range of 180km per charge. Only use it on longer trips with motor switched on. Trips to the shops, and trips shorter than 15km my legs do the work, not the motor. Hence still pedal at a decent clip but since an accident I need to make sure to get where I wanted to go AND COME BACK. Thus Ebike...
Well, he is Dutch. So am I. Frankly I don't care if anybody is referring to "Holland" when they actually mean "The Netherlands". As in: www.holland.com/be_nl/toerisme.htm ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_kWgb4KKnwI.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-QkpmA2ueW6U.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_NfnSgYqM4M.html
You lucky bastards ! I am stuck over here in north america with the stink mobiles . The raised handle bars are the way to . I bought a stem post extension kit for the handlebar . Two was a good gel seat for comfort . I will have to go to the Netherlands soon .
I'm hoping my country will build special road for our daily cycling. If there is a special road to cycling from Bogor to Jakarta, I prefer use my bicycle for daily activity.
i want to live in the country in which people use bicycle , talk with each other face to face rather than Mobile , have independence , human relations are respected and strong.....
Indian? If so, most Indians still talk face to face msot of the time (it may only feel so because you are surrounded by those people). Human relations too are strong and independence is more about being rid of poverty I guess in India. But I do get your point. All of these are diminishing indeed sadly.
Ik vind het echt veel meer milieubewuster. En helemaal niet voor minder bedeelde mensen 🤣 Het is juist leuk dat het voor iedereen is. Ongeacht je achtergrond of huidskleur 😁👍🏻👍👍🏼👍🏽👍🏾👍🏿
Once I drove at my bike ( 25km/hr ++ or faster ) at night or late evening, a police - car driven came along riding, opened his window-shield by button, asked me if I was in a hurry .... I did say "Yes" I'm coming home to late .... He smiled and ask me to slow down ..... less then 25km/hr in town .... e-bikes top speed is 25km/hr .....
A series of lessons for cornering on a bike, brought to you by a Dutchy: Lesson number one: don't use the front brake whenever you steer more than 5°! That will get you killed!!! Lesson number two: lean into the corner a bit Lesson number three: the pedal on the inside of the corner has to be up and the outside pedal down Lesson number four: use the rear brake to initialize a slide in low grip situations (the rear wheel losing grip softens the load on the front wheel, making the front less likely to slide) Lesson number five: start on the inside of the corner, slow down a lot, stop braking, make sure your inside pedal is up, turn all the way to the outside of the corner and then swoop right by the inside of the corner. (watch this minutephysics video to get a better idea of what i'm talking about: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-llRkf1fnNDM.html ) That should be all you need to know about sharp bicycle turns :)
Only exceptions are children, tourists, people on road bikes, those learning and those more confident cycling using a helmet than not. There's probably more. I've never seen anyone laugh at others using a helmet, even on city bikes.
@@feladirr I did, many times. Sometimes they even get slaughtered or shot. And rightly so, those fucking helmet wearing crazy fuckedup pretentious bastards!!
I wonder if the average speed is going up because of the ban of using your phone on the bike, since people often cycle a bit slower when they're on their phone
@@iamanironman4141 It's not a dumb rule, in traffic you should pay attention to traffic and not your phone. I got in a bicycle crash with a woman that didn't pay attention on the road and was only looking at here phone, I broke my collar bone because of this stupid woman.
here in Broward county in Florida, north of miami we almost Got a bike Lane on east west boulevards. they almost gave us one Lane. but we lost by one vote. one of the four lanes would of been for bicycles only. would of been 12 feet wide.
cycling is second nature here in NL, we learn it very young and kids go to school and from 12yo or even younger kids go by them selves to school because its safe and busy so there is always people around taking care of each other if something would happen but traffic wise its easy to go around here safely, walking, cycling or by car. i have been in many countries and i think its because there is less aggression towards each other because the car driver also has a bike and knows the situation of those cycling. Also if a car hits a pedestrian or a "cyclist" its almost always the fault of the car driver because the others are the weaker road participants and car drivers have to take care of what they do around them, pedestrian and cyclist safety is also part of our driving courses.
Hoogopgeleide mensen rijden vaker fiets in Amsterdam... Ik zou het erop houden dat inwoners van Amsterdam doorgaans hoog opgeleid zijn en daardoor zich een peperdure woning in Amsterdam KUNNEN permitteren. De noodzaak voor een auto in een compacte stad als Amsterdam is vervolgens nihil gezien de korte reisafstanden. Vaker fietsen is dus geen direct gevolg van het opleidingsniveau maar van de eigenschappen van de compacte stad.
>"90% of bike trips are less than 7 km" How are trips defined? If you cycle to the store, do shopping, then cycle home, is this counted as 1 trip or 2 trips? ie: is this store 7km away, or 3.5km away?
but then if you told someone that you went to the store, and they asked "how long was your trip?", isn't the answer 14km? It was a 14km trip to the store and back, you definitely just cycled 14km, it feels weird to say it was only a 7km trip.
I think all of these stats come from the cycling apps (like endomondo) so only the user's habits decide how this is counted. If the user only pauses the app whille shopping it will be counted as one trip. But if the user decided to end it and then run again it will be obviously counted as 2 trips.
Grocery stores are rarely more than 3 km removed from neighborhoods, unless you have to go to a specific store on the other side of the town/city or a neighboring town/city. However, many people might visit multiple supermarkets/stores and/or combine their trips, like swinging by the grocery store or shopping area after work/school on their way home.
It looks like it's so much fun riding a bike in Nederland.Here in my city in Canada it's so scary to ride your bike especially there aren't many bicycles infrastructure in the city.You have to share the road with the cars and very scary most of the time because a lot of drivers are just unforgiving and when you use the sidewalk some cops will give you tickets.I wish they will build more bicycle lanes for the cyclists so people will be encourage to ride their bikes especially in spring,summer and fall! I wish I live in Nederland so I can ride my bike year around.
On the flip side my work is only 21 km from The Hague and it takes me a good 1h 10m by bike or 1h by public transport... and 23min by car. The average speed of public transport is 20 kph and ain't nobody gonna bike 20km when it's cold, windy and rainy (basically every day in the Netherlands). It's so bizarre that in an industrialized nation public transport is so ridiculously slow.
My work is 25 km away, about 20-25 minutes by car. By by bike and/or public transport it would easily be 1 hour or more. A no brainer to go by car. But..., if I could live 15 km away, I'd easily choose an e-bike, both for ease and my health ;-)
@@JohnBarrow1961 I think most people would take what makes the most sense. I used to bike to work because it was the most efficient method. Now that my work is only 800 meters away, I just walk.
Biking 20 km pro day..Owning 3 bikes suitable for every season, equiped with kevlar tires, nomore punctures, and always faster or as fast in the city as a car and way faster than public transportation,, as a Dutch in The Hague.. 1, Dutch Batavus Nuvinci, a tank very stable suitable for snow and ice 2. spring /autumn Trek FX7200 upgraded city racer, my favourite..Sometimes incredible speeds, faster than a Ebike 3. a vintage american "Harley style" Cruiser Nirve totally repainted, new euro/US parts nice in the summer sun... Lucky we got the best lanes here. Next step getting rid of car emissions and the air pollution they cause.
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