In Part 2 we ride through some of the worst weather we’ve encountered in the Netherlands, take some new shots of familiar locations, visit bike tunnels we missed last time, finally take some shots of turbo roundabouts, do some filming, and enjoy a little beach time as the weather finally warms up…

In past years on our Dutch trips, we’ve set out on a bit of a mission to see how far the bike network extends… And turns out it extended everywhere we went… This year would be a bit slower paced, enjoying a few cities and their surroundings within South Holland… There was no focus other than to once again enjoy the Netherlands, but there’s always things to see along the way that are worth sharing…

With a flight home out of Amsterdam, it would have been rude not to spend the last couple of days in the Netherlands, and after a few weeks in cities that still have a way to go in terms of bicycle infrastructure, it was so good to once again enjoy the ease of getting around the Netherlands by bicycle…

You could say it was mostly just jeans, a nice coat, and maybe a scarf and hat… But it was a symbol that riding a bicycle was clearly just a normal part of daily life, and not something you had to dress differently for… This could be culture, or it could be enabled by the streets and bicycle infrastructure design…

Just a short bus ride from Croatia, Budapest seemed like a place to tick off the list. It blew us away with it’s buildings, had some decent bike infrastructure, but the transit system left a sour taste as we left the City…

Most people are probably well aware of the Croatian coast, but what are the inland cities like and do they have any bike infrastructure? With just two nights in Osijek, we get a glimpse of what the fourth biggest city in the country is like for getting around by bicycle...

We’ll begin in the modern waterfront neighbourhood before heading into the older parts of the city. Along the way, we’ll take a closer look at people-friendly streets, some great bicycle paths, and others that are (or maybe were) a work in progress.

Paris has been getting a lot of press about its bicycle infrastructure for many years now… And for good reason… They’ve been pretty busy… Never having been there before, it was time to take in the sights and some of the bike infrastructure that gets you there…

The final leg of our April 2024 trip takes us back to Utrecht, our favourite city in the Netherlands, for reasons I can’t fully explain. This time, we ride from Amersfoort and dive deeper into one of my favorite routes through the city. Along the way, we explore the usual highlights: protected bike lanes, bus rapid transit, bicycle streets, bike parking, and plenty of people getting around by bicycle, along with a few other interesting sights.

City of Bicycles, their claim, not mine, but it’s probably a fair one… Groningen has the highest mode share of people cycling anywhere in the world. We arrive in Groningen for Kings Night so expect some people getting around on bicycles while wearing a lot of orange, expect some bicycle scrambles, some back streets, and a few fast bicycle routes to neighbouring towns…

On this part of the trip we work our way across the north of the country, taking in some new locations to us, and seeing how far the good bike infrastructure extends north, beyond the mainland, and between small towns and cities as we head towards Groningen…

A historic and compact city north of Amsterdam, we explore many tiny streets, pedestrian streets, bicycle streets, amongst the usual protected bike lanes, people of all ages and abilities riding bicycles, tulips, windmills, and some very changeable weather…

Part 2 of the trip finds us back near Amsterdam, staying on the south side, discovering new bridges for active modes, ticking off the bike parkade, discovering a diverging diamond interchange, and… not kidding… a machine for cleaning flex posts….

Starting the 2024 Netherlands Trip in Den Bosch, we get over jet lag while exploring the centre on foot, some infrastructure highlights further out, ride to neighbouring Tilburg, and see a few innovative things I haven’t seen before along the way… There continues to be more lessons from the Dutch…

The final chapter of fietspad not only summed up the findings of that trip, it was the starting point to explore other Dutch ideas, beyond the protected bike lanes, protected intersections and continuous sidewalks that are already gaining traction.