Biking the Netherlands with a Stranger
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The Netherlands is famous for being world's cycling nation - where there are more bikes than people - 22 million bicycles for 17 million inhabitants. As someone who lives in the US, where driving is our primary form of transportation - I was curious to experience this world class cycling country. So, I casually hit up the Bicycle Mayor of Utrecht to see if he’d show me around - and he said yes. So, here’s how it went.
Thank you Jelle Bakker for showing me around!
/ jellejbakker
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Who wants to bike the Netherlands after watching this video? 🚲
Like the Denglish. 😂 The lady must have felt like having landed on a different planet. Having lived in the US and NL I think we don't fully realize how different our cultures are.
Jelle is giving golden retriever energy! So cute personality-wise (and also physically hi i'm single☺)
Hahaha true
Nice video! I lived in Utrecht in the early 60s before moving to the states. I was very young and I don't remember if bicycling was as big a thing back then (it probably was) but it always amazes me when I see videos like yours how many people cycle in the Netherlands and how "normal" it is for them. Full disclosure: I live in Detroit where they would NEVER try to get people out of cars and onto bikes.
Yeah crazy how big of a thing it is here!!
You might want to read up on the 'Stop de kindermoord' movement in the late '60s that started the transition to more cycling oriented transportation. Or just binge Not Just Bikes here on YT. 😂
As someone that was born in the 60's in Utrecht, no Bycicles weren't a big thing. After WWII the Netherlands was focusing on a car centric approach. It took a lot of deaths including more than 500 children a year, before we "revolted" and demanded change. That change started around early/mid 70's with the protests triggered by an article of Journalist Vic Langenhoff in I believe "de Tijd" and the subsequent founding of "Pressiegroep Stop de Kindermoord" Before WWII Utrecht was a fairly bikefriendly city with a biking history going bacck to 1850 when the first dedicated bikelanes were opened on the Maliebaan. There is a nice article on the website of Oud Utrecht about the biking history. Search on google for "Oud Utrecht Hoe Utrecht fietsstad werd", the article is in Dutch and sadly google websie translation doesn't seem to work so if Dutch has escaped you, you might need to ask for some help.
Posted end of March, filmed in the middle of summer.
Nice ride and fun to see some buildings i worked on as a carpenter. Hope you guys had a great time in our small country 🙂
Love your videos! so cool seeing all these places
Aw thank you so much! I appreciate that 😊
Please signal with your arms when you turn I love the video!!
That was a nice but also risky spot to start a dice route It could have literally steered you out of the city with one roll or ran you into a dead end (which you kind of did, ending up on what we call "de Punt". I live alongside that canal but in the southerb direction. Personally I would have started from either Lepelenburg or Ledig Erf. 6:13 even without the construction site that point would have been end of the road. There is a small canal about 150m further down the road with no way to cross it from that point. 7:24 "You can easily get into the city center"... well obviously not if your GPS is made out of dice lmao 8:50 with the way you and the bikes were facing when throwing the dice.... I call cheating, you turned around to make the bridge "the first to the right". at 8:28 you already passed that point on your left... naughty naughty. (given my first point I do understand though) 8:58 for tourists, mothers with strollers and the elderly, there is an elevator under the first platform.... oh and for me as I am lazy. 9:34 excuse me? that is not a number. The proper number is 12500. It is just one of many parkings around the station area. I don't think there is an official count but combined I estimate places for a good 25000 bycicles. 9:53 It is called renovated, rebuilding is soomething entirely different. And yes the tower would reach there if it for some unnatural reason would topple over straight and without breaking. Those bricks in the street are fake btw, it is actually a prefab slab that is rolled out, much like they do with grass. The cycling mayor did a good job, I like his enthousiasm but I am a bit disappointed in his "chosen route". It feels like going to New York and only getting shown Central Park and Times Square. If you ever get back to Utrecht I am more than happy to give you a proper tour that shows off our cycling infra and at the same time a historical overview of our city from Roman era till current days. (no money or strings attached) I wasn't aware we were declared best cycling city in the world, it wouldn't surprise me if true.
Superb video of an awesome activity in a wonderful place 😊
Thank you! 😀
At around the 9:00 minute mark you're beside the place where I work! It's awesome to see my country represented in such a fun and positive light. Especially with the weather being as beautiful as it is in your video! I didn't know that bicycle mayors were a thing btw, I love that his mission is to advocate for cycling, I do really think life with good cycling infra structure is much better so I love that there is continued advocacy.
Thank you!!
To explain the power of the bicycle a bit more, it was the secret weapon of the Vietnamese, and muricans were to "sophistcated" to notice it.
Super random locations. But that makes it a great impression of Dutch ‘city’ life.
I don’t really like Utrecht. City centre is very nice, though.
dices haha 🙂
Did he take you on a bike ride or a pub crawl?
Well we didnt go to a single pub so my answer to you would be your other option lol
It looks like a great video, but unfortunately sometimes you can only hear the sound from 1 can of the headphones this makes it very annoying to watch.
Thanks for your feedback! Definitely had some mic issues, working on it ☺️
Fix your audio please, it's either left or right side and that makes it really hard to focus on the video, aka it's chaotic plz fix :)
Thanks for letting me know!
The dice doesn’t make any sense. How do you end up on the overway with the numbers you throw???? You wouldn’t end up there.
The magic world of editing.
@@buddy1155 I know, just show her the city.
Youtrecht? try to pronounce it correctly
I googled the pronunciation
@@globaldreamteam Lol, Google is wrong😂
@@flower_power But also...he pronounced it that way and he is from there sooo
@@globaldreamteam That's the Dutch urge to speak to you in your language showing itself off. For a parallel, think of a french person who would refer to Paris as 'pa-ree'. But in English, the writing would be pronounced as 'per-ris'. Thus, in the same vein your guide calls it 'you-trect' because that makes sense to you, but that is not how the locals pronounce it.
@@Aviertje ok!
It is cycling or fietsen, not biking. Amsterdam is not an American amusement park!
Janker
@@PrinceWalacra Mietje