My Bike

If Dutch, then bike. That's a given.

A common sight in this town of around 65k people is mothers guiding their small children to school on bikes. The Dutch are all but born on bikes, at least in this area. Infant seats with wind screens are mounted in front of the handle bars. Child seats for toddlers get mounted on the cargo space behind the rider's seat. When children are very small and riding their first bike, it's common to see a parent riding along beside, leaning over with one hand steadying the child during critical moments like high-traffic areas and street crossings. The child being steadied (on a bike without training wheels) might be 4 years old.

Never mind that I ride bikes about as well as the average mid-40s American--riding while leaning over sideways and offering support to someone else is NOT an option--I still need a bike. Within this town, there are bike and footpaths to get everywhere, and people use them. There are dedicated bike paths throughout Drenthe, the equivalent of what Californians call a county. There's no local bus service, but people do use the regional bus to get around town sometimes. More likely though, they ride their bikes. I found an unsourced statement that the 65k residents of this town make 70k bike trips every day. I wouldn't be surprised to find that accurate. Most children ride back and forth to school. Parents ride along with younger children. The local train station has parking for over 2300 bikes. (The most recent improvements at the train station removed 15 parking spaces for cars to help create space for an additional 800 bikes, which brought the total up to 2300.)

I'd purchased half a bike when I was here on an extended visit previously. Someone else needed a bike, so we split the cost and I had it to use while I was here. The dealer was very helpful, so I looked up the same shop online, got a rough idea of how to get there on foot, and headed out. The bike shop lies along the most direct foot/bike path from where I'm staying to the centrum (downtown), so off I trekked. Had a look at the bikes parked in front (the second-hand bikes) and the bikes parked inside (the new bikes) and then spoke to the dealer.

I had budgeted around €300 for a bike. Did I prefer 3 speeds or 7? 14? What kind of brakes? NL is flat (wonderfully, wonderfully, bike-friendly-ly flat) and I'm not racing, so it doesn't matter to me. Considered a couple of used bikes and then settled on a big, heavy-framed Sparta 8-speed with electric lighting. How much do I love electric lighting? The law requires that bikes use front and rear lights at night. A challenge I had on one trip, using a rented bike, was riding on a windy Autumn night into the wind. Typical Dutch bikes use a bottle dynamo that makes contact with the sidewall of the tire and draws power from the spin of the wheel. Those are cheap and fairly reliable (they can slip when the tire is wet). They also drag like a set of brakes on the front wheel. I was quite prepared to buy a battery-powered headlight to avoid this. Newer bikes, like my Sparta, use hub-generators. Brushless generators are built into each wheel hub and provide ample power for front and rear lighting (rear lights are otherwise battery-powered) with no discernible drag for the rider.

I <3 electric lighting. Having agreed on a price for the bike, only a few euros over my budgeted €300, the dealer noted that the back of the saddle was torn and replaced the seat for me. No charge. While he worked on that I browsed saddlebags and he mounted a set of twin semi-rigid bags for me. No charge. (These are really handy for "gewoon boodschappen" - normal errands like grocery shopping.)

Time to pay for my bike. The Dutch use a relatively small amount of cash currency and credit only rarely. Most banks issue "chip & pin" cards. The chip retains a pre-paid balance on the card, while the rest of your bank balance can be accessed with the pin as a debit card. These cards are the most common way to do business in NL. The grocery store a block from home accepts currency at only half of the checkout lines; the other half are only for pin cards. No problem. I stopped at Travelex at the airport on my way out of San Francisco and picked up a little cash and a chip & pin card. The pin accesses the prepaid balance, unlike a bank-linked card, but it should otherwise work as normal.

Card not accepted. :-/

After a couple of tries, I offered to walk to the ATM and come right back. The owner insisted on driving me to the ATM in his car. It was only a few blocks, but he insisted. Fortunately, there was no problem drawing money off of the card at the ATM. On our way back to the shop, we passed a group of bikes and the owner was beaming to see his sticker on the back of several of the bikes we passed. He pointed them out and mentioned that it felt really good because around a third of the bikes we passed had his sticker and there are 12 bike shops in the town. No wonder he wanted to make sure I came back!

Home I rode on my brand-new bike thoroughly enjoying once again the blessed flatness of NL and kicking myself for not bringing along a pair of mittens. Air that is cool when you are walking is cold when you are riding in a sassy 5th gear through it.

My bike.

Score!