Lance Armstrong has won the Tour De France 7 times more than most Americans have even thought about riding their bike to the grocery store. Here, biking is a sport. In the Netherlands biking is a way to get around. How people in both countries see bikes is directly linked to how we ride them.
In the U.S., expensive bikes hang on a hook in the garage until we have a free weekend to put on special clothes, load them on the car, and take them somewhere to ride. In Holland, a rusty bike leans near the main entrance to every house so it's there to take you to the bakery, or the cheese store, the park, or the preschool in whatever clothes you are wearing at the time.
Your first choice for transportation has two wheels, not four.
White-haired grandmas in skirts bike to the nursery to pick up a flat of flowers. Young mothers pedal two or three kids to school in a bike with a box on the front (bakfiets). And teenagers cruise along with two or three pals piled on the same bike. Bikes are not toys in Holland. Or sports accessories. Or status symbols. Bikes are cars. The reasons for this are wide and varied (and less of a barrier to American adoption than you think). So much more on that later...
This blog is about a family from Utah who went to Holland and came back different. Despite fun-filled trips to medieval villages in Germany, and castles in Austria, and hikes in the alps, our favorite day in Europe was one glorious day on bikes in Holland. We came home with the desire to create that day over and over again.
So we're a family on a mission to become netherbikers. To change our pedalosophy. To use bikes as cars for fun, fitness, and freedom. And if we can do it, anyone can do it.
We invite you to join our netherbiking revolution.
Chris
