Inside Amsterdam Central: 2,500 Bikes, Five Levels and Virtually No Helmets

Travel Blog  •  Terry Ward  •  06.19.07 | 12:09 PM ET

imageBikes might not be the first thing most travelers think of when they think of Holland, but perhaps they should be. After all, bicycles outnumber people—20 million bikes, 16 million humans—in this flat-as-a pool-table country. A few years ago, after visiting Holland for a friend’s wedding, I detailed the ins and outs of Dutch bike etiquette. So it was fun to see this slice-of-life piece in the Washington Post, the latest installment in the paper’s intriguing Time Zones series.

Molly Moore details a typical afternoon at the five-story bicycle parking garage outside Amsterdam’s main train station, where missing and misplaced bikes are all in a day’s drama. To differentiate their bikes from the thousands of others parked here, writes Moore, cyclists get creative:

They twist plastic flowers around the handlebars, they strap black plastic milk cartons to the back, they stick goofy cloth flowers to the seats. A rare few venture from the classic black or gray paint job and go wild—pink with red hearts, for instance.

I was recently Skyping with my Dutch friend, Hilde Kievit, and I asked her how she keeps tabs on her bike.

“I stuff a plastic bag under the seat, where the springs are,” said Kievit, explaining that not only does it help her differentiate her bike from the others around it, but the bag is also useful for sliding over the seat after a bout of rain. Kievit said her husband’s electric pink lock helps him find his bike in a crowd.

When I asked her about going the extra mile with a wild paint job, Kievit said that tactic is used primarily for deterring thieves. After all, more than 800,000 bikes are stolen annually in Holland. Kievit herself has lost three.

Still, she said, she’s never been inspired to get creative with a paint brush. “I am a boring bike rider,” she said. “I would buy old bikes so when they get stolen it isn’t that bad.”

How’s that for Dutch pragmatism?

Related on World Hum:
* How To: Ride a Bike in Holland
* Through Amsterdam with Seth Stevenson
* Chasing Lance

Related on TravelChannel.com:
* Amsterdam Travel Guide
* Video: Not Your Average Travel Guide: Windmills and Wooden Shoes

Photo by [nl] [carré], via flickr (Creative Commons).

Tags: Europe, Netherlands

Terry Ward

Terry Ward is a Florida-based writer and a long-time contributor to World Hum.


1 Comment for Inside Amsterdam Central: 2,500 Bikes, Five Levels and Virtually No Helmets

Sport Serena 09.26.08 | 10:30 AM ET

I hate buying old bikes, they are so…old.
I think I’ll choose to buy a fancy new bike at discount,so when it get stolen it isn’t that bad.
I definitely recommend every bike rider to get a helmet. Although it’s not a great one, it’s the only brain I’ve got.

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