American Guy Reacts to Dutch Countryside Cycling is the Best in the World: 5 Reasons Why
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American trying to learn Dutch – Duolingo – Episode #1
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I wish I was doing that today that just seems I mean look at this this is just amazing to me how’s it going guys welcome back to the channel so I’ve done a lot of videos on Dutch cycling culture stuff like that we all know that uh the
Netherlands has more bikes than people and all that stuff so most of the videos that I’ve done reactions on um with the bikes and like cycling as it pertains to the Dutch is usually focused on uh like in the cities right you know carfree c not carfree but like less cars
Right in the cities more walkable cities stuff like that with the public transportation cyclopaths and all that sort of thing and a lot of the roads that have like uh uh like the cyclers come first then the cars so I found this video right here and it’s dutch
Countryside cycling is the best in the world five reasons why the original channel is called on three wheels I’m going to go ahead and subscribe to them they only have 58 subscribers let’s see if we can’t help them get to a th000 and uh if you guys could go jump over to the
Original video and uh give them a subscribe you know uh click like on the original video you’ll find the links to that down in the description section of course as always I always like to give credit where credit is due um of course I’m just doing reactions so it’s only fair
Now the thumbnail is right here he’s cycling on three wheels so I guess that would explain the channel name and uh that actually looks pretty relaxed like that looks pretty comfortable I wonder if the back of that I don’t really you don’t see those a lot
Around here I have seen them a few times but it’s not that common um does that have like a like a reclining back like the back of my chair here like is it like a comfortable back you know you can just kind of recline back I don’t know
Um I I mean we’re going to find out right but anyways yeah Dutch Countryside cycling I I haven’t seen a lot about the countryside cycling it’s like I said it’s always been about the cities so we’re going to find out why five reasons why specifically why Dutch Countryside
Cycling is the best I need to fix my lighting setup guys I apologize bear with me here okay I’m an amateur all right let’s let’s check this out five reasons why Countryside cycling in benevolence is the best in the world in the world clear signage route making and way
Marking across the entirety of benevolence there is a path Network which extends for over 35,000 km named fnob which translates to bike node there is a mobile app which allows you to plot an extensive route connecting numbered nodes all you need to do is list out
Your numbered route okay on arrival at a node the direction of your next numbered point is shown from where you are using QP s in the app you can also track your position on your ride and find useful places along the way such as picnic benches places to eat and toilets okay
So I will say I mean that’s that’s pretty neat actually but um what I was going to say has nothing to do with that this looks a lot like here like if somebody told me that this was in Northern Indiana which is uh you know I
Live in the state of Indiana in the United States if somebody said that this was was filmed here I would 100% believe him that looks just like our tree looks just like our like everything I mean it’s it’s pretty flat in Northern Indiana I mean we have some hills and
Stuff but it’s nothing like uh down south yeah this all looks just like just like my area actually I mean I I don’t know if it’s on the same like uh is it latitude or longitude I don’t know which one goes you know horizontally across the globe I don’t
Know if it’s the same same as Indiana or not I I know we have similar weather temperature- wise and and stuff like that yeah and find useful places along the way such as picnic benches places to eat and toilets there is also a map at most nodes so you can plan your route
Without the app if you wish fope is mostly for casual relaxed Cycles okay yeah he does have it’s not as comfortable looking as my as my chair here but uh it does look like a pretty high back that’s what I was wondering like if if it’s like a shorter back or a taller
Back you know if it’s taller you know you could lean back on it pretty comfortably away from high traffic routes as there are many Psychopaths not even included on the map we keep traveling longer distances are more efficient but they are mostly alongside roads so are typically noisier and less
Scenic I wonder if that’s why uh those ones aren’t on the maps or if it’s just the maps are outdated two Road psychology and infrastructure quality on arrival at a small village the cyop paath often joins with the road sharing with Motor Vehicles however the road into the village is narrowed with a
Raised speed bump and is usually block paved slowing Vehicles down by making it uncomfortable to drive fast and similarly it is typical within Villages that there is a ray section at every Junction which are often continu of the pavement or Psychopaths slowing down cars and reinforcing pedestrian priority
I love the way these Villages look like this looks like like if you ju it just looks made up you know you you just don’t have that sort of architecture here you know it just it reminds me of like when I was in um Universal St or not Universal Studios Epcot Center
Um down in Florida and they have like different sections that are designed to look like different areas of of the globe like different countries and stuff I don’t know if they had a Dutch like a Netherlands section but I know they had like you know France and Italy and and
Germany and and whatever you know and each little section was supposed to be modeled and to look like um those areas of the world you know with restaurants architecture stuff like that the food you know supposed to be reminiscent of whatever you know so if you’re in the
Italian section it would look like Italian houses you’d have Italian you know based food and Etc that’s what this reminds me of is like walking through like one of those theme parks beyond the fast main roads and your carriageways where cycling is not permitted and the high quality off-road cycle routes the
Road Network acknowledges that vehicles in some instances have to share the highway with cyclists roads with sanal markings only indicate car superiority which means that a cyclist safety is dependent on the individual care of each driver is that so is that what this is is this one of those roads with the
Central markings is that what those white lines are for uh the bike’s got to stay on the right hand side leftand side whatever um side of the road it is and then the the cars for the middle looks like a single Lane uh car like a sing you know for a single
Lane of car traffic so is that what this is is is is a car uh superiority kind of Road whereas this alternative where red TX cycle paths line both sides of the road does the thinking for them as the road markings indicate that the road is
A shared space this means that for two cars to pass each other the vehicles must partly enter into the cycle paaths this decreases average car speed and increases driver awareness which makes the road safer for all you users in conclusion this relatively cheap solution drastically increases the connectivity of cycle networks without
Needing to compromise safety three Innovative problem solving at intersections the Dutch principle of on fleeton which roughly translates as to unraid or to disentangle applies this concept aims to reduce intersections between foot cycle and road traffic to improve flow and safety at quiet roundabouts cycle traffic can be combined to reduce intersections between
Cars and Cycles like this roundabout near Bulk a different problem they have is that the Netherlands is crisscrossed by many canals and waterways and often a break is provided many just for cyclists but sometimes a break isn’t viable as on busy boating routes a frequent boat services provide enabling ramp on and
Off access for all at an affordable cost the boat provision is all mapped on the Fe canope app linking to a Nationwide fairies website four places to relax the Ducks are very welcoming particularly to cyclists and so much so that link to the cycle paths is a widespread network of
Rusant these are points to rest with toilet seating and honesty boxes for snacks drink and local ice cream what is an honesty box oh that’s one of those where they just stock it with stuff and then it’s just an honesty system where you just take your snack and then leave the
Money is that what that is I think it is um you don’t see that a lot here anymore um not saying all Americans are dishonest or anything like that I mean of course you got dishonest people everywhere but uh it just seems like there’s more crime in in America United
States then a lot of other countries but of course there’s crime everywhere you can’t say that there’s no crime anywhere that that’d be ridiculous um of course some countries are safer and some countries have less of it um I’ve seen honesty boxes before but normally normally this that would be in
Like smaller towns maybe at like the local like uh Bait and Tackle you know store you know where everybody kind of knows each other they go down there to get their bait for the day to go fishing and stuff you know sometimes they would have you know something something along
Those lines there but uh or sometimes in front of churches but then it’s not a money thing though then it’s like somebody donates food and then somebody that needs the food would go there and get it you know for the needy people and stuff so there’s not really a money
Thing but a lot of times people here there there’s some people that are dishonest and they would take the money you know uh from that so then they started doing the thing where you know it’s all locked up and then there’s this a little slot where you put it in there
For donations and stuff but uh yeah rants are typically provided by homeowners Farmers or campsites they appear as interactive nodes on the feat canob app which allows them to be planned into longer Journeys in addition the Netherlands is ample with bike friendly campsites hotels shops and
Cafes and sitting outside a cafe with a coffee and cake is the perfect way to end a ride I wish I was doing that today that just seems I mean look at this this is just a amazing to me reminds me of uh I went to Holland
Michigan if you haven’t checked out that video go check it out now it’s on my channel you can just you just search for Holland Michigan um it’s it was founded by Dutch people but there’s a town there and it was called uh uh what little uh Nellis I think Nellis Dutch
Village or something like that and then of course you got the windmill um is an authentic Dutch windmill from North bra Province no South bra Brant uh Pro can’t talk province of course North BR band in Belgium South brand is no I had that wrong North Brand is in
The southern Netherlands South bran is in the northern Belgium right because it used to not be divided but anyways long story short there’s a Dutch windmill in Holland Michigan that came from there it was called desan and it’s from like the 1600s or something uh and there’s like a
Whole thing there um you know with with houses and stuff set up just like this and and it’s it’s just modeled after you know the Netherlands and that’s what this totally reminds me of with bike friendly campsites hotels shops and cafes it looks nice and sitting outside
A cafe with a coffee and cake is the perfect way to Ender ride five accessibility cycling in benevolence has very few barriers to iny so the cycopath network is for everyone of whatever age ability or purpose the Netherlands is so accessible cous smooth and wide concrete asphalt paths which connect up the
Entirety of elence with safe and efficient routs away from dangerous road traffic yeah here we don’t have a whole lot of dedicated cycle passs you know so but we have sidewalks right and then they don’t maintain them you got pothole you got busted up concrete slabs you know you got like
Concrete slabs where one sunk here and one rose here so you got like a like a you know like a cliff there almost uh some of it looks like uh somebody dropped missiles on it like craters it’s it’s crazy I got some footage somewhere I can’t I don’t know
Where it’s at but I may do a video at some point I I wanted to like a year and a half ago um I wanted to do a video comparing you know the local kind of sort of cycle pass or the closest thing we have to it right to
To the Dutch ones and I took a bunch of footage and then everything happened I got sidetracked you know then my channel there long story I’ve had some ups and downs on the channel of course you’d probably know if you’ve been watching me for a while but
Uh I should try to find that footage or when it gets a little warmer out this spring just go get new footage and and actually uh go ahead and do that video it’d be interesting but easy accessibility doesn’t stop there as it’s common place for good paths to not exclusively be for
Efficient routes between name places but to also maintain the same quality for leisure routs this means that it’s wonderfully simple for anyone and everyone to explore nature areas such as forests Meadows and wetlands with no overgrown routs rutted paths or obstructed access conclusion even after
All of that the duct are still set on improving placing to invest a further 1.1 billion EUR into psycopaths and networks over the next decade that would never happen here unfortunately having visited benevolence many times from the UK it would be incredible if more countries could think
About public Mobility the way a duct do if you only take away one thing from this video go and see it for yourself it won’t disappoint I will one of these days one of these days yeah so very cool very cool I like the scenery over there besides the villages because the
Villages look nothing like what we see here but the actual Countryside I’m kind of surprised to see how similar it looks to to here in in Northern Indiana like I mean it looks like there’s the same you know trees uh the same bushes like off in the distance you know you
See like Fields you know in the one scene it showed like a bunch of fields of corn that makes me feel right at home because there’s a ton of cornfields here and then beyond that you know you got the um the tree line and it just looks
The same as what you would have here and yeah so we finally got to see or I finally got to see uh Countryside uh cyclopaths not so much focused on inside of the city so rural Netherlands right nothing about Amsterdam or the ha or anything like
That you know or utri you know nothing about that in this video this is this is the real Netherlands out in the rural Countryside so anyways if you enjoyed my videos go ahead and hit like hit subscribe share the video perhaps it it helps more than you know and I
Appreciate it and you guys have a super fun awesome day and I’ll catch you on the next one take care bye
31 Comments
Very important to realize: in the Netherlands the driver of a "strong" vehicle (car, truck, motorcycle) must ALWAYS take care to avoid "weak" vehicles such as bicycles and pedestrians. The basic philosophy of the law is that it is never allowed to kill or mame somebody, even iff they are doing something "wrong", or not following a rule. And those roads with a narrow section for the cars are specifically designed to force car drivers to be carefull. It works very well in practice. There are very few accidents with cyclists on those roads.
when do you come to the netherlands, be my guest,
Hmzzzzz welllll it is sad of course that you are in a country or actually three to destroy it but next time go to Vietnam with money and not bombs…. perhaps you can then also witness what we witness ya know : people and nature….. so I dunno …. we Dutch got breautiful nature sure … but nothing compared to countries like Vietnam and Cambodia and ya know other places that you yanks try to destroy now LUCKILY ….. we humans can still go there because the people said F U !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are not bringing us down hellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll no …. we are building upo and coming back stronger well that only goes for Vietnam and we Dutch got NOTHING on Vietnam when it comes to INSANE beautiful mountains… people who ALWAYS want to help when you are out of fuel and your bike is thristy on fuel somewhere ya know 2 kilometers up sooooo I dunno …. you want real nature ? Go to Austria orrrrr ya know the Swiss got some nice nature… or like I said go to Asia….. and ENJOY the fact they still ALLOW you yanks in ! Just saying !!!!!
lemme see that infrastructure in your neighbourhood man!
Thanks for sharing this video, it's quite cool & would be neat to see more 3 wheeled bikes around. We don't have much of a biking culture where I live in Australia. I think, like the USA, things are just so far apart unless you're right near the city or shops. We do have a lot of cyclists, but it seems to mostly be for sport than daily life: back and forth to work, etc.
Have you ever checked out any hikers from the Netherlands or Sweden & Norway? You can Google Kungsleden (It means King's Trail in Swedish), it is a 300-mile trail through some amazing park land in Sweden. I recommend watching Brandon, a Canadian who lives in Sweden & works in Ukraine. For mental health reasons he took on the challenge of hiking the Kungsleden trail when he was home on leave. His trail videos are full of ups and downs, and he seems to easily meet folks and ends up having several walking companions along the trail. https://youtu.be/hhnX5lM3JuU?si=TRVCY6KLxCWlZcTQ
The Netherlands is more like the same horizontal level worldwide as Winnipeg Canada, but we have a sea climate. So no real extreme weather (cold/warm), but a bit more wind and rain
In Belgium we have bicycle nodes as well. Also fietssnelweg network in the build up fase. Often based om river tow paths and disussed railroads + tramways. All extending into the Netherlands and northern France. Major bicycle races coming up soon. Amateur racers everywhere. We are on the north south path on the Leie river near the French border. Lots of southbound bicycle tourists frm the Netherlands and daytrippers passing by and switching routes (Kezelbergroute) to Brugges, Ypres or Tournai.
At 8:32 that roundabout is just 2 miles from my home 🤣Great !!! I pas this when I go to the forest. At 12:56 is the main street of Balk my home town (this is hilarious)
I know you live in a town that starts with an R. I'm from there too but have been living in Germany for 14 years. Parts of the Netherlands also remind me of back home. I travel there
often for a bit of nostalgia.
Nowadays it's less relaxing, because of e-bikes. They are just so fast and silent, I get jump-scared whenever one passes me with a perfectly functioning bell on their steering wheel they don't use.
4:00 do you have separated bike-lanes like that in Indiana?
6:50 here in Middelburg all of the old-city center has signs saying that cars are guests, pedestrians and cyclists have primary right of way. Of course this leads to ignorant folks beeping their horn if you're cycling in their way.
Since the migrant-crisis here in The Netherlands you do see news articles of Honesty Box providers saying they can't do it anymore because refugees staying at a local AZC (migrant center) keep stealing the goods and money. It's very sad. A lot of communities view migrants as a source of crime and protest against their municipalities hosting them in a AZC.
I'd say Japan is probably the one country where you can say there is no crime, in specific areas.
Whenever us Dutch see footage of bad quality road we often like to joke that it's probably Belgium, because the contrast between the quality of infrastructure between The Netherlands and Belgium is enormous. Fun fact, even in Belgium there is a huge contrast in quality of infrastructure between the north and south. I once traveled to the southern border and it was shocking to me how bad things are there. Overgrown signs, weeds growing onto the road, entire sections of road missing without any sign or warning about it, ghost-towns. It reminded me of East-Germany in the 90's.
I am from the east countryside in the Netherlands. And in the spring / summer and autumn, we love to cycle around here. My town is surrounded by forests and farms and rivers. Love walking the dog in the early morning when none is awake yet.. you hear the water from the streams and the wind through the trees, and the birds sing. It's so amazing. Don't get me wrong, I love going to big cities but .. on the road going home, i always feel surrounded by peace and feel home again . I am such a Countrygirl. I could never leave ( unless it is to another countryside )
The most exciting thing about Dutch roads to me is the fact that almost all highways are constructed using ZOAB (Pervious concrete) which practically eliminates any spray from it during showers or when it's wet.
You might want to look up glow in the dark bike paths, they will blow your mind, I promise. They absorb sunrays by day so they can light up at night (with a beautiful bluish color) , thereby illuminating the way for people on their bicycles. There are glowing bikepaths in The Netherlands, Poland, Hungary as of now that I know of, but they are becoming more and more popular, so most likely other countries will also use this "technology".
Check out the channels Not Just Bikes and Active Towns if you want to see more of this kind of video. They are both from a North-American perspective as well, which is quite fascinating.
Indiana is about the same latitude as Portugal/Spain while The Netherlands are on the same latitude as Newfoundland/Labrador.
Funny, for me as a Dutch,this is just everyday life. Maybe Americans should take a note or two when building infrastructure .
lol, there are no honesty boxes in the Amsterdam centre. Just as you say , only in small places, otherwise it would simply not work. We have dishonest people aswell, and homeless people for instance. Ofcourse they wouldnt treat an honesty box like it should be treated.
Love the video Charlie !!❤👍
'Knooppunt' routes are the scenic routes – They are definitely not the fastest routes. But I do tend to take them if I can spare the time.
Also; one gets spoiled by the excellent Dutch bicycle infrastructure markings. Once I cross over into Germany things deteriorate quickly and carrying a (digital) map becomes a must. To be fair – the Germans are steadily upgrading their biking infrastructure.
I recognised a lot of the places in that video.. that is where i live..and indeed.. roads are very much planned with cyclists in mind.. that roundabout with the Cyclepath right over the middle, that is a 10 minute bikeride from my house.. ( https://maps.app.goo.gl/pzNbgLYHxzzEHFhZ9 )
It's there because it sits in a road, where cars can go 100 Km/h (60Mph), the N359, so not a place for bikes.. but next to that is a "Secondary road" for people living there, and for Cyclists..
I sometimes visit my parents by bike.. it's 11 Km so that's a 20 minute bikeride for me.. and with that scenery.. why wouldn't you take the bike?
A big misunderstanding, big error, nobody talks about it, is the walkability off a big city, you can ! but sometimes not feasible you have to bike or take public transport. Big mistake off tourists (like US citizens heard off walking) Ooh it looks like a half hour walk on a map.
Maybe look also to the most Dutch town in America Pella ,Iowa.
In the summer I like to tour with my Electric Wheelchair through the Dutch countryside. 😎
In North Carolina you have the tabaco route. Very well maintained with rest areas Vert nice bike route
A great follow up video for this would be you going to the Netherlands and trying their bike paths. But if you can’t go to the Netherlands in the foreseeable future, you may as well try some of their food. My recommendations are the Dutch croquette, frikandel, and stroopwafels. I’m sure you can buy the stroopwafles on line, but I’m not too sure about the Dutch croquettes or the frikandel. I’m originally from the Netherlands, but I live in Canada and the city I live has a few places where they carry all of these and much more. I hope you get a chance to try all of these and more. I know you’ll love them.
13.07 there's probably a dog in that cart