Biking the Netherlands with a Stranger

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!
https://www.instagram.com/jellejbakker

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Today I’m going to be biking around the Netherlands with a stranger but not just any stranger my name is y bucker I’m the bicycle mayor of utx and today I’m going to show you around my beautiful city which is by the way ranked number one bik leest friendly city in the world so

For this video I wanted to explore the bike culture of the Netherlands the Netherlands is famous for being the world’s cycling Nation where there are more bikes Than People 22 million bicycles for 17 million inhabitants do you see how many bikes there are here there’s so many I’ve never seen many

Bikes in one place in my life and someone who lives in the US where driving is our primary form of transportation especially in Los Angeles I was curious to experience this worldclass cycling country so I casually head up the bicc mayor of utr to see if

You’d show me around and he said yes so here’s how it Went hey hello hello how’s it going nice to meet you so good to meet you welcome to utre thank you can you please introduce yourself to the people that don’t know course my name is j bucker I’m the bicycle mayor of utre I’ve been the bicycle mayor for 2 years and today

I’m going to show you around the city beautiful city of UT first we’re going to get you some bikes cool and then two questions can you explain what is the bicycle mayor cuz we don’t have that in the US so what is that so bicycle mayor is basically an advocate for for bicycle

Progress so the thing is like people think that bicycles can make real progress in society for a lot of challenges so there’s an entire network of 150 bicycle mayors of which I’m one all over the world and they’re all doing like a lot of advocate work for for

Cycling and in ut a lot of people cycle already so my main job is to make sure that it’s very inclusive that because of how busy the bicycle fat is that no one feels excluded perfect cool excited this will be the first time all right let’s

Get it oh and you just put him on here too yeah yeah We got our bikes okay cool what’s the game plan let’s grab coffee first then we’re going to think about what we’re going to do today there’s a lot of people living here but still it feels like a village yeah this is Nice so once you arrive is your destination you have to lock your bike which is really important because otherwise it get stoned so what you do you grab the key you just turn the key back put the lever down you take the key out and that’s how you Lo a

Bite so we got our coffees yeah Cheers Cheers all right let’s discuss the game plan for today what are we going to do how are we going to do this so I brought two dices and I thought we can throw the dices and then let the dice decide where

We’re going to fight so for example if we say the white one is for turning left and the right one is for turning right and we could turn the dice and for example it says the Sixth Street left and the Third Street right and then we

Could go that way and just see where we head up and that way we let the dice decide our all right I’m down let’s do it all right let’s go we’re here with our referee Jerry the cousin yeah he’s the cousin of Isabelle and he’s our di

Just throw man let’s see where we go yeah right so this was left so the six Street left oh we just throw this exactly the same all right so this is this is our plan six Street to the left and thir to the right all right we’re officially starting this journey all

Right so we go left and then we start with the Sixth Street left and the Third Street right do you know the city super well like the back of your hand I know it pretty well yeah all right so this is one one the buildings are cool that’s

Unique about Netherlands oh this is two this is a six okay so we go to the left left they know but yeah and now let’s continue going straight until the Third Street oh that’s one two this is three this is three ah it’s a good place to be this is

A nice one thanks disis yeah it’s nice to be here what is this area the part yeah this is uh Amsterdam Amsterdam R Canal so this is the canal from utre to Amsterdam if we were to go all the way follow this canal we’ll end up in

Amsterdam stop that the bike took us to this kind of Cool all right so you pull it back then you pull the lever down okay cool all right wa yeah are they allow on the same okay let’s get a seat first stop of the day maybe over here yeah yeah let’s do here 8 95 yes thank you thank you cheers oh cheers oh

I already took a cheers guys o nice where did we end up what is this restaurant have you been here before yeah I’ve been here before so this is a sort of a city beach so it’s called soya and uh that means Str oen so the beach

In oen which is a neighborhood in new track actually there’s not not a lot of things around here so I’m actually pretty happy that it brought us here and now I guess our dice throwing guy is going to throw the dice there we going next all right he’s back and he’s

Throwing the dice here we go all right so we going to go pork to the left to the left first to the Right so this is one of the bigger suspension bridge for cyclists and pedestrians only and this is the school and it’s built on top of the school you see wow where did it take us well thanks disis beautiful place I’ve ever seen wow okay landed at a beautiful beautiful

Construction site for number two but for us for us nothing to see yeah nothing much here nothing much here to see so let’s go throwing dice throwing dice all right number two throw it up in the air like a gambler like a street Gambler show them in the air

Woo all right wow five Fifth Street left and the Sixth Street right we are at our next stop ice cream shop I have the too ice cream and too is a Dutch pastry where it’s like pink jelly on top like a sugar is jelly and

It’s cream in the middle and then it has a cookie layer and they made the ice cream out of it good okay great thank you like Wonder it’s great yeah good okay got our ice creams fueling up what’s your favorite thing about biking I think it’s just

You’re so much faster than walking but you still have the freedom of Mobility like you can easily get into the city center or you don’t have to park your car and U yeah it’s just a feeling of freedom I guess I guess you feel the winter your hair especially on the warm

Sunny days today so good like you feel like revitalized yeah okay so that was just a pit stop to get the ice cream we still need to continue on to get to number six is it six MH okay six continue on the journey six straight right six straight right

Three four four look this is a cargo bike cargo bike oh yeah you can just rent this one and then we put Jerry in front bam show it what do we got one two Second Street left and then one to ride this is where they made the

Money it’s a coin building they closed it but it’s still a museum and then we’re around the spot where we met this morning there a lot of bridges a lot of bridges a lot of water right turn here let’s stop here for a moment time

To roll it again roll it again I’m going to roll it this time let’s see what the’s throw it high up ready oh no W first one to the right one one and then the Third Street left left run up the stairs with your bike let’s go guys little bit of cardio okay

So in the Netherlands the cool thing is they have these on the steps so we can just roll your bike up we don’t have this in the US so it’s my first time using one of these so we’re now at the bridge over the train tracks so they build this bridge

To get even faster to the center and U you can’t see it really but behind this big tower there’s a dum Tower the famous tower of utx so uh let’s see if we can uh go underneath It and then um Third Street to the left this is the biggest bicycle parking of the world 12 and 100,000 places and there’s still more to come Second Street oh turning left unfortunately uh we can’t cycle here so uh we’ll go by food for a little

While okay sounds good and then we show the dice if we are out of the dump Tower this is a funny thing they uh that is the dump Tower it’s being rebuilt now so that’s why it has the cover but as you can see here they rebuilt the dump Tower

Oh on ground and it’s to show how long it is so we’re actually now a dump Tower distance from the D Tower oh wow cool that’s cool right if it’s falling down it will land there it’s popping over here we’re now at out and this is like

Uh the city center of the old town so uh yeah this is really nice and you can see there’s a lot of people here this is Ry mutrix this is the the highlight of the city I guess that’s cool and they have literally bikes in the canal they have

Bikes in the canals yeah City water bikes like they’re relatively new how did you get into this biking thing it’s just the culture of the Netherlands and then you just became super into it and now you just bike casually 100 km like yesterday like how did this how did this

Happen well it’s actually uh kind of a very random random story because I uh I worked as a bicycle teacher and I did that as a as a job on the side and then I started working like uh as my regular job in bicycle promotion and then I saw

That they were looking for a bicycle mayor and I thought wow that’s that’s really something and I really want to try that so I wrote a working plan and uh what I wanted to do with the city and they chose me so uh that’s how I became

The bicycle mayor what do you want people to know about biking for people that aren’t as used to it they’re not living in the Netherlands the rest of the world it’s amazing you should try it yeah I just really love cycling and I I’ll just recommend everyone to to try

It and and to see how it feels and maybe start on a beautiful sunny day like today and make it make it a party like have a have a coffee on the way or grab an ice cream and uh I’ll promise you you love cycling in a sort of way sometimes

Cycling can feel like you’re floating like you’re floating on the on the road and I guess when you’re like going through through the trees and in nature and yeah it’s just uh it feels like a dream can we pick up the root here so uh yeah this is where the dice

Brought us this is the dumb square we have the dump Tower over there and this is the dumb church and that used to be connected but during a storm in an island like it broke down the middle part and it took the city forever to

Clean up the ruins and uh now we have this beautiful Square here this is the University Building Academia uh which is also really beautiful and we could also go to the Garden belonging to the church and it’s called the Academia time into the garden oh look at Is so the dice brought us here and actually it’s time to T the dice again but I have one more surprise for you so I like surprises Bo them away okay and I’m going to bring you to the final surprise okay I like surprises let’s see where you got in store

Press all right so I had a surprise plan for you namely kennel biking so cycling and being on the water because the D are known for the water and for cycling so if you want to experience UT Tri in its foolest form I thought kandle biking

Would be perfect but there are no kenle bikes available so that won’t work out I have to come up with another plan for you and I’m thinking I should give you some destinations to go to and then uh you could experience you by yourself because unfortunately I have to leave you you

Could go to the Vina Park a beautiful Park and it has a super nice bicycle pet through the park and and not that far away from here in the for they made a new bicycle Road and it’s like a really long road where there’s not so much

Traffic it’s really quiet and like they made it a bike bicycle priority Lane so those are the tips I want to give you and I really enjoyed it thank you so much and then uh I’ll say thank you much this amaz enjo apprciate it all right thank

You all right guys we are now on our own so we’re going to be going to one of the spots that you recommended to us which is the park and it is just going to be like a straight shot and then I think we’ll see the park we’re just about here we are

Professional bikers now made it to the Park it’s so beautiful here so much green people are literally just like sitting on the side here having picnic with their friends this is really nice this morning was fantastic but this is a really nice way to end the afternoon with a more

Peaceful bike ride through the park we have been biking around this park just chilling soaking it all in but that was very nice to end this video it’s so green and beautiful here and thank you so much again to the bicycle May of UT for taking us around today

That was so fun over and out see you later over and out see you later see you in the next one follow And subscribe follow And subscribe we’re back follow And subscribe if you liked it click that some button so you get alerts that click that subscribe button subscribe there’s

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