I have received a very nice gift for my birthday; an action camera. As you might have seen in previous posts I had borrowed an action cam from a friend of mine. I was so enthousiastic about it that I really wanted to have one of myself. And now I have one.
So you can expect more video posts from me.
And I'm posting the first one today!

The ride

It was quite nice and sunny today. There wasnt too much wind either, so I decided to for a ride away from the coast into tge polders. In between some larger cities is a nice open area of farmland. There are a lot of nice cycling routes in between the meadows. There are a lot of cows and sheep. You sometimes even get to cycle in thei habitat. The cycling paths have cattle grids so they cannot escape.

There is also a lot of water in the area. In the film you can see a lot of canals and ditches. At one point I even had to take a small ferry to get across a river. You can see it in the video too.

It was a nice ride of almost 45 kilometers.

I hope you like the video!
If you have any questions,just ask in the comments.

Did any of you also made a nice ride this weekend?

Happy cycling!

FriendlyMoose

Thanks for checking out this post!

Be sure to follow me if you want to see more of me.

Also check out some of my projects on Hive below!

---

A weekly blog with an overview of all the photography contests on Hive. Find these posts by clicking the following tag: #photocontests.

---

Join my weekly photography contest. A photocontest for every photographer; amateur or pro with a different subject every week. Check out the following tag: #pobphotocontest.

The Cycling Community

The Cycling Community is for everyone who rides a bicycle or is interested in cycling in any form.
You can post anything as long as it has to do with cycling; your bicycle, a ride you made, bike maintenance or cycling news.

Create your cycling related blog in the Cycling Community!

Also check out our Discord Channel!

You can support the Cycling Community by delegating HP.

The HP will be used to support cyclist on Hive!
You can do so by clicking one of the links below or choose your own amount.

25 HP - 50 HP - 100 HP -250 HP - 500 HP

_{Uploaded using 3Speak Mobile App}

We plan this ride in the middle of the year. This gives us enough time to build up our fitness after the winter. We usually start cycling in February when the weather allows. We start off with rides of 40 kilometers and slowly increase the distance week after week until we make rides of 120 kilometer.
Last year I made a 135 kilometer solo ride from the campsite back home just a few weeks before the 200 kilometer ride.
But this year my training wasn't as good as the years before. I've been quite busy in the weekends, so I had to skip a lot of rides. We've also had quite a lot of rain in spring which resulted in far less training kilometers than I had planned. The longest ride I made before our trip was just over 80 kilometers which isn't even half of what we we're going to ride.
To be honest I was a little bit worried whether I would make it this year or not.

Luckily I was able to make quite some commuting rides in the last two weeks before our trip. The distance isn't that much; 16,5 kilometer one way, but with 33 kilometer a day I managed to ride over 200 kilometer in two weeks.

The weather last Friday was perfect! It was sunny and dry and there wasn't a lot of wind. We took off at 8:00 AM and went in the South-East direction. This part of the Netherlands is called 'the green heart' because it exists mainly of polders and meadows. It's very beautiful. We've seen many canals, meadows, cows and sheep.

We've also had to cross some canals as well. We've been on two ferries and also cycled under the water in quite a long tunnel.

Cycling through the city of Rotterdam wasn't a very good choice. There was a lot of traffic, so we had to stop a lot of times for traffic lights. And that's not funny after 140 kilometers.

After leaving Rotterdam behind we had about 50 kilometers left to ride. And since we started with a headwind we now had a nice tailwind.

In the end it wasn't as tough as I had thought. We managed to complete the ride relatively fresh (for as far as you can be fresh after being on a bicycle for over 7 hours).

Check out the video in this post to get a bit of an impression of the ride.

Thanks for reading this blog!

FriendlyMoose

Thanks for checking out this post!

Be sure to follow me if you want to see more of me.

Also check out some of my projects on Hive below!

---

A weekly blog with an overview of all the photography contests on Hive. Find these posts by clicking the following tag: #photocontests.

---

Join my weekly photography contest. A photocontest for every photographer; amateur or pro with a different subject every week. Check out the following tag: #pobphotocontest.

The Cycling Community

The Cycling Community is for everyone who rides a bicycle or is interested in cycling in any form.
You can post anything as long as it has to do with cycling; your bicycle, a ride you made, bike maintenance or cycling news.

Create your cycling related blog in the Cycling Community!

Also check out our Discord Channel!

You can support the Cycling Community by delegating HP.

The HP will be used to support cyclist on Hive!
You can do so by clicking one of the links below or choose your own amount.

25 HP - 50 HP - 100 HP -250 HP - 500 HP

_{Uploaded using 3Speak Mobile App}

# 1 cycling country of the world

Although there are a lot of other countries doing really well , the Netherlands is still the cycling country in the world. There is no other country where cycling is so embedded in the culture as here in the Netherlands. Here are a couple of cycling facts about the Netherlands that might surprise you. I gathered these facts from a couple of sources on the internet, so I don't know if they all are 100% accurate, but they should at least give you an idea.

• There are more bicycles than people (approximately 23 million bicycles on 17,7 inhabitants)
• Around 36% of the Dutch population cycles every day
• The average Dutch person cycles about 1,000 kilometers per year (620 miles)
• The Netherlands has an extensive network of cycling paths (approximately 35,000 kilometers)
• The city of Utrecht has the world's largest bicycle parking facility with space for 12.500 bicycles
• The Netherlands has one of the lowest rates of cycling fatalities per capita in the world

The history

The first bicycles appeared in the Netherlands in the 1860s.
The Netherlands is a relatively small country and mostly flat, so ideal for cycling.

Cycling became more popular. After World War 2 there was a rise in car ownership which lead to a decline in cycling.
Cities started to prioritize car infrastructure which resulted in an increased number traffic accidents involving cyclists.

The oil crisis in 1973 led to a renewed interest in cycling.
There was also a social movement advocating for safer cycling conditions after a high number of child fatalities in traffic accidents.
The Dutch government responded by investing heavily in cycling infrastructure. They created dedicated bike lanes, traffic-calming measures and bike parking facilities.
The government also started to promote cycling.

In the 80's and 90's cycling became integral to Dutch urban planning. A tax benefit for purchasing a bicycle through your employer was introduced.

In de last 20 years many more innovations were introduced like bicycle highways and smart traffic lights (that will reduce waiting time for cyclists).

And now it's time to watch and analyze the video...

Lot's of cyclists

As you can see in the video there are a lot of cyclists. I went to work during peak hours, so there are a lot of fellow commuters and kids going to school.
Since a lot of people are allowed to work some days from home after the Covid-19 crisis the number of people that need to go to work have declined a bit, but on the 'office days' Tuesday and Thursday it's even busier on the cycling paths.

Cycling infrastructure

A lot of the cycling paths are dedicated for cyclists. On roads where cyclists and cars share the road often there is a lane reserved for cyclists. It's almost always marked with white stripes and sometimes even painted red and marked with a bicycle sign. You can see them in different parts of the video.
On busy intersections often tunnels or bridges are created especially for cyclists so they don't have to wait.
You can see a few of them in the video as well.
And then there are also roads where the cars are guests. There roads that are painted red are dedicated for cyclists. Cars must always give priority to cyclists on those roads.

Speaking about priority

The default traffic rule in The Netherlands is that traffic coming from the right has priority unless otherwise indicated by signs.
At 0:45 you see me riding on a roundabout. The so-called shark teeth on the road (painted white triangles) indicate together with a sign that the car driver needs to give priority to cyclists which the driver of the white van does.
Unfortunately not all roundabouts have the same rules. Cities can make their own decisions about that which can make it confusion sometimes.
Later on in the video (2:26) you see me riding on a dedicated cycling path (painted red) and on both sides the 'shark teeth' indicate that the crossing traffic, even though they come from the right, have to give priority to passing cyclists.
These priorities make life so much easier for cyclists. It's much easier for a car to stop and go than it is for a cyclist. The Dutch cycling infrastructure is designed to keep the cyclist riding most of the time.

The different cyclists and their behaviours

With so many people cycling there are also a lot of different cyclists and bicycles.
What you may have noticed is that many people do not wear helmets while cycling. The Dutch have been cycling way before bicycle helmets were invented. We have learnt to ride a bike at a very young age and are very experienced. A large part of all cycling infrastructure is dedicated and other traffic is used to have many cyclists around. The number of head injuries always was very low.
And I say was because the introduction of electric bicycles had a negative impact on this figure. The number of head injuries and even fatal ones rose dramatically in a few years time. Especially among elderly people.
Although the only electric bicycles for which wearing a helmet is mandatory are the speed pedelacs that can go upto 45 kilometer an hour, there is a change going on where more and more cyclists of 'slower' electric bicycles start wearing helmets too.
But on 'regular' bicycles people hardly wear helmets. Except for small kids that still need to learn how to ride a bike.

Another hype are the so-called fat bikes. These electric bicycles are very famous among teenagers. They have very wide wheels and a lot of kids remove the speed limiter which makes them to over 40 kilometer an hour easily.
Combine this with headphones and the use of smartphone while riding and you can imagine why I hate these bikes.

Conclusion

I dare to say that The Netherlands is the best country in the world for cyclists. Cyclists are prioritized and protected in many ways. And the investments in cyclists hasn't ended. New innovations keep coming and policies like banning cars from city centers are in favor of cyclists too.
Dutch cycling culture is an inspiration for many other countries.
I'm proud to be a Dutch cyclist!

FriendlyMoose

Thanks for checking out this post!

Be sure to follow me if you want to see more of me.

Also check out some of my projects on Hive below!

---

A weekly blog with an overview of all the photography contests on Hive. Find these posts by clicking the following tag: #photocontests.

---

Join my weekly photography contest. A photocontest for every photographer; amateur or pro with a different subject every week. Check out the following tag: #pobphotocontest.

The Cycling Community

The Cycling Community is for everyone who rides a bicycle or is interested in cycling in any form.
You can post anything as long as it has to do with cycling; your bicycle, a ride you made, bike maintenance or cycling news.

Create your cycling related blog in the Cycling Community!

Also check out our Discord Channel!

You can support the Cycling Community by delegating HP.

The HP will be used to support cyclist on Hive!
You can do so by clicking one of the links below or choose your own amount.

25 HP - 50 HP - 100 HP -250 HP - 500 HP

_{Uploaded using 3Speak Mobile App}

I was able to borrow an action cam from a friend, so I was able to create a nice video from my ride.
I actually borrowed it to make some shots of my long ride with some friends on Friday.

I do like making videos, so I might buy me an action cam too soon.

What do you think of the video?

The ride was just over 40 kilometer and went all through the polder. There is a lot of farmland as you can see and you can even spot a windmill.
Unfortunately the battery was empty after a while, so I didn't capture the hare that was running alongside me which was very fun to see.

FriendlyMoose

Thanks for checking out this post!

Be sure to follow me if you want to see more of me.

Also check out some of my projects on Hive below!

---

A weekly blog with an overview of all the photography contests on Hive. Find these posts by clicking the following tag: #photocontests.

---

Join my weekly photography contest. A photocontest for every photographer; amateur or pro with a different subject every week. Check out the following tag: #pobphotocontest.

The Cycling Community

The Cycling Community is for everyone who rides a bicycle or is interested in cycling in any form.
You can post anything as long as it has to do with cycling; your bicycle, a ride you made, bike maintenance or cycling news.

Create your cycling related blog in the Cycling Community!

Also check out our Discord Channel!

You can support the Cycling Community by delegating HP.

The HP will be used to support cyclist on Hive!
You can do so by clicking one of the links below or choose your own amount.

25 HP - 50 HP - 100 HP -250 HP - 500 HP

_{Uploaded using 3Speak Mobile App}

I'm inspired by other members of the Cycling Community who add videos to their blogs, so I thought I'd also make one. Since I don't (yet) have an action camera, I made the videos with my mobile phone.

Today I made a route through the polder. The location of the Dutch polders used to be bodies of water hundreds of years ago. Around the 12th century, the Dutch started surrounding these areas with dikes and then pumping them dry with windmills. That's the reason why you still see many old windmills in this area. There's also one in my video.

The reclaimed areas are mostly used for livestock and agriculture as it is very fertile soil.
Nowadays, the water is kept out of the polders by mechanical pumps, and the mills only have a historical value.
There are many beautiful bicycle paths in the polder. There are some beautiful narrow bike paths that go right through the meadows. It's a bit tricky when you have an oncoming cyclist, but it's usually very quiet. As you can see in the video, there is a lot of water. The areas are surrounded by ditches and canals which are used to drain excess water from the polder. It's a good thing there wasn't a lot of wind today because you can't hide anywhere when it's windy. There are no buildings to give you shelter from the wind.
What you also see in the video is the excellent cycling infrastructure we have here in the Netherlands. In many cases, there are bike paths that are separated from the roads. And on places where cars and cyclists do share the road, there is often a special section marked for cyclists.

What started as a sunny afternoon unfortunately ended in a small rain shower. Towards the end of the ride, I saw dark clouds in the distance and exactly in the direction I was heading. It did produce beautiful pictures because the sun came through the clouds in the distance. I always think it's a beautiful sight when you see the rays of light through the clouds.

Below, I share some photos I took during the ride.
In the end, I made a round of more than 70 kilometers in the 2.5 hours I spent on the bike. I'm quite happy with the average of just over 28 kilometers per hour.
Despite the rain at the end, it was a lovely ride.

FriendlyMoose

Thanks for checking out this post!

Be sure to follow me if you want to see more of me.

Also check out some of my projects on Hive below!

---

A weekly blog with an overview of all the photography contests on Hive. Find these posts by clicking the following tag: #photocontests.

---

Join my weekly photography contest. A photocontest for every photographer; amateur or pro with a different subject every week. Check out the following tag: #pobphotocontest.

The Cycling Community

The Cycling Community is for everyone who rides a bicycle or is interested in cycling in any form.
You can post anything as long as it has to do with cycling; your bicycle, a ride you made, bike maintenance or cycling news.

Create your cycling related blog in the Cycling Community!

Also check out our Discord Channel!

You can support the Cycling Community by delegating HP.

The HP will be used to support cyclist on Hive!
You can do so by clicking one of the links below or choose your own amount.

25 HP - 50 HP - 100 HP -250 HP - 500 HP