Lycra-free zone: The country where cycling is all about going slow

Cycling slowly doesn’t come easy to the uninitiated, but in the Netherlands is an art you should cultivate. It not only allows you to drift along safely amid shoals of other bicycles, but to enjoy the passing sights, and feel you’ve become a little bit Dutch.

Illustration: Jamie Brown

How exactly the Dutch cycle so sedately without toppling over is a marvel and mystery. They pedal majestically onwards seemingly undisturbed by cobblestones, unprotected drops into canals, or buffeting crosswinds from the North Sea.

Once you’ve mastered those obstacles, hone your acrobatic skills by trying to cycle while answering your mobile phone, or balancing shopping in your front basket or a child behind.

The reason to go slow is that everything that passes by in the Netherlands is a delight. In towns, you can pedal along canals, across humped bridges and past gabled houses and pointy churches, and feel you’ve strayed anachronistically into an Old Master painting.

Amsterdam has some 400 bridges that create a spider’s web of wonderful viewpoints towards merchants’ houses and cosy residences. The intimacy makes for a pleasant change from the grand boulevards and palaces of Europe’s capitals. A bike is the appropriate way to see it all and get a pretty picture of burgher life.

As you glide along, un-curtained windows framed in bowls of tulips let you spot locals doing their homework, forking up pancakes or slumping on sofas. It looks like performance art but is just ordinary Dutch life, lived unabashedly in semi-public.

Amsterdam has some 400 bridges and a bicycle is the appropriate way to explore them. Credit: iStock

The countryside brings other cycling pleasures. Clouds scud overhead, piebald cows doze thigh-deep in grass, and you have the vantage point of cycle tracks on top of dykes. Sometimes you pedal above the roofs of petite houses and can look down into gardens where the Dutch sunbathe in their underpants.

There are more Old Master scenes here, this time of sailing boats, farmhouses and windmills hunkered under moody skies. The wind sighs and geese honk in the reeds. It’s of such wonderful moments that travel is made.

The sun is elusive in the Netherlands, so you’ll also have to master the art of layering, like those magicians with their quick wardrobe changes.

Cycling in the rain isn’t fun, but before long the skies are rinsed clean. Peel off your raincoat and turn your face towards the sky like a sunflower. Light and reflections wobble in the water that always surrounds you in the Netherlands, and around the bend another pretty landscape awaits.