I moved to the Netherlands almost year ago now (my ‘anniversary’ is at the beginning of October – eep!) and I have lots to say about what it means and what it is to ride a bike here – but let’s get back to basics:
Feeling comfortable is all about feeling that you belong on the road.
The first thing a rider may feel as they tackle the (to them) insane task of popping to the shops is the deep-rooted fear of thinking that they need to hide away when even the smallest moving obstacle appears somewhere by the road side. When I was in the UK ‘belonging on the road’ meant being super strong, asserting my position and not taking ‘no’ for an answer – I had to have 360 degrees of vision and the foresight of a soothsayer in order to rest in the anxiety of confidence that I am, finally….. O.K. to go to the shops.
The hustle and bustle of the fietspad is a different and daunting experience – now you no-longer feel so lonely (as I have often done on my forlorn commutes in the West Midlands), different ‘you’s are everywhere – and they are all doing different things and going in different directions. For even many a Dutchy – who lives in a peaceful little village, somewhere in Drenthe (I am just imaging, here), the pure adrenaline or Harlemmerdijk or Wesperzijde would also feel overwhelming – funny that. I guess it’s just about submitting to the chaos……
Part of it is certainly about skills – but another part is about trusting in the universe (or something…) – I remember, distinctly, an occasion where I found myself on the right when I wanted to go left (crossing one of the many canals in Amsterdam….) and I, dearly indeed, wanted to go left. So I put my instructor hat on:
- Look behind (not too prominently, for any wobble could have consequences, what with so many fietsers around);
- Stick my arm out to show I want to go left;
- Check again to see what was happening;
- (I couldn’t really move across too far and change my position as I may have wanted to, what with all of the cyclists buzzing about)
At this point, though, I saw a young boy – let’s say he was 13 years old. What do I do? There is nothing in my manual for this scenario. Is he going to overtake as a I go left? Are we going to be fished out of the gracht by the handhaving? He looked confident and savvy in the pell-mell, so I did the one thing not in my manual:
- I trusted
And yes, I am still here to tell this story – and neither of us went for a swim – he held back over so slightly and I swung across and went off to wherever I was going. Much ado about nothing.
But, this is the main point I want to raise from my first blog: even when it comes to riding on a cycle lane and someone else ceding priority, a certain amount of trust needs to grow – and things happen that you’d never thought would, certainly not on the streets of Birmingham or London. When I first starting riding here, the fact people where actually letting me go first to me and I could, mostly, trust, that was pretty absurd – and then you get into the occasions where that doesn’t happen and how the design of kerbing at junctions helps everyone slow down so that if a mistake does happen there aren’t too many consequences *gasp*
To build that trust, though, you have to start somewhere – so, believe me, we shan’t be on Nassaukade during our first lesson – but if you ever get a chance to watch a bunch of people riding bikes at a busy junction, just observe the dance, and see how everyone, implicitly, trusts everyone else and, for the most most part, nothing really happens…..
Fancy a lesson? I teach in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Hilversum – and beyond!
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