1. It’s fantastic.

2. It fits in with design week here on newelty.
3. We were lucky enough to snag Genna’s time to do our own redesign of newelty after this was originally posted in February!

I spent today out in the bright sun on my Dutch bike. I was able to bike through downtown Seattle in weather so nice that it was warm enough to wear just my skinny jeans and my Little Edie tee–a revolutionary costume of the day in Februrary!

After ignoring the internets all day, I came home to see not only was one of my favorite sites Copenhagen Cycle Chic now also on Twitter, but that this artist, Genna Campton, had created the incredible illustration you see above as an homage to that site.

I now have a new goal for newelty, some day in the far, far future.

I searched the Google maps nearby towns looking for a B&B, and mapped out my route using Google street view. It looked like the total commute time by bike would be 30 minutes, 45 tops. After my freakout about how it would work and my test drive in Delft, I found out that the Netherlands really makes biking easy, no matter where you are.

Video of my daily ride after the jump.

I’m hoping the cute song makes the bumpiness charming, rather than nauseating.

I live in Seattle, and we have nothing like this. We have someone who seems to be an ineffectual mayor (my skeptical friend nicknamed him Mayor McCheese). He actually complimented my own Dutch bike when I saw him in my neighborhood, which is nice. But what would be nicer is a plan for a real biking infrastructure like the kind in this tiny town in the Netherlands, so small it barely has a wikipedia entry. Does this plan exist already? I don’t think so. And if not, Mayor McGinn, could you create  it? Because the video above shows how fantastically great that was for many reasons.

In case you want to enjoy some much-more-professional videos (sans rockiness and something on the lens), try out these favorites sites that always inspire:

• Cycle Chic
• Amsterdamize
• Let’s Go Ride a Bike

It seemed like it had to be possible. After all, this is a place that includes bikes in every layer of their daily lives–check out this super-cute bike garage in Delft, complete with a painted tile. (Delft is world-famous for its blue-and-white ceramic Delftware):

Still, it’s not the most natural thing for a non-fixie, non-hard-core American cycling enthusiast to figure out. How does it all work? I had read about the bicyclist-only road signs. Would I miss them? Be unable to decipher their directions?

I shouldn’t have worried. If there’s one thing the Dutch excel at, it’s organization.

In Holland, which–strictly speaking–is a province in the north part of the Netherlands, three main cities make up the heart of the “randstad“: Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and the Hague, which abuts Delft (home to the bike garage pictured above).

Got all that?

No matter–the point is that the clever Dutchies, seeing their industrial, crowded cities spreading together like the cities of China’s Pearl River Delta decided to preserve the lush meadowland that lies between all the cities of the randstad.

To see how easy it was to get around by bike, we headed into the Groene Hart.

Here’s your road through the Groene Hart, a.k.a. the “green heart”:

In between moments of quiet solitude, you’ll come across sheep. Or cows. Or bridges. Or high schoolers taking their horses out for a little run. Here’s a little shot of rush hour in the Groene Hart:

Oh, and those street signs I was worried I might miss, or not be able to interpret? They’re easy peasy, and include nearby towns, landmarks, and the mileage in kilometers:

Stay tuned to find out how it actually went when I needed to bicycle between towns to language school. Eep!

I realized that when you’re being paid to do something, it’s work. Period. It might not be anything as difficult as working in a coal mine, but it still is work. When I was in the Netherlands, rocketing from place to place, I would sit on the train, noticing the neat bicycle lanes that ran out across the flat fields into infinity. Where were people biking to on those paths?

I finally got to find out. The red bike below is mine. This photo is from the top of a dike, with the sea at my back:

It’s incredibly satisfying to finally know where people are heading on those mysterious bike paths, heading out seemingly to infinity, because of the flat Dutch sky.

In this case, they’re biking out of the city centers, into the wide-open spaces of the Dutch countryside. This scene below is about five miles from central Amsterdam:

The town is named Durgerdam, and as you can see from this very brief wikipedia entry, it’s not a destination. But a lovely harbor town is a special thing wherever you are–and even more so incredibly when it’s just in the backyard of Amsterdam’s Red Light District.

These houses, with their nautical touches, embody so much of what I love about Dutch design:

Look for more on the off-the-beaten-track Netherlands soon, as well as an entry on why the heck everything is in orange in that country.

And in case you’d like to see where this other Amsterdam lies, point A below is the approximate location of the first photo above:

They’re not precious about biking. Everyone bikes. Including this gentleman, who took the passenger ferry across the river IJ with us, from Amsterdam’s central train station to the other side:

How wonderfully elegant is he?

I’m excited to report on my recent Dutch adventures, including being there during the World Cup. As regular readers know, I’m obsessed with the Dutch, and have plenty of posts in mind for this week and next, including quite a few on Dutch biking. Betty and I will be doing our best to publish a piece every weekday, so please keep checking back!

This one is a favorite, of two people catching a quick smooch, probably at a stop light:

I’m also fond of this photo, which shows a dad clearly gleeful about taking his kiddo for a ride in his bakfiets:

Just booked my final hotel for my upcoming trip to the Netherlands, and the hotel website lets visitors pre-book bikes. How great is that?

Check out the whole series.

Hooray for the weekend! I have big plans. They include a three-day getaway to the Oregon Coast (whose virtues we’ve already discussed) and not wasting two hours at Sex and the City (which Betty and I expressed doubt and concern about, just based on the trailer). I’ll be trip planning for my upcoming adventure at Dutch language school.

Trip planning used to stress me out. Now, I love it, because let’s face it–when novelty is a key reason for why you like to travel, there are no wrong answers. Take, for example, the Dutch national park, which I may or may not include in this trip. It’s famous for its free white bikes, shown above. (Notice how they’re not locked to anything?)

But the first time I went, on assignment for the Travel Company That Shall Not Be Named, I wasn’t quite so sanguine.

I wasn’t sure to expect. The Netherlands is a tiny country, so I knew that it wouldn’t be Yellowstone.

I took the bus to Otterlo, the closest town to the national park, which didn’t seem all that remarkable at first glance.

Then I noticed this sign.

Except–hello, my fellow Americans–it dates from 1150. Eleven. Fifty. And that’s not even a big honking deal.

Anyway. When you’re paid to travel for a living, it can be easy to feel like a big shot. Look at me! I’m livin’ the dream!

This is absurd, of course. The downside of novelty-seeking is that everything is actually new to you. Which means, by default, you don’t know anything about it.

I had read about the famous white bikes of Holland’s national park. Walking from Otterlo in the general direction of the park, feeling a little uneasy, I decided that this place was probably where the white bikes could be found, since “fiets” is the Dutch word for bicycle:

Um, no. I hadn’t walked far enough. I didn’t want a sketchy little garage.

I wanted this:

Slightly different, no?

The park itself was amazing. What started out seeming like a forest became sand dunes, and then–even in the middle of summer–because something like the tundras and vistas I associate with Betty’s incredible photos of South Africa.

Does that look like northern Europe to you?

One of the best parts of the Hoge Veluwe national park is that it’s like a Kinder Surprise: Awesome candy shell with a shiny toy in the middle.

In this case, it’s the Kröller-Müller Museum, a temple to modern art dropped there by two Germans (hence the umlauts in the name).

Inside were stacks of incredible art, including the second biggest collection of Van Goghs (second only to the…you guessed it…Van Gogh Museum).

Sure, why not? Just another day at the park in the Netherlands.

Dappled sunlight, a bike ride or two, and a maybe a snack. Oh, and masterpieces keeping you company on your way out.

The Dutch really do have this quality-of-life stuff figured out.

I still haven’t decided whether to go back or not. It’s an incredible place, but the search for novelty might push me in new directions, rather than returning to the park. Stay tuned.

Yesterday was truly the first beautiful day of spring in Seattle. I dusted off my Dutch bike to ride into work, and loved how this dark purple tulip looked next to its Dutchie kin.

Readers of this blog know that I’m obsessed with the Dutch, and with Dutch biking in particular as the ultimate, elegant solution for transportation bliss. I bought mine from David, owner of the Dutch Bike Co. here in Seattle, who also thinks that a little touch of Holland is the solution to life’s troubles.

I can never travel as much as I want to, but I can try to incorporate the things that I adore about other places in my life back home. For me, it means biking to work in heels for the first time–which, oddly, seemed to work out better than flats!

I’m inspired, in particular, by Copenhagen Cycle Chic, and photos like this one:

As well as perennial favorite, Amsterdamize:

I have such fondness for other Americans who share the same ideal, like the lovely lasses over at Let’s Go Ride a Bike. This pic of their friend Trisha in a birthday party dress is so charming, no?

 And if I’m not mistaken, that fab dress she has on is from the Zac Posen collection for Target. Total bicycling cuteness.

I love the idea of bringing Dutch-bike-love back to U.S. cities, but New York seems the most daunting place of all to contemplate biking through. (Although I also thought NYC would be the last place for a Siena-style pedestrian-friendly piazza, and look how they’ve proved me wrong with Piazza Times Square.)

The solution appears to be: to be a cyclist in New York, take a New York attitude, according to Village Voice columnist Michael Musto:

Things I love about this video:

• Absolutely no spandex. Instead, a jaunty scarf.
• Biking between cabs, which is my favorite aspect of biking in downtown Seattle–it just seems so incongruous.
• His quotes: “I don’t care about the environment, but it’s nice that someone does.” Hilarious.

No helmet though, which seems slightly insane to me, but oh-so Dutch.

Hat tip to Copenhagen Cycle Chic for introducing me to this video and to StreetFilms.org for making it in the first place.

Via Amsterdamized.