Cycling
October 20-22, 2025
It was my first time in Amsterdam, the cycling capital of the world. I wanted to rent a bike. Nothing fancy, just one of those typical Dutch omafiets; after all, I’m not Mathieu van der Poel. But between rain that seemed to arrive every night and a packed work schedule, it never happened. It just gives me another reason to come back.
On the way there, we drove through Switzerland, and I couldn’t help but notice how many cyclists filled those winding alpine roads. It’s hard to imagine a more beautiful place to ride. And, if I lived there, it would be hard not to be spoiled by the breathtaking views.
I knew cycling was more prevalent in Europe, but nothing prepared me for Amsterdam. The sheer number of bikes there is unbelievable. Every road I encountered has a car lane, then bike lanes on the sides, then sidewalks. This made driving challenging, which I had to do every day since I needed to go to the RAI. Driving in Amsterdam is nerve-wracking; you have to inch out carefully, first through the pedestrian sidewalk, then across the bike lane, then finally into traffic. Roundabouts were especially perilous, since bikes seemed to come from every direction at once.
To put it in perspective, there are actually more bikes than people in Amsterdam—over 800,000 of them—and about a third of all traffic in the city is made up of cyclists. The Netherlands as a whole is built for it too; more than a quarter of all trips in the country are made by bike, and Amsterdam alone has over 400 kilometers of dedicated cycling lanes. We have some catching up to do in the States!
Even though I didn’t get to ride, just being in such a cycling-centric city, with infrastructure built entirely around it, changed how I think about cycling and travel. At home, cycling is an escape; it’s exercise, it’s extracurricular. But in Amsterdam, it’s all of those things and an essential part of daily life. Next time, I’ll get on that omafiets, and maybe, just maybe, I’ll embrace the ride the way the city does.
Anyway, the first day back, I had zero jet lag and picked up my daily rides right where I left off.
