Amsterdam advice
 

I'm heading to Amsterdam for a week in mid-June and I'm looking for advice on if I should rent a road bike (pack my saddle and shoes) or just plan on riding the bikes around town. Renting a road bike and heading out of town sounds fun, but I wonder if it's more work than it's worth.

It's probably more trouble than it's worth. I've been there. There's more than enough to do and see. Why would you want to leave town?

I have been there but did not rent bikes. Had more fun in the Brown Cafes! But, bringing your shoes and pedals makes sense. Other than the three speed old English racers that so many people there ride in town, you tend to see a lot of touring bikes and cross bikes. If you fantasize about a very modern racing bike and set up, you may need to look in some better shops.

In town, you will get an upright seating beach cruiser like bike. You will not even need shoes or pedals.

Google is going to be your friend here. Also, check out the Dutch Consulate for your area. They have TONS of tourist information and can give you excellent and reliable advice.

I would think that renting a bike, or taking part of the "community bike" program would be the way to go. Taking your own bike is asking for trouble - theft is going to be a big concern. The kind of bikes I see in photos are not the kind that you use with cycling shoes and clipless pedals - so you probably do not need to take that stuff.

And who are you going with? I would bet that if you are not going to be there for long, and you are NOT going with a cycling group - you will NOT hop on a road / touring bike and leave town.

Start the research now. You have the internet, but do not forget about the consulates and even the Dutch Embassy! Part of a foreign diplomats job is to promote tourism you know.

If you want to go out of town, take the train and then rent a bike at the station in the countryside.

What do you want to see/do "out of town"?

This site might help you abit.

http://www.iamsterdam.com/en/visiting




1. These guys have Scott Speedster Road bikes for rent, http://www.racefietsverhuur.nl/

2. Other bikes for rent http://www.orangebike.nl/eng/index.shtml

Offcourse there are alot more places where you can rent bike in Amsterdam.

It's true there's a lot of interesting riding in Amsterdam. You can roll right out of the city on one of those city bikes. But the countryside begs to be farther explored. Leiden, Utrecht, Haarlem, the coast, Marken, would all be best reached with a road, or at least a hybrid bike. Google racefiets verhuur if you're set on a roadie. But lots of the city rental places have a range of granny/city/hybrid bikes. Visit the info booth outside Centraal Station to learn about route navigation. Fietsroute and Knoopunt Networks are your friends.

Spend your days high as Jesus.

none exists.

I hear the inhabitants of Utrecht are very "easy on the eye".

there's nothing unique about the inhabitants of utrecht.

Go to Baba's. Get a space cake or some new york city diesel. Head to Vondelpark, grab a sandwich on the way, and enjoy a nice relaxing picnic.

I'd be riding something, but it ain't gonna be a bike :thumb: Avoid the Bulldog cafe, and ask where the "bowling alley" is. Take in a show...it's a cultural experience. ahh....memories.

on topic..just tool around on a city bike

Hey, I'm married and, unfortunately, can't even take my own advice but here goes. If you insist on riding a bike, just rent something casual. I used to work for a company just outside of Amsterdam and spent quite a bit of time in and around the city. It's a great place to just walk around and check out the sites.

Oh, and by "sites" I mean the "shows", lovely ladies in red light district, coffee shops, bars and all of the other fun things to see in the city.

Metzinger has good suggestions.

Heading more or less southwest out of Amsterdam you pass interesting towns like Haarlem, Leiden, etc., as well as North Sea beach towns like Zandvoort (where the Dutch Grand Prix - Formula 1 - used to be). Eventually this gets you to the Hague, which has some interesting sights, as well as a pretty cool casino along the beach (Scheveningen area).

Leiden is where there is a large university, so there are museums, student areas, as well as an old stone windmill that belonged to Rembrandt's parents, and was where he spent his childhood (or part of it) - living in the lower floor(s) of the windmill.

You can also do an interesting loop of towns that lie northeast of Amsterdam, more or less by riding around/along the IJselmeer (what used to be called the Zuider Zee):

http://www.mayq.com/Best_european_tr...IJsselmeer.htm

Some of the towns along the way include Edam (yes, where the red-wax covered cheese comes from), Volendam, and Marken (the last two, especially Marken, are still very traditional towns, villages). There is also a pretty cool castle in Muiden, and I remember eating some good pannekuchen at a restuarant in nearby Muiderslot. Plus closer in to Amsterdam is the Zaanse Schans, which is sort of an historical park, centered around a cluster of old wooden windmills:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaanse_Schans

I remember driving around in this area some years ago, and stumbling on some local festivals - in Edam they were having these "cheese races" in which guys carrying wooden "stretchers" loaded with stacked cheeses would race around the town square, trying to not let the cheeses roll off. In Volendam they were having sort of a town fair/carnival - lots of nice smoked eel on a stick to nibble on!

I used to go to the Netherlands on business pretty often, and always tried to wander around as much as possible. Some other interesting towns include Delft (where the pottery/dishes are made), Gouda (yes, another cheese), Naarden ( an old walled city, with a very cool old church, where you can climb up the very tall bell-tower).

http://www.google.com/images?rlz=1C1...ed=0CDoQsAQwBA

Everywhere is pretty flat. Certainly in the cities and towns what you will mostly see is people using traditional commuter bikes as transportation (often with totally-enclosed chains, to keep clothes dry and grease-free). But a lot of Dutch people also are road cycling enthusiasts.

I liked Dutch food a fair amount - including the afore-mentioned pannekuchen (basically pancakes, but sometimes with dinner-type fillings, such as is done with crepes). I was also partial to the various kinds of schnitzel-type dishes, some with eggs and cheeses on them, plus a pork-tenderloin dish called Varkenshaas. And the ice-cream sundaes are amazing (IJs is the basic word for ice-cream - the J is also capitalized to indicate that the IJ are together as one letter, pronounced as a long I). Mostly vanilla ice cream, at least as I remember it, but with any number of fruit and other toppings. And then there is IJs met Advocaat, which is ice cream with an egg-based liqueur over it.

There are also lots of Indonesian Rijs-Tafel (basically rice table) restaurants around, reflecting the old connections to the Dutch East Indies.

Of course the most well-known Dutch beer brands are all sort of mass-market (Heineken, Amstel, and Grolsch), but if you look around you can find more craft-type beers. Back some years ago when I was traveling there, they were trying to hold the price of a beer to be a standard 2 Guilders. But as costs went up, instead of raising the price, they instead kept using smaller and smaller glasses. Finally it got to the point where you were basically getting a juice glass of beer for your 2 Guilders. Then they finally made the big jump to some higher price (maybe even 5 Guilders), and brought out the big glasses again.... Don't know what the practice is like now...

pannekoeken.