Travelling abroad

One Minute at The Hague Central Station

May 14, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 3 minutes The last three posts probably gave you a peek into every day cycling in The Hague. If you are in the down town area, you always see cyclists, no matter what time of day. However, there is one spot where many seem to converse: Central Station. People cycle to and fro the station. Below are a few very random pictures that I took probably half a minute apart. There is a steady stream of cyclists coming and going to the station. (There is a large square, currently being redesigned). People leave their bike and take the train or arrive by [Read more…]

A Casual Stroll Through The Hague – Part 3: Urban Chickens

May 11, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 2 minutes The locals are complaining about the failing summer already, they have had a lot of cloudy weather. The morning meetings were cancelled, so I walked down the Scheveningseweg to downtown The Hague and I passed this urban chickens. Very nice to see. It is right across the Peace Palace on the edge of a cemetery. Here is the link on Google. It is near the house in the centre with the red tiled roof. So far, the series of walks through Den Haag. A lovely city to walk, bike or entertain. Downtown is no less than about 5-6 km (4 miles) [Read more…]

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A Casual Stroll Through The Hague – Part 2: A Very Blue Bike

May 10, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 2 minutes I randomly took a really great picture of a mother on a bakfiets (cargo bike) with three kids after asking permission. Unfortunately, she doesn’t want me to put it on the Internet, which I respect, so you have to come to one of my presentations some day. I did show the pic to a friend of mine, and the woman turns out to be one of her former colleagues; that’s how small Holland is. Here is part two of The Hague: Go to the next page in the series of strolls through The Hague: Part Three: Urban Chickens

A Casual Stroll Through The Hague – Part 1: Daddy Bike

May 9, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 3 minutes I am in Holland in Den Haag (The Hague) for work this week. Locked up in meetings and presentations for most of the day for 5 days in a row, I was eager to go for a walk to visit a friend.  Tuesday afternoon I had a change to leave a wee early and walked from the Crowne Plaza (which has been renovated from kind of Modernist to a large I phone retro Modernist, with shag carpets, pink under the bar atmospheric lights and lots of white, a work counter/bar and a couple of Apple computers for Internet access). For [Read more…]

What if the Swedes Would Own Chaudière Island?

March 5, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 4

Reading Time: 6 minutes As you already read in the previous post: Of Post-It Notes and Tapestries, many of the Ottawa residents saw the Chaudière Island as one of the key elements in meeting the ideas and expectations that Canadians have for developing the Nation’s Capital into a world class capital. I have biked around the place and it is really a gorgeous spot, waiting to be developed, now the pulp paper industry is retreating. What about Chaudière Island? For those who don’t live in Ottawa: Chaudière Island has a collection of buildings, some as old as 100 years and built with natural stone, [Read more…]

Cycling in the snow….

February 6, 2012 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 3 minutes It doesn’t happen too often, but Holland was covered in snow late last week. Cyclists kept cycling, resulting in some really nice pictures of cyclists in the snow. If the “inexperienced-with-snow” Dutch can do it, teens included, we Canadians can no longer use the argument of a snowy country as a reason not to cycle. Enjoy the screen shots from the nu.nl website I took this weekend. You will notice few cars in the pictures, as many cyclists are separated from faster traffic on special bike paths or cycle through city centres with traffic calming measures. Many kids cycle to [Read more…]

Bikeway image by Dennis Leung - Ottawa Citizen

Whoosh!

December 30, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 5 minutes You probably read already that Ottawa city staff is designing a bike way through the city. Some will argue that it is yet another example of a waste of tax payer’s money (as if $220,000,000 for the Queensway isn’t), but the reality is, that it will be a long term gain. The idea behind a bike way is to create a safe corridor for cyclists from one end of town to the other end. It will feed commuters into the down town as well as encouraging more people to take their bike to get across town for errands. Or to get around their own [Read more…]

Cycling to a Canadian War Cemetery in the Netherlands

November 11, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 5 minutes My parents went through World War 2 in the Netherlands, but were too young to really remember. They were 6 and 9 when the war was over. My mom remembers planes dropping ‘Swedish whitebread” and my dad remembers they had to leave the house as the Germans were at one end and the Allied forces at the other end; my dad’s family was in the line of fire. Nowadays, our biggest worries are empty cell phone batteries and status updates on Twitter. Last summer, we visited the Netherlands. It may sound odd, but I haven’t seen much of the country, [Read more…]

The Segregated Sisters of Bike Land

July 8, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 3 minutes My wife thinks I am crazy, but I can’t resist taking bicycle pictures while on holidays (about 200 more waiting for you). To celebrate the opening of the Laurier bike lane on July 10th, 2011 in Ottawa, here are a few images of our recent trip to Holland and Sweden. Seg bike lanes come in all kinds and I thought it is neat to see how other countries deal with an increasing number of cyclists on their roads. Scandinavia has an interesting concept: they often have shared pathways right along the car lanes, but elevated. Probably a good and relatively [Read more…]

Dog on bike

February 25, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: < 1 minute This is kind of the ultimate Dutch bike picture. Lady who lives in the town of Bergschenhoek, a 10 minute bike ride from Rotterdam, carries her dog around in a basket on her bike. But not only that, she also has two panniers, a bag hanging off her bars and a seat cover (that is supposed to keep her seat dry when the bike is out and it rains). And of course, no helmet….