Hans’ Travels

Get excited about cycling in another country by bicycle, be it touring or just local transportation!

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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 minutesI 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 minutesI 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 minutesAs 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 to a Canadian War Cemetery in the Netherlands

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

Reading Time: 5 minutesMy 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…]

Halifax Revisited

October 12, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 6 minutesShe is young, she is bright and she is an entrepreneur. Twenty four year old Sarah Craig decided to forego a government career in CO2 calculations (who can blame her?) and decided to start a bike rental shop on the board walk in Halifax. Really, how many people, fresh from university start a bike shop? I decided to visit Sarah on a crisp Friday afternoon. The place is not bigger than roughly a 150 ft2 but rents out 15 Townies, with helmets (mandatory for everyone in Nova Scotia). Sarah also has a collection of T-shirts, bells, claxons, magazines and alcohol [Read more…]

A Bow to Calgary

September 17, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 6 minutesLast week I spent four days in Calgary. In terms of layout, there are many similarities with Ottawa: our Ottawa River (albeit a tad bigger) is Calgary’s Bow River, the Elbow River meandering from the south is our Rideau River. Ottawa has the Queensway, Calgary has its railway tracks running through down town. (I once spent a few days in the Fairmont Palliser and the rail cars barrelling right underneath the window kept me awake half the night). Calgary has a car free Stephen St, Ottawa has car free Sparks St. There is a big difference between the two streets [Read more…]

Shifting Gears in Halifax

May 9, 2011 Hans on the Bike - Ottawa, Canada 0

Reading Time: 2 minutesLast week I visited Halifax for a series of talks about cycling. Halifax cycling enthousiasts are working hard on developing a cycling culture. Obviously, without an NCC to build paths, budgets are somewhat tighter. However, Nova Scotia (and Halifax) are slowly becoming a better cycling place. Cyclists are pretty united in their effort to move forward. Support of City Councillor Watts (a younger version of Ottawa councillor Holmes – sorry Diane) is vital. Here are a few images of Cycling culture in Halifax. Read also more here: http://halifaxmag.com/2011/04/cover/shifting-gears