Winter bakfiets rides along the Amstel river

pascal-bakfiets-amstel (1)

Not all use of our bakfiets is strictly for transportation. Sometimes we go for little tours with Pascal. One of our favorite routes winds from Amsterdam along the Amstel river to Oudekerk or maybe further to Abcoude, Nes or Uithoorn. We ride for an hour or so to a cafe, have lunch and coffee, change diapers and feed the baby, and then head back. We’re looking forward to better weather and more daylight in the spring and summer to do much longer family tours.

Last week it looked as if rain was impossible so we even went sans canopy for the first time since the fall. Of course it rained anyway but Pascal stayed pretty dry with my rain jacket wrapped over his Maxi Cosi and a Dirk van den Broek shopping bag over his legs. I got wet but as the Dutch say: “We’re not made of sugar”!

Lots of rowers train and sometimes compete on the Amstel, as seen here. Rowing is very popular in the Netherlands and I believe one of the handful of sports where the Dutch consistently rank amongst the world’s best.

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Here’s Pascal suited up for a late winter ride in his giant, super-warm suit. The toys are really only needed when stopped since while cycling he’s either endlessly amused or sleeping. The blue bag behind him contains all the baby essentials.

6 Responses to “Winter bakfiets rides along the Amstel river”

  1. Doede Says:

    Hi Henry,

    Lots of rowers (like myself) train these weeks for the coming two big (BIG) events on the Amstel. Next weekend it’s time for the Heineken Roeivierkamp, the weekend after it’s the Head of the River. Note that the Amstel is one of the busiest rivers with rowers in the world, together with Hudson and the Themes.

    Nice pic by the way, ‘jammer’ that it’s not my team 😉

  2. Doede Says:

    misschien leuk om toe te voegen bij mijn reactie, https://www.headoftheriver.nl/content.php en https://www.nereus.nl/heineken/dut/?p=divisions

    Trouwens, de boot op jouw foto is van Nereus.

  3. henry Says:

    Hai Doede,
    Thanks for the added info about the rowing. There are, indeed, always rowers on the Amstel, their coaches and trainers cycling along the banks communicating with megaphones. You see everything from obviously expert athletes slicing through the water to older newbies learning to row without dragging the oars through the water or catching too much wind on the return stroke. At least I assume these are important considerations.

    Many of the guys I cycle with on Sundays are ex competitive rowers. They generally make good cyclists since they’ve got good basic fitness with similar muscle groups and they’re quite technique oriented. Of course if we rode in the hills most of them would struggle since they range from big to huge. Fortunately for them the only hills we have here in Holland come in gale force gusts.

  4. Dottie Says:

    Those pictures are adorable – what a cutie. I’ll have to buy a bakfiets when I have a little one.

  5. Leif Says:

    Hi!

    How did you fit the baby seat on the bike? Did you use special mounts or did you just put it inside without fixing it to the bike?

    Kind Regards

    Leif

  6. henry Says:

    Leif,
    Of course the Maxi Cosi baby carrier is secured in the bike. You can read about how this works in the following pages, both of which have lots of information about the Bakfiets Cargobike:
    https://www.bakfiets-en-meer.nl/workcycles-faqs-overviews/overview-bakfiets-cargobike/
    https://www.bakfiets-en-meer.nl/workcycles-faqs-overviews/bakfiets-cargobike-tips-tricks-faq/

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