I went to Amsterdam once and the number of bikes is quite incredible. Everywhere in the city there's just piles of them parked up along the roadside. As far as I can tell people don't bother to lock them up with heavey duty locks and the traffic is totally used to having to look out for smaller, fast moving cyclists.

There's also loads in Belgium. Most of the roads have cycle paths and when I was over there last spring, hubby & I were just taking a walk when the local high school ended for the day. The number of kids riding bikes was just staggering. It was the norm, THE standard mode of transport and the accepted way to get from A to B.

Ok - so a lot of the region is flat, but just watch the Tour of Flanders and you'll see there's some short, sharp hills around. Here in the UK one of the most often used excuse for not cycling is that us Brits don't have the weather for it. Well, anyone ever been to Belgium in April or November! With the strong wind blowing in from the North Sea the weather in the Netherlands is no better than in the UK, (sometimes worse,) yet it doesn't seem to put people off. I guess those Netherlanders are tough breed - Ask Eddie Mercx!!

Ice cream and crips - aaaahhhhh. Two of my fave's.
Better get on my bike and try and burn some of those calories off.