Netherlands 24: Cycling in Amersfoort

In a not too surprising turn of events, we returned to The Netherlands for our main summer holiday in 2024. After taking a break in 2023, we just couldn’t keep away! As had become the custom, we’d split our trip in two, spending one week somewhere we’d not stayed before and the other week at Duinrell.

Watch full-length video at normal speed Cycling in Amersfoort

Amersfoort was somewhere we’d once visited on a day trip, back when we stayed in Utrecht in 2017. We’d enjoyed the city and fancied seeing more of it, so we found an Airbnb home there to stay for our first week.

Our Airbnb home was located reasonably centrally, just west of the centre of Amersfoort and across the other side of the railway tracks on Soesterweg. While located very close to Amersfoort Centraal station, it was a very quiet residential neighbourhood, largely made up of single family homes and quiet streets.

Our first impressions when arriving at our home were really impressive, with sheltered cycle parking in the front garden and a selection of practical Dutch bikes parked up. We’d brought our own bikes to use, so wouldn’t be using these, but the convenient cycle parking was very useful.

Riding to the supermarket on Groningerstraat

After unpacking, usually the first thing we do is get on our bikes and head for the supermarket. This trip was no different, so we located our local supermarket, Dirk van den Broek, which was just a few minutes’ ride away.

Having parked our bikes on the street, we’d not realised there was actually extensive indoor cycle parking for the supermarket, which was huge with lots of spaces. This is obviously not that unusual in The Netherlands, but still impressive nonetheless.

We’d return to the supermarket on our bikes a number of times during our stay in the city, while making use of the convenient cycle parking to load up the panniers with our goods.

Cycling in Amersfoort

So what’s cycling like in Amersfoort I hear you ask. Well, by Dutch standards it’s really pretty ordinary. Though obviously compared to the UK, it would be exceptional.

What do I mean by ordinary? Well, there’s nothing exciting to see in terms of cycling, just a decent network of high quality cycle routes, enabling people of all ages and abilities to cycle. Again, if this was the UK, it really would stand out.

Path to the Brouwerstunnel walking and cycling tunnel

In terms of examples, you see lots of decent quality, wide cycle paths, with nice smooth asphalt surfaces. These are typically continuous, taking priority over motor vehicles at junctions.

It was typical to see both single and bidirectional cycle paths, with bidirectional paths used where they’re most appropriate. Usually when they’re away from the street or access to both sides of the street isn’t required.

The railways dominate Amersfoort quite significantly, with the tracks cutting through the west of the city, just outside of the old town. The tracks are at street level, which means to navigate across them, you usually have to use an underpass.

Approaching the railway underpass on Brouwersstraat

The underpass we ended up using the most was the one specifically for walking and cycling on Brouwersstraat. This was quite close to our Airbnb home and was the most direct route to the centre of the city.

Underpass under the railway on De Nieuwe Poort

Additionally, we would use the underpass on De Nieuwe Poort, which catered for motor traffic, as well as walking and cycling. This wasn’t quite as pleasant as Brouwersstraat, specifically because of the motor traffic, but it was still pretty good.

General traffic lane, railway line and cycle path Kersenbaan

There’s other railway related features in the city, such as the interesting Kersenbaan branch line. This freight line runs at street level, with a section running between a cycle path and general traffic lane that also features a level crossing.

Filtered Krankeledenstraat, with people sat outside

Things were quite different over the other side of the tracks. The old town is largely traffic-free, with quiet cobbled streets where people walking and cycling dominate and traffic is filtered out.

The quiet streets make it a lovely place to wander. With such little traffic in the centre, you notice just how quiet it is. As many have said, cities aren’t naturally noisy, it’s the cars that make them noisy.

As you’d expect in any city, not everything is perfect and there’s always room for improvement. So there’s the odd street with just painted lanes or an unsafe junction with suicide lanes between two general traffic lanes. Though thankfully there isn’t too much of that.

In addition to the good quality cycling infrastructure, there’s the little details, such as the well placed bollards used to filter streets or the usefully placed can catchers on the cycle path, so people can dispose of their rubbish as they cycle along.

Cycle path and “Blikvanger” or “can catcher” rubbish bin on Heiligenbergerweg

Cycle parking is also well catered for in Amersfoort, with plenty of conveniently placed around the edges of the pedestrianised centre of the city. At times, additional pop-up cycle parking was available on the main shopping streets as well.

There were a large array of cycle stands outside Amersfoort Centraal station, which was clearly very popular for train users. This was evidenced by new overflow cycle parking being installed not far from the station.

Cycle parking outside Amersfoort Centraal station

Maybe the next step will be building extensive underground cycle parking at the station, like so many Dutch cities have done at their train stations.

Cycling culture

Usually when I do one of my ‘cycling in x’ posts, I talk a little bit about the cycling culture. But this is The Netherlands and we already know there’s a cycling culture there. Though people wouldn’t actually describe themselves as cyclists, they just use bikes as transport.

Riding on Smallepad, next to the railway

While cycling is promentant across the whole of The Netherlands, it does vary region to region, city to city. I’ve not been able to find an official figure for the cycling modal share of Amersfoort, but I would say it compares favourably with other Dutch cities we’ve been to, though probably not to Utrecht levels.

What’s also a good indicator is the age and gender split of people cycling, as where there’s little safe cycling infrastructure, you tend to get a concentration of men of a certain age cycling.

Riding along Langestraat on a cargo bike

Provide safe cycle routes for people to use and you tend to get more women, children and older people cycling. On this front Amersfoort scores well, as we regularly saw lots of women, children and older people cycling.

Coming soon…

During our stay in Amersfoort, we spent time in the city, seeing some of the local attractions, such as visiting The Mondriaan House, De Nieuwe Stad and the Nationaal Militair Museum. We also travelled to Utrecht a couple of times, with me riding along the F28 fast route between Amersfoort and Utrecht.

At the Col du Strop, all 40 metres of it!

With the weather being so good during our stay, we made use of the local outdoor pool at Bosbad Amersfoort, which was effectively at the end of our street, so super convenient. We also just chilled out in the city, grabbing food and drink and some really lovely venues in the city.

I’m looking forward to reliving our 2024 trip to Amersfoort and Duinrell, working my way through the many photos and GoPro videos I took (starting with the video at the top of this post). So come back soon…