The world’s most famous bike race, the Tour de France, gets rolling July 4 in the Dutch university town of Utrecht.
Spandex-clad pro cyclists will spend two days in the pancake-flat plains of the Netherlands before moving down to Belgium and on to France.
This marks a record sixth time the Netherlands has hosted a Tour de France start, more than any nation outside the race’s namesake. It’s a good fit given how beloved the bicycle is in that country, which manages to squeeze nearly 20,000 miles of cycling paths within its relatively small borders.
Some 84 percent of Dutch people have at least one bike, a statistic that will come as no surprise to anyone who’s tried to cross a street in Amsterdam. Bikes are everywhere. They’re not only part of the scenery; they’re a great way to see it too.
Dutch Bike Tours offers dozens of four- to 14-day self-guided trips across the country from Amsterdam to Zeeland (www.dutchbiketours.com). The latter is where Tour de France riders will end July 5’s stage after traveling down the North Sea coast and battling “Dutch mountains,” aka strong winds.
Two-wheel itineraries can take you through Holland’s historic towns, past castles, canals and windmills and deep into the country’s so-called Green Heart, a rural area bounded by the big cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.
The Netherlands’ tourism website, http://www.holland.com, has an entire section devoted to cycling.
One of the suggested trips is a 200-mile route that follows in the footsteps of famed Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, whose “Starry Night” masterpiece inspired the new glow-in-the-dark Van Gogh-Roosegaarde cycle path near Eindhoven.
The lack of hills in Holland — a sizable portion of the country rests below sea level — makes it one of Europe’s most accessible bike destinations.
Visit in April and May when fields of colorful tulips light up the landscape around the gorgeous Keukenhof Gardens in Lisse, an ideal spot to pedal among the petals.
Lori Rackl is a freelance writer.
