 Hello everyone and welcome to spokes the Urban Cycling Institute ridecast and today I have with me Jason from not just bikes Hi, how are you doing? How are you doing? So you have a YouTube channel that is that's like almost neck and neck us at this point Yeah, this comes out But you have a much larger Twitter subscriber. What's the story behind your Twitter? Yeah, well my Twitter account actually started when we were living in Toronto. Yeah, we're gonna go straight through here As just an account to rant about things That were wrong with the city and so I built up a base there and then when I moved here. I Wanted to post positive stuff So instead of starting a new Twitter account I just flipped over the old one to a new name deleted all the old tweets and it actually worked pretty well Yeah, I had a bit of an audience there and And you've been all over the world As I lived I grew up in Canada But I lived in the United States the UK Taiwan Back to the UK Brussels back to Canada and now in in the Netherlands, but we're Staying that's it. We're here for good. And that's why we're here and your full story is in your first episode Yes, my full story is in my first you too. That one's actually really cool You you filmed bits of the video. Yeah in the different location. Yeah over the course of like several months I happened to be doing a trip back to Canada and even to London, Ontario Yeah for the summer and then on the way home I found a really cheap flight to London, England and so went and visited some That there and some friends and stuff and then took the Euro star back to Amsterdam So worked out really well, but it let me film that video In like six different cities. Yeah, which was really cool Yeah So you are staying here. I am staying here. The family is staying here. We are not moving. We're done That's why we're here. When did you first hear about Amsterdam the Netherlands and about bikes? Yeah, you know, it's funny My wife and I were going through some old emails a few months ago Back from before we moved to the UK So we knew we wanted to live somewhere else just because like for the experience to live in another country But we ended up going to the UK because it was easiest to find a job there and My grandmother was Scottish so I could get a visa actually But I found some old emails About places that we were thinking of living and working and and actually right there was Amsterdam and Rotterdam I'd never been there before. So I'm like, I didn't realize I knew it back then but apparently 20 years ago. I was already Okay, but as it turns out I ended up going to the UK and I didn't come to the Netherlands that much until we moved to Belgium I've been a couple of times for business, but Anyway, yeah, it's it's been good, but when we lived in Belgium we came up here all the time because It's nicer than Belgium We're not editing that one I mean, do you generally stay within Amsterdam or do you get a chance to travel around the Netherlands because some of your videos are set in other places, right? Yeah, so my My kids and I try to travel like well There's a whole bunch of holidays here like the Zomer vacancy in those course, but also the Harris vacancy And so sometimes we'll take a train like we went to Copenhagen for the Harris vacancy, but other times we're gonna turn right here Okay, this is where they've got like this is all newly paved. Oh, yes Cool speed bump things. Yeah, it's actually really nice here Oh And this is the the Amsterdam Convention Center. Yeah, this is a convention center So they're putting in a new Hotel here. Yeah, and and all of this has been I come through here a lot actually but All of this has been ripped up. Yeah lately, but Okay But this this has been a bit of a mess over the last few months, but it's coming together finally and it looks great And of course the new red asphalt and there's more new red asphalt up ahead. So this is the way to ride Wow, and on our left is the highway that goes up. Yes, indeed And we are we are just to get your bearings. We're heading towards Amsterdam South, which is the business district Yeah of the city, right? Yeah, so I did that in my autolue video Because it's amazing that was one of those things that you know, I was I was saying to you earlier that you know despite the fact that I had Watched no bicycle Dutch and view from the cycle path and read that for years There were still things that surprised me when I came here And like I think zaodas was one of those things because here's like a really modern financial district That looks a lot like, you know somewhere in like Toronto or something, right? Like downtown Toronto and it's completely pedestrianized It's got beautiful bicycle parking and a major train station And you and this is where Amsterdam's bankers are right like this is not This is not like a bunch of poor students that are coming in here. These are people who are Making honestly serious cash, right? Some of the wealthiest people in the city And they're riding their omelfeets in to to work, right? Or they're or they're taking the train and And they're you know going for lunch business lunches in this pedestrianized area And I think like geez this is the way every financial district should be Like It's crazy. So that was one of those things that was just like damn. I had no idea. This was a thing like Yeah, and that's where You know, I got some of the inspiration for the youtube videos as well It's things like that like how can I have been reading all this stuff for so many years And still miss this so be surprised by this shouldn't there be no surprises by now, right? But I think so it's nothing like seeing it in person I think so close in video there, right? Yeah I try I I don't think yeah, you can't compare but you have to be there and see it But the next best thing is yeah is video. So here we are right? Yeah, and that's what we're trying to do Right now we are which park is this? This is Beatrix park. Yeah, this is actually really nice So, um, I shouldn't talk about it because tourists might come here, but uh, yeah, this uh, this is nice I take my kids here sometimes Doesn't know too far away. Oh, but you were asking earlier. Um, yeah But if we go to other places in the Netherlands So I do try to go out to the other cities because the train service is so good if my kids have a You know a few days off school. We'll head somewhere in the Netherlands But we went to Croningen and I make and stuff but also my youngest son is uh Is a speedcuber that's to solve Rubik's cubes as quickly as possible. Wow. Yeah, so he's six but he's super into it Uh, I don't have no idea. It's typically in the sort of you know, 30 second Range for a six-year-old. Yeah Turn left here. Actually, sorry So what's really funny is that we go to cubing competitions And those are always in some random town in the Netherlands like the last one was in vain and all vest Like why on earth would you ever go to vain and all vest? And what's funny is that My wife mentioned one of her coworkers is like I was born in vain and all what the hell were you doing there? Why would you go there? Nice so Yeah, anyway, vain and all vest is really nice and that was again I was like, wow How can like some suburb that everyone says is a crappy suburb be not crappy like it's actually pretty nice here So it's around the Utrecht area if you look it up on the map Yeah, we switch trains that do such things like a sprinter. Huh amazing Anyway, uh, so you you live in the the south Amsterdam part. Yeah, like all the other expats. Yeah with all the Well, we're not expats. We're immigrants immigrants What's your favorite part of the city? That's a good question You know that what what I do find interesting about Amsterdam is that uh, is how different it is from area to area Like there's obviously the city center, uh, a binestad where all the tourists are yeah, and that has those You know 16th century 17th century canals and all that kind of thing and that's really cool And I love going there sometimes But then as soon as you like cross major canals the city becomes totally different And and I find that really interesting because it's certainly like if you come in from the center And then you go outside of the ring Okay Then you'll find that Left here That the city changes so much and so I think I really like that that you can just get so many different things Depending on what you're in the mood for. Oh these lights light up as we back by Wait, they only work the other direction only on this side on the right side. Do you want to circle around into the other side? Get some good video So I mean, I don't know what my my favorite area is but We're in apollo burt, which we're renting right now But we're actually looking to buy a house in reverend burt where where we were just early where we started cycling from I actually really like it over there because I find like it's um, it's residential. Uh, it's good for A place to raise families, but it's also got a whole bunch of really interesting shops and restaurants and cafes and all sorts of other things I think In a way, that's kind of what um What canadian cities north american cities a lot of cities are missing like they don't even have that kind of option As a thing you've got either you live in these like suburbs with fully detached homes And it's boring as hell separated like by zoning from everything else Or you live in a really busy downtown area in a box of a condo in a giant tower And there's nothing in between right and so I think that that kind of missing middle It's really desirable honestly Like I find that's a much nicer way to live because you can live in an urban way But without having to live up in a condo building and You know, there's still parks around and things like that And but still all of the amenities that you could need like We're going to have literally everything we could want within five minutes walking distance Do you have any thoughts on the here? We are at Stravinsky line here and uh bike parking It's over crowded right now. So they are under construction. So this is all new. They just opened this the other day It was like this before but now it's Beautiful new red asphalt. Yeah, and this I believe is the tunnel that they're working on Um, that's going to connect through All right on our left side here on the left side here So so right now the station does not have a ride through no And you have to yeah, you have to get off your bike and go through the stage There was this youtube video that went around a few weeks ago As I was saying that uh where they rebuilt this whole thing in three days and there's a time lapse of it Where they remove the rails they remove the road and everything and that was just around here So I think that's going to be a cut through which will be nice. Okay makes it easier to get around that sound station This is amazing. How wide this is like five meters? Yeah, it's great. Yeah, lots of room. Hey over there I mean, this is this is it. Yeah, I just I just put a tweet up about this when I saw it was open I'm like doesn't get any better than this. I mean, no, this is I mean as far as cycling goes Do you do you think this is This kind of experience is is what we're after for cycling or I mean possibly excessive Like what what a difference this makes right like here. We are on a bicycle road. You're it's not this situation where you're um Where you know, you're having to worry about cars or you're talking about protected bicycle lanes or not I mean, but we're going under the road right now. This is Uh, I might need to take a call give me a second Oh, no, that's fine Just reminding me that I do have to check out my kids at some point. Okay, gotcha Um holding off for gloves out here turn left here. This is also a nice little bicycle path here Yeah, uh medium-sized Dutch cities. So so you've been around you've seen a few seen some of them I'm talking about like at Nijmegen, Groningen, Haarlem, these types of places. Yeah, uh, would you consider them? You know, it's funny because um, if you had asked me like 10 years ago if I would live anywhere about a big city I'd say that you're out of your freaking mind, right? Like Because we had lived in london in Taipei and I spent a lot of time in hong kong where my parents live there And uh, you know, it was all about big cities But now only here what I consider like yeah, maybe right like how weird is that tough on the train? I grew up in london, ontario, you know typical car infested shithole and I Always assumed There might be audience from london watching right now. Hi, I'll see you next time But uh, I mean they know it too, but what they'll tell you is it's a great place to raise family, which I don't think it is but But I always assumed that these you know these smaller towns were just Inevitably going to be boring inevitably going to have all of these problems that they have You know But it's not true It's only that way if you have like a car dependent suburb right like and that that makes the difference And I think when I realized that then I'm like, what the hell? Why didn't somebody tell me that this was an option, right? And 200,000 people are Fenty to support a vibrant town center. They really can and I think I said as I said in my very first video It's like harlem was the place that changed that opinion for me because I was like, oh, wait a second Wait a second. You can actually have interesting stuff In a place with you know 150,000 people like what what the hell is this? Um Yeah, so So I think that's what's really surprised me because like again, we have lived all over the world We've lived everywhere and we've seen it done differently in other places and I think I I'm really glad we did it because otherwise I would still have this assumption that it's like Yeah, you know, well, you know, you don't want to live in a condo Once you have kids then you need to get a car and you need to move up to the suburbs and all of these These assumptions that are made in north america, but it's assumptions completely out of ignorance There are other options available, although not in north america like those options. Just as I said just really aren't there You're just they're never it's never a possibility And in a place like amsterdam you could live We'd say we're in an area like this. We're in the outer edge of the city Yeah, I spend most of my time out in the outer edges. Yeah, and the housing isn't crazy out here Right, it's crazy, but it's not as crazy. It's not as crazy as like having to achieve the same level of amenities in the neighborhood In a place like let's let's go with toronto. Yeah, we both know the city It achieving the same level of access to things Uh, and we're only what six kilometers away from the city center like being that close It's gonna cost you a lot in any north america. Absolutely it will but I think the when you look at the cost of urban areas in In north america the the prices are going off the charts. Yeah, as you know I think that's showing that people want to live like that. They want these amenities and that's why That the prices are going up as they are because people. Let's actually go straight here This is the only major road that we need to cross along this path, which is Interesting, so I found the maps of amsterdam the the the plus net and the whole net and all that kind of thing Where they clearly separate the car traffic and the bike traffic So we were just on obviously bicycle streets and you're referring you're referring to the amsterdam bicycle plan Yeah, but yeah, but they also have they also have car plans as well too, right? This is designated as a place where all the cars are going to go. Uh-huh Whereas for the rest of for all the rest of our journey, we're just not intersecting those kind of roads and so it's it's remarkable the difference that it makes because I mean for the first part of our journey there were no cars around at all. No, of course not There were no traffic lights We were who had underpasses for every major road and it was fantastic, right? Like that is a totally different way of thinking about how to get somewhere if we were driving from where we were We would have taken a totally different route and hit a bunch of traffic But it's interesting that the route is completely different depending on whether you're on a bicycle Or or a car and that's intentional of course as you know this unraveling of Yeah roots And of course I've read about that before but actually experiencing it and seeing it like with my own eyes and using it every day It's night and day. It's no way finding. They know they lead you naturally Away from the main and and when you and you when you pull up a route in your route planner, then It's going to show you something like that slowly Oh, man Olympic hotel. Okay. Wow. We're really getting out there Yeah, I'm taking you kind of out in the middle of nowhere, but I have a purpose. Yes I'm curious if you're gonna ride around here. Anyway Yeah, so these are rides that I do fairly often if I'm taking my kids to activities or something like that Like my someplace tennis up here Well, we're going to turn right This is an old rail line. Yeah, this is actually still in use with the historic tram line. Oh, wow. This is cool And if you go down the opposite direction you get down to head on sternum to boss, okay But this uh This is nice here too. So this is again, like one of these routes that obviously this is only for bicycles or if you're walking Um, but this is one of these paths that they've clearly clearly put in for people traveling by bike So that this is you know, this is the way you're supposed to take this would be like the equivalent of a north american multi-use Yeah, like a multi-use but but but it's connected to the overall network. So that's uh Then and they send you down this way. What's amazing. I find is sometimes when you take google maps directions in instagram Google maps is still very american. And so they'll say like, oh, there's a major road with a bicycle lane on it Go there, you know, which is exactly the wrong way to go Whereas if you get the feature born app The dutch one, it's a little clunky to use but it'll clearly tell you like no, you should be here obviously and and this is where Everybody is and that's where some of the improvements could also come from because It's it's not always about travel time And and it's it's not always about the distance. Right. You could have something that's longer something. I'll take you Uh, take you more time And yeah, well the interesting thing is it's never going to take you more time because we as you saw we have no stop lights Right, if we were along the car path Then we're going to have to hit the same stop lights the car's head. Yeah But along here, I mean no, right? We're not hitting any stop lights at all except that one when we had to cross the plus net auto Which is the uh, the major through fair For cars, we're going to turn right here. I should throw I'll throw a link up to that document because you're talking about Yeah, it's a it's a map actually. It's really interesting. Um They've got it for for bikes for trams for cars and it's basically you can see Um, and I play to make a video about this that you can see the map of amsterdam Then overlaid what are the major car routes? What are the major bike routes? What are the major tram routes? Where those modes get priority, right? Um, and I suppose if we're on this subject since I have to go up this direction anyway I'm going to take you up to a roundabout up here which is um Which kind of shows this in practice where a plus net bike crosses a place plus net car And what they do To for priority for those modes of travel when when their major routes cross In the past this this roundabout Used to be all priority for cars And now they're making it some priority for bicycles although It's gotten very confusing because now you've got some exits on a roundabout that are priority for cars and some that are priority for bicycles But it's kind of interesting to see what they've done about that. Okay And there's a continuous sidewalk, so you know, let's get excited about sidewalks. Let's put a link to that one too Anyway, so Yeah, so this is here is a new development you can see here. Um, built over the last 20 30 years This is a stadion, uh, birch. Yeah, I'm really enjoying this down here is the old This is the old stadium from the olympics from I think it was 1920 or something like that And this was the originally the athletes houses But they built them in such a way that they could be turned into residences afterwards music It's interesting to come out to these parts of amsterdam because like no tourists would ever come here But this is where people actually live right and actually quite nice places to live too Still got the microphone Oh, you still in place So we're gonna go through and turn left here. Okay They're doing a whole bunch of construction down here. It's been a giant mess I think it still is a mess up in the roundabout but Like this heat spot here to the left of us is brand new It used to be that this was a painted line bicycle lane going up in both directions, but they've totally redesigned the street here Um, and as I said change the priority of the roundabout, which is kind of interesting if you're interested in such things That's in like you were here, um When the the snorkees been yes, so the scooter went away. How it made a big difference Yeah, oh, yeah like I mean there used to be snorkees and all over here for sure and now You know, I mean that occasionally you see somebody on the um In the bicycle lane, but it's it's pretty rare. Honestly. I think it worked. It really did and it It's nicer. This is actually the eerie Right, I know because you use normally you would have a room coming up here. Here we go. Yeah, so right up here We're gonna turn now Yeah, it made a difference. It definitely did at first, you know It nothing seemed to change and everyone is quite skeptical, but yeah now. Uh, yeah, absolutely People make their own their own paths. Yeah as you do And as you can see it's still under construction here and the hoarding is up And it's a bit of a mess. They're redoing the tram tracks What street is this again? Amstelvain Beth And this is also part of the plus net auto. So this is a major road for designated major road cars I'm just enjoying this because it's Good, it's really cool I haven't been here. Yeah, I mean, why would you ever come here? Right? Like But this is where spend huge amounts of time So I think we're just gonna be a little bit silly and just go around this roundabout even though It's a construction nightmare But pay attention to the priority of the roundabout as they're changing it Remembering that it used to be an entirely priority for cars. Yeah I'm not sure whether this is an improvement or not Like I mean, it's nice to say that it's nice to have priority to bicycles But sometimes when there's a ton of cars around It's it's nice to know that they're just going to go through you wait for your gap and you go So anyway, that's for other people than me to the side, but So here you'll see That uh They've got this continuous sidewalk here, which didn't used to be this is all new Whoa, look at the color here It's bright red, okay This used to be you know a uh painted bicycle lane and then priority for For cars and they made the bends, but they made this continuous sidewalk here And this is what it all used to look like now here And they got these tram tracks you got tram tracks. Yeah, and actually the cars supposed to yield for us Yeah, now to the left here And now you get wheeled cars because we're truck we're Passing and designated straight is giant Yeah, and it's a bit of a mess And I'll tell you I ride this in rush hour a lot because If you would just queue up sun has uh some activities and a friend that lives over here and this is a mess And rush hour. Yeah Now we need to yield again here And then around this way so when you use this through rush hour, you could queue like seven across and I'll make it But the thing is the reality is the truth now look here now we have priority, right? It's confusing because you've got one roundabout and like At least they put the the bump up there with the continuous sidewalk. Normally we would turn here, but it's all under construction So we'll take a detour another big giant But here you can see the priorities of Amsterdam changing from something that's priority only for cars to allowing priority for bicycles because we're On a major route for bicycles there along that other side But in reality it ends up becoming a bit of a bit of a mess to be honest Um, I'm not sure I'm I'm honestly not sure what the right thing to do is but it's interesting to see we actually have to get to that detour I think we missed our turn The the problem with it like you were saying in rush hour. Yeah, you could potentially wait for a very long time but the reality is it of it is that um A lot of the times drivers will let you go. Yeah, but then that causes its own set of problems Yeah, so sometimes drivers will Uh, will stop and let a bunch of ice go through but then that blocks up the roundabout and it it becomes just a giant mess Yeah, but uh and this is Some of the realities of where these modes meet Especially trams. Yes trams are hard prams are hard Let's uh, let's turn here deal with yeah And you can see here some of the older streets in this neighborhood like these neighborhoods were built in the 1930s and um Mostly for cars like there was no bicycle infrastructure built when this stuff was built So and then these two strips has got put in probably these islands right hand middle They weren't there at some point. Yeah, when you look at the uh, the the historical photos of this area It was all giant wide roads. Yeah, and this is all clearly retrofitted And as they as they redo the roads, they'll make them up to the latest standard, but That takes a while even in Amsterdam, right? It's been decades. I guess this one left here that at some point um At some point Amsterdam was Definitely a patchwork as well. Oh, yeah, for sure, right? You rewind. I don't know at what point You know it the patchwork feeling was the worst, but they were the had to do the street by street Yeah, for sure. Absolutely and these painted bike lanes that are all around here. It really shows that it's just like I don't know. There's bikes now. Let's uh, let's put a line um and uh The reason it doesn't feel like a patchwork today is because the patchwork's been done Right exactly. I mean it still exists in some of these areas here that we might not normally use but uh Yeah, it's uh, it's definitely used to be a patchwork. It didn't used to be this way There's no doubt about it, right? Yeah So maybe that's promising for some other cities It's just maybe everyone has to do it one step at a time, right? Yeah, I look I mean my when we lived in Toronto my wife was um on the board of directors of cycle Toronto And she did a lot of work. I mean she's an advocate. I can't do that. Like I I've said to you before I just have no patience for it because I get mad at mad at people but um But she was talking about how Um, we can improve things and I think they will yeah, but we realize that And and look and for us it's not just bikes like like I know in whose lifetime like I don't really care that much about bicycles myself To be honest like I'm not really a cyclist like if I if it wasn't safe to ride a bike I wouldn't um I ride a bike here only because It's super convenient and you'd be stupid not to Um, but I realized that in Toronto like it was going to get better But it would have been good for our kids when they were having kids And we're like look we've got young kids like I don't want them to get hit by a car at a crosswalk Which my son almost did right? I almost got I actually did get hit by a car at crosswalk And you know within my first year of moving back to Toronto and I was like I don't I don't want to deal with this crap right like that's all there is to it So yeah, I mean you could stay and you could fight And I think people who do that are very admirable But I think the problem with me is that I don't really have a home I've lived in so many different places my parents moved out to Hong Kong and then Back again, and it's like I don't have a city that I can say well This is my home and I'm going to fight to make it better and so to a certain extent we just said look I just want to move somewhere better like I don't I don't have the desire to fight for this stuff I have better things to do with my time like make silly youtube videos or something but It's a silly place to make silly youtube videos. I mean this is this is a rather quirky silly country Yeah, so here we are on Apollo lawn. Yeah in Apollo Burt and this uh has a pedestrian I'd say a promenade. Yeah, it's huge. So this is one of these uh 1930s boulevards That used to be four lanes of car traffic plus parking, right? It's not anymore Now the the single most expensive housing in Amsterdam is on just on this road on the other side So there's these little streets that turn off. Yeah, and there's these stunningly beautiful like mansion style homes Right right along here with they go down to the canal and it's this is the most expensive uh real estate in the uh Wow in the whole city Apollo lawn Apollo lawn. Yeah, and this is the old uh Hilton hotel up here this 1930s monstrosity Anyway, I think we're just about finished our tour here. All right. Hey, thank thank you very much. Um Go go visit Jason on his youtube channel over at not just bikes. Yeah, just go to not just bikes.com And it'll bounce you there. It'll bounce you to the youtube. Uh, you had huge stringer following So while you go and check that out as well, sure and uh, if you have nothing better to do with your time Yeah, it's been really nice having you. Yeah, and I saw you too, man. All right. Take care