RoelI'm bored, so here is a thread of mini paintings of #bikes. (This is an artwork in a hospital. All paintings are done by citizens of Zoetermeer.)
Whatever this says about the psyche of Dutch people I leave for you to decide.
This bike bridge over the highway, connecting the trainstation to other parts of zoetermeer is quite famous, since there was a major contruction fault detected last year, so they replaced a part of the bridge. It is unclear when the construction will be restored to its former 'glory'.
It is called the Nelson-Mandela bridge https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mandelabrug_(Zoetermeer)
It is pretty interesting that we build this advanced infrastructure for bikes and pedestrians. Zoetermeer has many long distance bike lanes that connect it to the surrounding villages and cities through greenery and nice scenery. Within the city there are also plenty bike lines separated from the car lanes. You can see that zoetermeer was set up as a car city though, there is just so much parking and roads! The bike paths were added later.
Anyways, lets look at more bikes!
This is hilarious to me. The combination of parrots, birdshit and bikes. This is peak Dutch.
A racing bike in the forest. This is what people think of when they think about bikes. But a Dutch person who owns this kind of bike has at least one other bike, a stadsfiets ( a city bike) for day to day things like going to a supermarket.
I like the clean lines in this frame! Really well done. The person in silhouette rides on a stadsfiets ( city bike) you sit up more straight on these bikes compared to racing or mountain bikes. The tower in the background is a watertower that is no longer in use. https://nl.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watertoren_(Zoetermeer)
I think this painter has heard of Paris, but has never been there. Or maybe I haven't seen the baker bike yet.
This is the second painting of the old water tower, and also about as crooked as the leaning tower of Pisa. The last time I biked pass this tower of seemed pretty straight.
If you think, what has this painting to do with bikes? I'll point you to the blue smear with the white thing with arrows. This is a 'bike lane' sign 😃 I will also point you to the red lane below the tower, many bike lanes are done in red asphalt in the Netherlands.
There is so much cultural context in paintings of your neighborhood. If you have never been here, this would make no sense at all. ( if you follow @notjustbikes you already know everything about biking in the Netherlands 🤗)
Two images of the 'verplicht fietspad' sign. You MUST use this path ( and not go over the car lane) when you see this sign.
This is Nijntje ( called Miffy in English https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miffy), a comic for small children. She rides a bike in Zoetermeer apparently.
