For it seems that everyone rides a bike. But there is nothing leisurely about this cycling - it is seriously purposeful. Bikes are for getting places, moving people, kids and the day's shopping.
In Holland you are rarely out of sight of a church steeple or a cyclist and there is a degree of evangelicism about both. Every road, street, path, shopping mall, lane carries bicycle traffic.
Bikes have a niche in the Dutch transportation psyche - slotting between walking (slow, short distances, one person) and the car (fast on the open road, slow in the city, fits the whole family and a load, dear as poison to run and park). The bike sits elegantly and unchallenged in between - moving people quickly door-to-door over decent distances with their day's work and shopping and a kid or two.
Distinctly different from Asia, where the bike can be the only form of transportation and can lug entire families, water buffalo and a year's harvest. And very different from Australia, where cars have crowded them out and they are left to kids and leisure.
The Dutch bike is specialised for short-haul people moving.
When it is time for the kids to come home from school or lunch or at the end of the day, the cobbled square fills not with women in people-movers, four-wheel drives and sedans, but bicycles. Some have a back seat, some have a front seat, some have both. And some have elaborate carts of wood, cane or more exotic materials to push or tow.
Syl's Aunty Renee and Uncle Api ride into the markets on the weekend to stock up on things they can buy only there - the bike is quicker and easier for that trip. There is a very narrow street in Dordrecht - more like a canyon really, that you can touch both sides of as you walk through. Api learnt to ride in this street, the Huisstrzakkendragerstraat, bouncing off the walls.
Consistent with their practical purpose, dutch bikes are conservative, sturdy, upright. Decoration is minimal, although plastic flowers garland some baskets. The bikes have an elegance and ease of place that comes with utility. Hi-tech, carbon-fibre, multi-gear, independent suspension, all road play-things are rare.
Traffic flow is organic but subject to rules - people have right of way, then bikes, then cars. Crossing pedestrians need to look out for all three but can be sure that bikes will duck and weave around them and that cars will slow to let them pass - at least on the cobbles of the old city.
We joke that Syl missed the Dutch cycling gene - she is a reluctant biker at home and particularly dislikes hills. But she said to me this morning that she'd like to have a bike if we were spending any longer in Dordrecht. The (recessive) Dutch cycling gene?
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