im off to amsterdam avec bike next weekend which is pretty sweet ! Just wondering if anyone has any recommends for a nice long day pedal route out of the city for a day ? the massive cliche in me would like to take a route out that woud potentially involve windmills and the like ! Im staying at the bike hotel so im sure they have tips but would love any first hand advice / tips !

I think you can cycle to Volendam and back in a day. It involves windmills, dykes and people dressed like fishermen....

dykes you say? *peers at map*

http://www.routecraft.com/rlfplannernl

Check out this website, handily also in English.

Harleem is a nice town easily cyclable/seeable in a day. most of the many amsterdam students live here due to the impossibility of finding a place in the dam, so there's loads going on. head northwards round alkmaar for nice beaches. if windmills are your thing (http://www.windmillworld.com/europe/netherlands.htm) they are pretty much everywhere! happy cycling

I thought this thread was going to be how to cruise in Amsterdam.

I hear the Vondelpark's the place to go.

head to the coast i left amsterdam at 6 pm and got to some very beautiful sections of coastline directly west from amsterdam ferry across the river then about 10 - 20 km north of the ferry beautiful riding through the dune areas on purpose built cycle paths lovely or canals heading down to utrecht i cycled along that on the way to amsterdam and it was also nice and peaceful quiet and picturesque

...fishermenengers, clearly.

planning on heading to Amsterdam and possibly other corners of Netherlands soon with bike. Anyone got specific recommendations for bike related things (hang outs, velodromes, shops etc)

Ohhhh that kind of cruising.

@Gustav
I went to the National Bicycle Museum in Nijmegen recently. It was pretty cool. Not much to interest the 'racer' heads but wicked stuff nontheless. Also somewhere on here someone's mentioned a museum of bikes more up-our-cycle-path, next to a chapel I seem to remember, think it's in the 'Dam.

I recommend a visit to the Park Velowe, north of Arnhem. Its bloomin marvellous, cycle paths all over an amazing national park (you can use their free white bikes if you don't have one), with a fantastic art gallery and sculpture garden in the middle called The Kroller Muller (<<umlauts missing).

Course you may not be going that far inland...

There is a velodrome in Amsterdam. Home of Theo 'No longer the Boss' Bos.

http://www.velodrome.nl/

Oh and the only place that sells 'Fixed/SS' stuff is 290sqm. Which is predominantly a clothes store. The bikes are pretty much all conversions and most actually aren't fixed and come with back peddle brake.

Store is well worth checking out though.

http://www.290sqm.com/

also interested in other places around the Netherlands...potentially looking at visiting Rotterdam and might get out to further corners so suggestions outside taken with open ears

c