The Kids

As we had hoped for, we acquired some new additions to our family this past weekend - our two new bikes (aka "The Kids")! What a sense of freedom in stepping out of our front door and joining the masses on wheels.

Buying a bike here requires some thought and consideration. We didn't want to purchase super expensive brand new bikes because they would look too appealing to bike thieves. However, for safety reasons, it wasn't worth buying the cheapest bikes out there either. We settled in the middle by purchasing higher end secondhand bikes from our local bike shop. They had the best prices for bikes that included all the required bells and whistles, including relatively new seats and tires. In Holland, it's required by law to have working front and back lights on your bike when riding at night. It is also highly recommended that you have a bell and purchase multiple locks for your bike (rear tire lock and mobile chain lock) to keep those pesky thieves away. The only missing piece is a basket on the front of Charlotte's bike to use for all her market purchases. We'll be looking for one of those in the coming weeks!

If buying a bike takes some thought, following Dutch bike riding rules takes even more consideration. As we rode our bikes through the city on Saturday, we observed the following rules:

• Observe The Signs: Bike lanes are so advanced and well-organized here that they have their own traffic lights! It's important to obey them because they don't always correspond with the tram, traffic and pedestrian traffic lights.

• Give Right Of Way: Trams rule, which means every car, bus, bike and pedestrian must always give way to trams from any direction. Their constant clanging bells help you not to forget it. In all other scenarios, you must give right of way to other bikes approaching from the right. Unlike North America, cars and pedestrians are lowest on the totem pole and must yield to all other forms of transportation, hence the reason bikes are the most efficient way of getting around - you have status on your bike!

• Forget "When in Rome...": We have been warned not to mimic local Amsterdam bikers. They tend to ignore red lights, tote friends on the backs of their bikes, ride on the sidewalks, zip past fellow bikers without warning, refrain from using lights at night, and chat on cell phones while weaving through crowds.

• Be A Defensive Rider: There are two dangerous scenarios which all riders fear most when riding bikes in Amsterdam. The first scenario involves one of the million tourists stepping blindly into the bike lane without any notice, which requires you to swerve out of the way and either skid across the cobblestone on your face or land in the canal. The second scenario takes place on streets where no bike lane exists and you have to ride on the road next to parked cars. The whole time you are praying that no one blindly opens their car door and hits you off your bike, causing you to fly across the cobblestone on your face or land in the canal. Given the painful outcome of both these scenarios, it's worth being a defensive rider and using your bell anytime required!

• Lock It When You Leave It: Never leave your bike unlocked, not even for a minute. The best way to avoid having your bike stolen is by always locking it to a permanent structure (a bike rack, pole or bridge) with a heavy chain and locking the brilliant little device which immobilizes the back wheel. While going through the motions of locking up your bike every time you park involves a lot of keys and takes a lot of time, it's nothing compared to the challenge of finding a bike parking space. Similar to the bike racks outside our flat (see below), there isn't usually a lot of room to park one more bike!

With our new bikes, we can almost call ourselves official A'dam residents (the abbreviated Dutch name for Amsterdam). All that's left is for both of us to survive a good wipe out as one of our bike tires gets stuck in a tram track or our bikes get stolen! Some would say these two events are a Dutch right of passage...