This is a nice view of Utrecht I see when I ride my bike to work. It helps that I cropped out the office park on the left. To the right, you see the students' rowing clubs Triton, Orca and Viking who practice here. The canal is called Merwedekanaal, originally an industrial canal, but industry has been replaced by services and logistics. Now the area is being turned into a residential zone. Here's a picture of a skiff and houseboats further north:
The right bank has already been gentrified, and the left bank will follow in the coming years. I'm renting office space in a building that's going to be demolished in a year or two. Which gives us not just a relatively cheap place to work, but also the freedom to use it as we like.
There are roughly three ways I can get to work on a bike:
- Directly along a busy street, which I prefer to avoid.
- A cycle path with three traffic lights, which I prefer to take in the evening, because the second half is free of crossing traffic, so I can get home fast.
- A detour out of the city, through a mixture of nature, business zones and highways, which I prefer to take in the morning. It's quiet in the sense that people aren't getting in your way. There's only one crossing with traffic lights where I need to wait.
The map shows the detour from right to left, and that's how I took the first picture. If anyone needs a stock photo of a highway, here's where I was standing, next to the A12 from Arnhem to The Hague:
It's actually a footpath where cyclists are not allowed.
BREAKING THE LAW!
BREAKING THE LAW!
BREAKING THE LAW!
Don't worry, I make room for whoever I meet walking or cycling there. I actually went back to take this picture after noticing it looked great on a sunny day. Then I had to lift up my bike in order to turn it around.
In fact, looking at the map, I just noticed that I could take a drawbridge half a mile to the south, without the view, but with a clear conscience. So I learned a lesson from what I thought would be a low-effort post.