Fast ride Vijfhuizen → Hoofddorp → Aalsmeer and back
5I just wanted to capture this route, including some of Aalsmeer. Then I grew impatient at the bridge and turned around. Nevertheless, it's quite clear it's a bad route. You don't even have to look at the route itself; the sheer number of people avoiding bumpy cycle paths, ignoring the detour near Aalsmeer, jumping red lights and cutting across junctions in odd ways should tell you everything. The video would be hard to watch if my camera mount didn't absorb the worst of the vibrations. Just listen to the cable (which is quite snug when stationary) rattling against the camera's housing.
I was mostly law-abiding myself, but I temporarily left the cycle path near De Hoek twice to overtake safely and, unusually for someone riding a bicycle, was speeding slightly in 30 km/h zones. On the way back I could even push it to 35 until the wind stopped helping on the Liniepad/Geniedijk. Annoying how motorists get infrastructure that works so much better at *nominal* speeds up to 130 km/h. Nominal in that 130 is not some upper limit, but can be maintained over long distances as long as there's no congestion, and people can speed significantly before things get really dangerous. So much space and money have been invested to make that possible. Yet bike infrastructure can't support a tiny fraction of that consistently and safely. Note that the scale of the infrastructure (things like turning radii and braking distances) is proportional to speed *squared*, highlighting just how much of an afterthought bike routes often are.
Of course, the mopeds were still faster than I was most of the time, and using many cycle paths they weren't even supposed to be using. I called out the kind of moped (snorfiets or bromfiets, distinguishable by the color of the rear license plate) a few times, just to confirm it flawlessly matches the presence of a helmet.