Saturday, 3 January 2009

Op Fietse

Anneke, a regular contributor to this blog, drew my attention to this song, "Op Fietse" ("On a Bike"). It was recorded in 1997 by a Drents band called Skik. They are singing about how wonderful it is to cycle here in Drenthe, describing various parts of the province, how they can do whatever they want cycling around with the wind in their wheels, without a care in the world. Riding up to the German border before riding back again, across heath and through forests, along the side of canals. Wonderful. It really is just like that here. The song is in the Drents dialect, and the lyrics are here.

In 1997 this song made it into the top 40 here in the Netherlands.

I realised on hearing this that I had heard the harmonica before. It's in this video which was amongst a number of videos promoting cycling that I put on my website a few years back.

After some wonderful pictures of people having fun on their bikes, the titling on this one says "As we like sitting on the bike so much, why stand still in a traffic jam ? Cycling to work - a good thing."

If you're interested in experiencing for yourself what it's like to cycle in Drenthe, the cycling province of the Netherlands, where cycling is something so pleasant that it encourages people to sing about it, please take a look at our cycling holidays.


Bob said...

From everything I have read about cycling in your part of the world, it makes me think about coming there for a cycling holiday.

And although I am in the thinking about it process, I have checked airfares and your sites cycling holidays.

Anonymous said...

Aha... I saw that video and then couldn't find it for ages. Thanks for posting.

I love the fact it's a BMW in the Garage...

Anneke said...

Just a translation issue (the translator in me is stirring), in various dialects (including Drents) wind does not mean wind, but air. As in: "My tires are filled with air". :)

Anyway, I have always loved that song, it's still on my playlist.

ActivePaul said...

The detailed route from the song of Skik you can find here: