A Dutch blogger who makes a 36 km commuting round trip (40 minutes each way) by bike 3 to 4 times per week has produced a website called "It almost never rains". On this website he documented rainfall during his commute over the year from September 2008 to August 2009. Just 32 days out of 288 days had rain during his commute.
The Netherlands is not the driest country on earth, but rain isn't a very good excuse for not cycling here.
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My grandfather fought all the way across The Netherlands with my old Militia unit, The Royal Regiment of Canada. The Scheldt was his nastiest battle.
According to the unit diary, in April of 1945 it rained every day. To quote my grandfather: "#$@*!! Nazi weather!"
When I was a child, whenever the weather was drizzly and miserable he would say "Dutch weather today!"
He also had some truly sad stories about Dutch civilians living under German occupation during the "Hunger Winter" of 1944-45.
I should also write that my grandfather was wounded on April 15, 1945 while fighting in The Battle of Groningen. Fortunately, not seriously. He was hit by a fragment from a mortar bomb while fighting his way through the German machine gun nests set up in buildings north of the Grote Markt.
It was raining that day too.
As far as I can remember I've only got wet once over the past 6 months of bike commuting - plus a little bit damp round the edges a couple of times. (Right now, though, it looks like today might wreck that record.)
I'm beginning to regret posting this. This morning I had slight drizzle for the entire commute, and this evening I had to delay my ride home in order to miss a major deluge. I got home in the dry, but against the world's mightiest headwind. Clearly I annoyed the weather gods...
I have not had many rainy rides, but we were having a drought for most of the summer. We seem to have a lot of people who only ride when the weather is absolutely perfect. How often does that happen? Less than rainy days for sure.
The Dutch quite famously are resistant to the temptation to stop cycling due to rain. Comparisons within Europe were made last year. There is a Dutch expression about being not made of sugar so it's safe to keep going.
I'm just finishing a one week holiday trip in the NL and we did get a fair quantity of rain and very strong (head)wind. The word "deluge" as you said was pretty appropriate...
We went to Dordrecht - Utrecht - Arnhem - Zwolle - Assen (where I lost my wallet incidentally!) - Groningen - Wadden Islands. So we must have crossed the same weather pattern as you described.
At least we didn't have to find a place to refill our bottles of water along the way!
And now I have a better understanding of what are the drawbacks of headwinds compared to the advantages of a very flat country :-)
Yet when we had tailwind instead... we were almost flying on our (semi-recumbent) tandem!
I do a +30Km commute every day from Amsterdam to Alsmeer. I started three months ago and so far I've only been properly soaked twice. The thing about The Netherlands is that when it rains hard, is feels like if they had turned the canals upside down. It's better to stop and wait for the storm to pass. No mountains to hold it means it will eventually :)
Wind is an altogether different issue. Is like have random mountains placed along your route
I was directed to this post, as I'v just blogged about people using the weather as an excuse not to cycle. I plan to record the weather on all my commutes over the next year in 'rainy' Manchester (UK) to see how valid the concerns really are.
Should be (mildly) interesting!
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