Netherlands, Land of the Bicycle, Market Garden 70th Anniversary Road Trip 2014...

I am already planning and looking forward to my road trip a year next September in 2014 to Arnhem in Holland for the WW2 70th Anniversary of  `Operation Market Garden' .
Known as `A Bridge Too Far` It was the failure of a British mounted Paratrooper assault to capture the bridge at Arnhem to allow Allied troops to encircle Berlin and bring about an earlier end to the war and end the suffering of civilians starving in Europe.
Market Garden was the biggest airborne operation to date in WW2....

The Operation failed and cost many lives...
My bloodline grandfather - my mums dad,  David Mckellar was a Gordon Highlander who was killed in the battle on the 21,11,1944 and is buried in Venray Cemetery nearby.
I plan to cycle through Holland and visit my Grandfathers Grave, and tell his story, and the bravery of his sacrifice and his fellow soldiers who paid the ultimate sacrifice in freedom for Europe. I plan to take and place his war medals on his grave that he was awarded but would never hold. It will be an emotional journey...

Cycling across Holland will not be unfamiliar to me...
The Bicycle may have been invented here in Scotland, but another country can claim to be home to the bicycle....
Having cycled there when i had a Dutch girlfriend Hanneke, it is indeed an amazing place to live and cycle.
There is a reason Dutch woman are slim and fit, because they don`t sit about eating crap and driving cars everywhere! -:)

bicycles in the town of zwolle...netherlands from coastkid71 on Vimeo.


But as with all other European countries Holland nearly lost its cycling culture due to wealth and the motor car...

Here is a great film from the land of the bicycle,
In 1971, the year i was born, 3300 lives including children were lost in Holland to cycling/motorist accidents. Here is a great film of the rebirth of a cycling nation...