Assen - A wonderful place to live... and to take a holiday.
 There are always a lot of bikes in Assen
In August 2007 we moved from Cambridge in the UK to Assen in the
Netherlands. We came here because we're very enthusiastic cyclists and
were
looking for a great place to live with our children.
Before moving we had visited many parts of the Netherlands,
often for cycling holidays. We were charmed by the people and despite
living in what is probably the most cycle friendly city in the
UK, we were also astonished from our first visit by just how
commonplace and pleasant the cycling is in this country.
The Netherlands has the best cycling infrastructure of any
country in
the world and this encourages the remarkably high rate of cycling for
transport. At this location, the infrastructure is as good as it gets anywhere.
 Why
Assen ?
The province of Drenthe is known as the Cycling
Province of the
Netherlands. Assen is the capital of Drenthe and is just a few km south of the city of Groningen.
While Assen is mostly
known outside of the Netherlands for the nearby motorcycle TT track,
this is where many Dutch people head for their cycling
holidays.
 It is a great city to live in. We are surrounded by beautiful
forests
and canals, the city centre has everything you could want, including
a Saturday and Wednesday market which was has won an award as the best
in the Netherlands for 2008. There are
great facilities for swimming, ice-skating (in season) and other sports,
interesting
historial monuments, ancient hunebedden, transport links are excellent and the whole place
is a joy to cycle through due to superior planning which allows easy
cycling to everything.
Each day, the 65000 residents of Assen make over 70000 journeys by
bike.
Cycling conditions are ideal in this area of
the world. That's why we made the decision to live here, and why we are
trying to encourage those from other countries to come and look at
Assen. The countryside is beautiful, and accessible by the
wonderful bike paths, the people are very friendly and the food
and drink are both
excellent.
   
More information
See our review of the book "Assen Verandert" ("Assen Changes"). This excellent book shows views of improvements that have been made to this city over time.
Also we've a set of photos of Dutch cycling infrastructure, most of which are taken in and around Assen, and articles about the design of cycle friendly infrastructure.
Also read our blogs about holidays in and cycling policy in the Netherlands.
Come and see for yourself !
Having moved to this marvellous location we'd like to share it
with other cyclists and we run a series of cycling
holidays through the year.
In addition to the holidays we are also running
study tours for English
speaking planners and campaigners so that they
too can experience the quality of the infrastructure in this area.
We would be very pleased to see lessons learnt in the
Netherlands begin to be applied in the English speaking world.
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