In the river, fishermen catch fish. At the fair, visitors catch stuffed animals. And in the canals of Amsterdam, they catch bicycles. This is what happens in a city where there’s a unique combination of water, drinks (and soft drugs), and easily accessible two-wheeled vehicles that are within reach of anyone with bad intentions or a disturbed perception of the environment.
As a result, Amsterdam offers one of the most unexpected tourist attractions. It’s not something you’ll find in a traditional city guide, but you’ll definitely tell your friends about it if you come across it.
I’m referring to the crane used by Waternet, the city’s water authority responsible for managing the canals and ensuring their good condition. Unsurprisingly, it also recovers bikes from them.
The Guinness Record for Fishing Out Bicycles
You might argue that this achievement has little merit, especially considering that Amsterdam has an estimated 20 million overnight stays yearly. It’s also true that there are Guinness World Records for almost anything these days...
To be the city with the highest number of bicycles recovered from a canal in a year, all you need are canals and bikes. Of course, this is something the Netherlands has an abundance of. The prize is practically guaranteed if you look at the country’s most populated and visited city.
Naturally, simply throwing thousands of bikes into the water isn’t enough to win the prize. Having the right tools is also essential, and Waternet has them. Amsterdam’s water authority uses a floating crane that retrieves bikes from the city’s canals with precision, resembling a fairground game.
The floating crane captivates onlookers, who gather by the canals to watch as it dips its arm into the water, reaches the bottom, and emerges with as many bikes as it can carry. It then transports the bicycles to a container and repeats the process.
It’s estimated that Waternet recovers between 12,000 and 15,000 bikes from Dutch canals annually. This number may not seem high in a city with approximately 1.91 bicycles per household, alongside around 200,000 cars and 881,000 bicycles in use. In fact, Amsterdam even permits bicycle riding inside a museum.
However, the problem is significant not only because of the number of bikes lost every year. It matters because of the impact on the quality of the water and navigation in the canals. “Bike fishing” in Amsterdam began when the city realized that the 1970s cycling revolution had affected mobility along the canals. The accumulation of bicycles and other objects has hindered boats from navigating the more than 60 miles of water that extend through Amsterdam.
The reasons for this peculiar fishing are varied, but everything points in the same direction. There are two clear culprits: drinking and vandalism. Experts believe that the majority of bikes that end up in the city’s canals aren’t dumped due to an oversight by their owners but rather on a drunken night out.
This raises questions about the motives behind the 35 cars recovered each year and, most importantly, the approximately 100 people who are rescued on average from Amsterdam’s waterways (provided that emergency services arrive in time).
Image | Waternet | Jonne Mäkikyrö
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