Cycling Amsterdam as a visitor: saddle hours, bridges and the evening after

Locals cycle in Amsterdam the way people elsewhere walk to the corner shop: without thinking, in ordinary clothes, a few kilometres at a time. Visitors cycle differently. They rent for a whole day, ride further than any local would in one go, stop constantly to take photographs, and spend a good part of the day concentrating hard on traffic that does not behave the way it does at home. It is a good way to see the city and an honest day of effort, and the evening after it has its own needs. What follows is practical, written for someone who has not ridden here before.

At the rental counter

The bicycle you are handed will be heavy, upright and plain. Most rental bikes in the city have a coaster brake, meaning you stop by pedalling backwards, and some have a hand brake as well. Ask which yours has before you leave the shop, and try both in the side street outside. Ask too for the saddle to be set at your height rather than whatever height the last rider needed. A saddle a few centimetres too low is the usual reason visitors finish a day with aching knees and thighs, and the staff will adjust it in a minute if asked.

Take the lock seriously. Rental shops hand over a heavy chain or a frame lock, sometimes both, and they expect you to use them every time you step away, even for a photograph. Keep the key somewhere you will not lose it. And note the closing time of the shop, because it will quietly shape the whole day: most return counters close between six and seven in the evening, and the ride back always takes longer than planned.

The rules that matter in the first hour

Keep to the red-surfaced bike lanes where they exist and to the right-hand side of the road where they do not. Hold a hand out before you turn. Do not stop suddenly in a lane to look at a map; pull over to the kerb first. At junctions without lights, traffic from the right generally goes first, and bicycles are traffic. Pedestrians who step into a bike lane without looking are an Amsterdam tradition, and so is the bell used to warn them.

Tram rails need more care than anything else. The groove in the rail is exactly the width of a bicycle tyre, and a wheel that drops into it at a shallow angle will be caught. Cross rails as close to a right angle as you can, and never ride along them. Around Leidseplein, Dam Square and the streets near the station, rails run in every direction, and those are the places to slow down and look.

Bridges and cobbles, a few hundred times

The city is flat, but it is not level. Every canal crossing is a small hump, and a day spent riding around the canal ring means climbing and descending one every couple of minutes. A single bridge is nothing. Sixty of them, on a heavy bike with one gear, add up to a surprising amount of work for the thighs, and visitors often feel it only after they have stopped.

The older streets are also cobbled, or paved with the rough brick that looks charming in photographs and rattles every bolt on the bike. Riding on it for long stretches jars the wrists and the lower back, particularly on an upright bike where much of your weight sits directly on the saddle. Where there is a smooth lane beside the cobbles, use it.

A day's route that visitors tend to ride

The routes visitors take vary, but a common pattern goes like this. A morning loop through Vondelpark, which is flat, green and busy with other cyclists. Then across the museum quarter and up through the canal ring, bridge after bridge, towards the Jordaan. Lunch somewhere around the western canals. After lunch, the free ferry from behind the central station across the IJ to Noord, where the roads are wider, the buildings are industrial and the wind comes straight off the water. Back across on the ferry mid-afternoon, a ride along the eastern docks, and then the return to the rental shop before it closes.

That kind of day covers twenty-five to thirty-five kilometres. On a racing bike at home it would be a gentle morning. On a heavy city bike, with frequent stops, constant attention and a wind off the IJ, it is a full day, and it is normal to feel it in the legs, the lower back, the hands and the shoulders by evening.

Wind, weather and what they add

Amsterdam has no hills, but it has wind, and the wind takes their place. A ride westward in the afternoon or across the open ground of Noord can feel like a climb for twenty minutes at a time. Rain is frequent and short, and a rain jacket in the day pack is worth its weight. Cold is the thing visitors hardly notice while riding and feel sharply once they stop: the effort keeps you warm on the bike, and the chill arrives in the half hour after you hand it back.

Returning the bike, and writing the booking

The walk from the rental shop to your room is the natural point to write the booking message, or the wait at the counter while the staff check the bike over. You know by then how far you have ridden and how you feel. You know roughly when you will be showered and ready. Four lines are enough: your address with floor and room number, the start time, the length and either a therapist's name from the roster or a note that you are open to whoever is free.

A line about the ride helps too, written plainly: thirty kilometres, a low saddle, a lot of cobbles, cold hands. It tells her where the day went before she arrives. What the session includes remains her decision, explained before anything begins. Nothing on this site claims that a massage does anything for a pair of legs after a ride beyond how it feels at the time, and the therapists will not claim it either.

Give yourself time for a shower before the knock. If you return the bike at six and write the booking at quarter past, asking for half past seven is a comfortable margin. If you prefer to book from the room itself once you are back and warm, that works too: the window is forty to sixty minutes from the moment the booking is confirmed, anywhere in central Amsterdam.

Length and format after a ride

Riders tend to underestimate the length they want, because at the rental counter they feel fine. Ninety minutes, at EUR 270, is the length most cyclists book once they have done it before, because the first part of any session after a day of effort is spent simply warming up and settling. An hour, at EUR 180, covers the ground but leaves little room. Two hours, at EUR 360, suits the last evening of a trip.

Erotic oil massage is the plain choice after a dry ride. After a cold day on the water side of the city, when the wind has got into the shoulders, visitors often ask for body to body massage, which they describe as the warmer of the two. The services page sets out every format the house arranges, and each therapist's profile says which she offers.

The room after a ride

Shower first. A day of city cycling leaves a film of street dust on the skin and the hair, and warm water puts that right in ten minutes. Turn the heating up an hour ahead if you can; a body that has stopped after hours of effort cools quickly. Hang wet clothes in the bathroom, move the day pack off the bed, dim the lights. She carries the towels and oil, so the room needs nothing more than warmth and a bed.

Two riders, one evening

Couples often ride together, and the evening after works for two in one of two ways. One therapist for a couple is EUR 360 an hour and runs in turns, one of you then the other. A therapist each is EUR 720 an hour and happens side by side, which needs a room with space around the bed. Both of you need to have agreed to the booking, and both of you need to be twenty-one or over. Say which arrangement you mean in the first message so the reply can look at two diaries if necessary.

What goes ahead, and what happens if you cancel

A first booking with the house carries a deposit of half the fee, whatever the hour. So does anything booked more than twenty-four hours in advance, which covers an evening fixed the day before a planned ride, and every booking with two therapists or of three hours or longer. A returning guest asking for one or two hours later the same day at a city address pays the whole figure when she arrives. The deposit can be paid by card, Revolut, Wise or cryptocurrency.

A puncture in Noord or a missed ferry can wreck the timing. If it does, say so in the thread straight away. With more than twenty-four hours of notice a deposit comes back in full; inside the final day, before she has set out, half is kept and half returned; once she is on her way the whole deposit is kept, unless the hour is taken by someone else. Without a deposit, nothing is owed before she leaves, and after she has left only the share of the fee her journey represents. The cancellation page has the full rule.

A few habits that make the day easier

• Have the saddle set properly before you leave the shop, and ask again after lunch if it has slipped.
• Carry water; cycling in the wind dries you out more than walking.
• Take the ferry both ways rather than riding round; it is free and gives the legs ten minutes off.
• Stop every hour or so for a proper sit-down, off the bike, rather than a standing pause at a crossing.
• Plan to return the bike half an hour before closing, not at the last minute.

The booking page covers the order of messages in full, and the FAQ answers the smaller questions about arrival and payment.