Come the evening and every drainpipe, lampost, railing and pretty fairy-lit bridge have a host of bikes chained to them. Outside the central station, the scene is like a giant scrap heap: ancient-looking bikes - black and functional - lean in rows, their sit-up-and-beg handlebars locking and linking as if supporting each other in a scrum.

Bikes rules in Amsterdam. But there are special hazards for new cyclists. "Beware of the tramrails," says a cyclist's handbook. "These can cause you serious trouble when you get a wheel stuck in one!"

Tramrails or no, Amsterdammers go everywhere, and apparently do anything and everything, on their bikes. Balancing bags and briefcases on the handlebars, cycling one-handed, the helmetless cyclists cut a peculiar dash.

You can hire a bike for a mere ten guilders a day - around #3.70. You can take an organised bike tour of the city sights, or be a real fitness freak and get out of the city on a wetlands safari (in the summer months only). A full day of alternating between biking and rowing will get you really close to canalside ecology.

Or you can go it alone and savour a more laidback Amsterdam attraction - the coffeeshops, where every type of marijuana you can imagine is on the menu: hash on one side, grass on the other, take-away or ready-rolled. The introduction to the "Cycle Tour of the Best Coffeeshops in Amsterdam" guide explains: "You can start your trip at any coffeeshop, the numbering doesn't imply anything about their quality." With 30 of the best sources of hash listed, where your tour might end up is another matter.

With or without the weed, though, a bike is the best way to get around Amsterdam. It opens up the backstreet beauty of the city - the maze of canals which really are a delight, and classy back alleys lined with magical shops that glow with all kinds of treasures.

Women in fur coats mingle with fathers shepherding several kids on small bikes; dog owners try to keep up with huge shaggy companions jogging along main roads; bold young women flash their thighs despite the cold that, this winter, froze the famous canals inches deep. But they all have one thing in common: not one of them sports a single cycling accessory - no helmets, fluourescent strips, hardly a pump between them.

In a month I have only seen one mountain bike, and that looking distinctly out of place. Everyone sits up straight on their wheels in Amsterdam. But these strangely "old-fashioned" bikes are not old. Even the new bikes - fresh from the numerous bike shops at around #300 - are of the same design. And everyone wants one. There are 550,000 bikes in Amsterdam - more than one for every single household. (If you go in the spring, you'll see almost as many bikes as flowers, since there are an estimated 600,000 bulbs in the parks and gardens of the city.)

 

FREDERIC RENTABIKE
AMSTERDAM

For pedestrians roads are a triple hazard: look once for trams, twice for cars, and never stop looking for bikes. Many of the cycle paths look confusingly like pedestrian walkways, so foreigners (especially the British who are trained from childhood to look the wrong way when crossing European roads) are particularly prone to being shouted at by irate, swerving cyclists.

I discounted the advice in the back of the coffeeshop guide - "Never ride with two persons on one bike!" - and copied the locals I'd seen perched effortlessly on the bag rack behind the seat. Though pleased with myself for having gathered up my long coat and hopped on as the bike was moving, I wasn't quite up to putting my hands in my pockets as the most practised do. I was too busy balancing on one buttock as the bike wobbled and the "driver" had to put in some extra effort.

Steadying myself by holding on to his side, I wondered how he was coping with steering, and what our joint weight was doing to the bike's back wheel. I was instinctively leaning sideways to see around him and keep my feet out of the spokes when I suddenly realised that my legs, acting as a counterbalance, were sticking dangerously out the other side - asking to be severed neatly at the knee by a remorseless, unswerving tram. What could have made me so reckless, I wondered. Was it the little something I'd tried in the coffeeshop? Or simply the infectiously free-spirited Amsterdam saying: "Get a bike, get a life!"?

Sue Cooper is a journalist and press officer currently working for Greenpeace International in Amsterdam