Aldous Huxley "Along the road", 1925

“ 9 a.m. , around noon and at 6 p.m. the streets suddenly are filled by three hundred thousand bicyclists. In Amsterdam everybody goes to and from all their planned activities on a set of wheels. For both the automobilist and pedestrian it is a nightmare. All of them are cycle acrobats. Four year olds carry three year olds on their handlebars. Mothers scoot by happily with their one month old baby in a basket attached to the back-carrier. Grocery delivery boys don’t think twice about carrying two cubic meters of orders of any kind. The milk delivery men do their routes on bikes especially designed to carry two hundred bottles of milk, a large box tricycle. I have seen horticulturists balance four palm trees and twelve chrysanthemums on their handle bars. I have seen five people on ONE bike ride through the traffic. The most daring tricks in the circus and variety theatre are
part of daily life in Amsterdam.”