A bike tour to the Zaanse Schans is forty kilometres under your own power, out through Amsterdam North and the Twiske nature reserve on a route no coach takes. Two of these run, both by electric bike, and both set conditions at booking that no other day here imposes. Zaanse Schans day tour include the coach and minibus days as well; the two below are the rides.
A ferry across the IJ, then Landsmeer and the Twiske to the windmills, with twenty minutes in Zaandam on the way back. Capped at ten, and the shop hands you the bike, the helmet and a poncho.
From $106 per person
Forty kilometres on eight-geared pedal-assist bikes, out through Amsterdam North and the Twiske reserve, with an hour and a half at the mills and a stroopwafel stop. Rain gear included; minimum height 150 cm.
From $93 per person
Zaanse Schans Tours lists the driven days alongside these, and getting there covers cycling out independently, which is about 18 kilometres each way on protected paths.
Five and a half hours, forty kilometres, and an hour and a quarter to an hour and a half at the windmills in the middle of it. You collect a pedal-assist bike from a shop near Amsterdam Centraal, ride north out of the city, and come back the same way in the afternoon.
The assistance is real and it changes the arithmetic: forty kilometres on an e-bike is a comfortable day for anybody who cycles occasionally. It is not a motorbike, and both listings say so — you pedal the whole way, and one adds that inexperienced cyclists cannot join.
Amsterdam North, the Krijtmolen d’Admiraal, Landsmeer and the Twiske nature reserve, on cycle paths through polder and water. A coach takes the motorway and sees a motorway.
Forty kilometres of Dutch countryside on a bicycle is the thing people remember about a trip here. The windmills at the halfway point become the reward rather than the itinerary.
Ten and fifteen travellers are the caps, because a guide can only lead so many bikes through a city. That is smaller than every coach day here.
One of them crosses the IJ on the free ferry and comes back by the NDSM wharf. That is a piece of Amsterdam most visitors never see, and it costs nothing to include.
They are not competing for the same traveller, and the table makes that obvious.
| A guided bike tour | A coach or minibus day | |
|---|---|---|
| Fare | From $93 a person | From $32 a person |
| Length | 5h30 | 3h30 to 10h |
| At the Zaanse Schans | 1h15 to 1h30 | 45 minutes to 2h30 |
| Effort | Forty kilometres of pedalling | None |
| Conditions to book | Minimum height 150 cm, cycling experience | None |
| The journey | Ferry, polder, nature reserve, Zaandam | Motorway |
| Group | Ten to fifteen | Eight to fifty |
| If it rains | Rain gear provided, and you ride anyway | You stay dry |
Compare the Zaanse Schans tours
If the windmills are the whole point and the journey is a means, take a minibus. If a day out on a bicycle in the Dutch countryside is what you actually want, the mills are a very good excuse for one.
Both run five and a half hours and both are about forty kilometres. The differences are the cap, the meeting point and what is thrown in.
| Tour | Fare | Length | At the mills | Cap | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Escape Amsterdam: E-Bike to Zaanse Schans Windmills & Zaandam | From $106 | 5 hours 30 minutes | 1 hour 15 minutes | 10 | Book |
| Amsterdam E Bike Tour to the Windmills of Zaanse Schans | From $93 | 5 hours 30 minutes | 1 hour 30 minutes | 15 | Book |
Book a bike tour to the Zaanse Schans
Book several days ahead between April and September. Ten and fifteen places go quickly, and neither operator runs more than one departure a day. Both meet within a few hundred metres of Amsterdam Centraal. One is inside a bike parking garage on the Oosterdokskade, down the stairs between the gym and the supermarket.
Take a windproof layer whatever the forecast. You are riding across open polder for two hours in each direction with no shelter, and the weather page has the month-by-month.