Is Holland environmentally friendly? Do people there ride bikes for a long distance?

Question

I am Japanese and many people here ride bycicles especially in urban areas where they connect between their homes and train stations for commuting. But people don't ride their bikes more than fourty minutes at a time on average. In Netherland do people ride bikes for two hours or three hours at a time travelling nearly twenty killometers without any reluctance or hesitation? That's what I've heard, about them.

Answer 1

My prof at University is Dutch and he says that he and his fellow students basically rode their bikes everywhere because they couldn't afford to take the trains etc. He would

ride several hours to get to pubs outside the city he lived in.

Answer 2

I lived in Holland for 4 years and I would say YES and NO.  People (and I included) did ride their bikes to neighboring cities that were maybe 30 to 45 minutes away.  But I don't know of anyone who would ride their bike for 3 or 4 hours.  They would simply take the public transportation that is so readily available.  My father and I did travel for 8 hours on our bikes in one day, but that because we really needed to visit someone and we didn't have the money to take any other kind of transportation.