I’VE been spending Christmas and New Year travelling round Europe. Without argument our first stop was the cycling capital of the world – Amsterdam, for a couple of days of unadulterated city cycling.

But on arrival at Amsterdam’s central station I quickly realised something was amiss.

Usually, the first few steps out of central station are spent dutifully saving one’s own life dodging trams and cyclists, but quite eerily my companions and I joined the hordes of pedestrians stumbling around in the snow without so much as a tinkle of a Dutch bicycle bell warning of an impending crash.

My heart sank as it dawned on me that even the Dutch were feeling the effects of the recent weather.

Holed up in our hotel we wondered what was going on. According to the local news, Amsterdam’s city council was doing a bad job clearing and gritting the roads and it was apparent on the streets that only the desperate or foolish were attempting to manoeuvre around the city on bike.

The streets were lined with snow covered stationary bikes and most bike shops were closed. The ones that had dutifully opened contained bored-looking mechanics wistfully sipping coffee and remembering the good old days when bikes flowed past nonstop 24 hours a day.

The bike hire shop I had planned to visit eagerly opened its automatic door in anticipation as I strolled past but nonchalantly slid shut again as it realised I was only window shopping this time.

Being in Amsterdam without bikes is like visiting a ghost town.

The city is the most bike-friendly on the planet; a place where two wheels reign supreme and everything gives way to a cycle, even a pedestrian.

But not this week. We meandered around freely on foot at the top of the transportation pecking order.

The snow would have been no problem if the city tolerated mountain bikes, but, according to one local, only the strange people in the suburbs owned one of those.

Amsterdam is flat and quite small so everyone has a steel roadster affectionately called an Omafiet, which roughly translated into English means “grandma’s bike”.

But even though I sometimes battle the snow on a hybrid in Oxford, I was not about to abandon all sense of self-preservation on 28” slick tyres, a single gear and a coaster brake.

So I spent a few days grounded in Amsterdam with the locals.

However, Amsterdammers are not the kind of city folk who let a few transportation issues get them down.

They are probably the most optimistic people on the planet, especially the individual I spotted wobbling past my hotel on a fixed gear.

So although I felt an enormous sense of disappointment that my days here were spent on foot, I felt some of the optimism rub off as I witnessed some locals returning to their bikes on my last day there for the essential school run or daily commute – despite the persistent snow.