The municipality of Noordenveld has relatively the most speedpedelecs in the Netherlands. This is according to new figures from the Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS). Where in many municipalities the fast electric bicycle is still rare, they drive around remarkably often in Noordenveld.
The fast cyclists in Noordenveld optimally benefit from the flat Northern Drenthe landscape with its vast cycle paths. Appointwind is not a problem with pedal assistance up to 45 kilometers per hour. The same rules apply to Speedpedelecs as for mopeds, so a license plate and insurance, helmet obligation and a rear -view mirror.
At the beginning of this year, the Netherlands had a total of 35,400. In Noordenveld this amounts to 9.6 speedpedelecs per thousand inhabitants aged 16 or older, more than four times as much as the national average, the CBS reports.
Ronald Pleij is sales specialist e-bikes and city bikes at bike shop Century Velodroom in Roden. He does not recognize the large numbers of speedpedelecs in his municipality: “I can hardly imagine that, then there would have to be so many speedpedelecs here!”
Pleij does not see it in the sales figures either. “We sold around six pedelecs in our store in Roden in the first half year of 2025. That is really just a small percentage of the total that we sell to e-bikes.” Where the relatively large number of speedpedelecs in his municipality comes from, Pleij does not dare say.
Although the total number of speedpedelecs in the Netherlands continues to increase, it is less fast than a few years ago. At the beginning of 2025, growth was 6.5 percent compared to a year earlier. Five years ago that percentage was more than three times as high. According to the CBS, the number of newly sold speedpedelecs is also falling: in 2024 there were 3,100, while there were 4,300 in 2022.
It is striking that older cyclists mainly embrace the fast e-bike. Half of the owners are 55 years or older. Young people are still far behind: only 0.6 percent of all speedpedelecs are in the name of someone under 25. The average owner is 53 years old and often uses the bicycle for commuting, according to the figures from Statistics Netherlands.
Pleij thinks that this is partly due to the price of a speedpedelec: “For such a fast bike you will soon pay more than six thousand euros. We get a lot of people who take away their second car and buy a speedpedelec instead. And yes, those are not the young.”
Young people cycle more often on an e-bike than before, says Pleij. “And we also see that there is a lot of demand for the increase of e-bikes. That cannot be justified in insurance and the warranty on your bike expires immediately, so we will not start anymore. But perhaps that is also a reason that young people do not buy speedpedelec. A staged e-bike goes just as fast.”
If you look purely at numbers, Amsterdam is at the top. At the beginning of this year, 532 private speedpedelecs were registered in the capital. But compared to the number of inhabitants, Amsterdam does not make it to Noordenveld. After the Drenthe municipality, Waterland and Dinkelland follow, with 8.9 and 6.8 Speedpedelecs per thousand inhabitants respectively.
In Kerkrade and Heerlen, the image is reversed: with 0.4 speedpedelecs per thousand inhabitants, they belong to the municipalities where the fast bicycles are the least popular, according to the CBS.
Pleij does not think that speedpedelecs can ever take on the regular e-bike or the normal city bike when it comes to sales numbers. “What we sell is roughly 60 percent electric, and 40 percent normal bicycles. Mountain bikes and cycling bikes I do not count along. And of those 60 percent electric bicycles is only a few percent speedpedelec.”