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Quite apart from being good for accommodating bicycles, one of the other excellent things about decent cycling infrastructure is that it lends itself to other activities too.

Tonight is the first day of Assen's annual avondvierdaagse. This is the 65th time that the event has been held. The avondvierdaagse is a four day, evenings only, walking event which this year attracted 5500 of Assen's 65000 population.

Each person has signed up to walk 10 km each evening for for evenings. It's not a charity event, it's not a competitive event. There are no prizes to be won. It's just about having a good time, talking to people and having a nice wander about the city and the countryside.

Schools encourage their pupils to attend, so there are lots of children, but also there are football teams and other clubs who take part as well as individuals.

Roads are closed for this event, as they are for many events around the calender.

Most participants turned up by bike, leaving the largest collection of badly parked bicycles I've ever seen !

The fluorescent jackets on display here are being worn by one of the school groups so that they can identify each other. Other groups simply have the same colour T-shirt.

There's a video showing some of the event here: www.youtube.com/watch