The Empo Trail, the Netherlands -- Sucking in lungfuls of warm, geranium-spiced air, I steer my big, black Dutch bike along the Vordenseweg under a sky the colour of delftware.

Tomato-red poppies, saffron nasturtiums, creamy morning glories and spiky purple loosestrife crowd the broad median separating the bike path from the road, filling me with the blissful sensation of riding through a wild meadow. Led by my partner's stalwart 80-year-old uncle, Oom Bart, we're touring in the Achterhoek, the "back corner" of Holland's southeastern province of Gelderland.

After a breakfast of thick sunflower-seed bread piled with salty cheese and bowl-sized cups of java, we'd hit the road. We're pedalling side by side between rows of soaring oaks planted by Napoleon on the route through Vorden, the birthplace of my partner's mother.

What makes this trip particularly special for us is that the sixties-vintage two-wheelers we're riding were made in the Empo bicycle factory started by Oom Bart's father back in 1904. The Dutch own 11 million bicycles, almost one for every inhabitant, and travelling in Holland by bike is an almost effortless pursuit -- it's flat, everything's close, and you can cruise the entire country on smoothly paved bike paths called fietspaden. In laid-back Amsterdam, where bicycles outnumber cars during rush hour, cyclists have their own signal lights and dedicated left-turn lanes. And there's no squeezing you off the road from bike-friendly drivers.

We're soon spinning across the IJssel's fertile flood plain, riding on the flat-topped grassy dikes that keep the river in check as it meanders toward its junction with the Rhine. Slowing to snap a photo of an immaculate 200-year-old thatched-roof farmhouse, I learn that the 15-centimetre-thick thatch is made from hollow reeds that grow in the canals, and that tough building restrictions in Holland won't allow thatched roofs to be replaced with other materials. Pointing at some white sheep munching happily on prickly weeds, Oom Bart says, "Those are called 'thistle sheep' and they are good money-makers." He tells me he knows all about sheep and that I can call him "farmer Bart." During the war, he explains, when he was managing the bicycle factory, he had "Boer farmer" stamped on his passport because the Germans were shipping all non-essential able-bodied men to Germany to make weapons.

An hour or so later, we brake at the Veerpont landing and join the short queue of cyclists and cars waiting to board a cable ferry that whisks us across the fast-flowing Ijssel through a gap in the parade of cargo barges motoring down the river. Merging with a group of brawny Frisians on the Hanzefietsroute, we follow the same route trade goods took along the IJssel through the medieval Hanseatic cities to the Zuider Zee in the north and around into Denmark.

You can follow dozens of cycling routes through the fields, forests and estates of the Achterhoek. Colour-coded maps can be picked up at any VVV (pronounced fay-fay-fay) tourist office, and renting a bike is a snap. Even the smallest village has its fiets shop, where single-speed cruisers with fenders and mud flaps can be had for about $5 a day (forget about gears, there's not a hill in site), plus a bit extra for kids' seats, plastic windscreens and even nifty handlebar-mounted map holders.

Speeding along the well-travelled Emmerikseweg, I ring my bell as I pass the minivan of bicycles -- mother working the pedals, toddler strapped in behind her, baby in a front seat that looks like a tiny vinyl kitchen chair, and folded stroller hanging off the side. I pump along with them for a few kilometres against the undertow of speeding trucks transporting appelsap and stroopwafels to Germany. Stomachs rumbling louder than the transports on the Arnhemsestraat, we stop for lunch at Bronkhorst -- the smallest town in Holland -- where we're given a good helping of Dutch resistance. Seated under a shady chestnut tree on the cobblestone terrace of the local inn, named, aptly, the Weapon of Bronkhorst, we quickly discover you must be well organized when you sit down to order at a Dutch café. I am snubbed by the busy server after I order backwards. The drill is drinks only first, and no changing your mind!

I struggle to master the technique of eating my sandwich with a knife and fork, Dutch-style.

Back on the trail, Oom Bart decides it's time to fill up on local history and take in some castles. "When I was a boy, I wanted to be an American cowboy, so I took riding lessons from an ex-cavalry man who used to live at this castle," he says, veering off the beaten track and bumping through a hay field -- a shortcut to his favourite castle, De Kieftskamp. The horse-loving castle owner, Van den Wall-Bake, belonged to the Dutch Underground, Oom Bart says, relating the unhappy story of how the man's son was shot by the Germans when he attempted to cross the IJssel to visit his father. Like most of the castles, the elegant Louis XVI-style manor house is still occupied, and we're not able to explore the landscaped grounds. One more castle and then we'll head back, Oom Bart promises. Giddy with fatigue and numb in the nether regions, I lean back on my trusty Empo for the final stretch, assured that we're just minutes away from savoury pannekoeken and cold Amstel on tap. "Empo made good bicycles," he says. "But the Germans didn't think so." During the occupation, Empo was forced to build and repair bikes for the Germans, so they made sure the bicycles would fall apart in a few weeks. The Germans never got wise to them and just thought Dutch bicycles were junk.

"Verboden!" warns a large sign a good ways from the paved driveway to Het Onstein -- "Strictly forbidden!" -- and we can't even get close enough to see the castle. The present owner, a rich businessman who lives in nearby Arnheim, isn't liked locally, Oom Bart tells us. He's buying up all the land around and closing it off to cyclists and hikers in a very un-Dutch fashion.

Cruising along the shade-dappled Ruurloseweg, the main road from Ruurlo to Vorden, we pass Cuypers Church -- built by the same architect who designed Amsterdam's neo-Gothic Rijksmuseum. Pointing to the imposing, sepia-toned building, Oom Bart asks me, "Do you know how I find my way on dark days?" He explains that the altar is always built on the east side of the church and the tower on the west. "So you could say God guides me," he deadpans.

Eight long hours and 60 kilometres later, the red-brick Empo building -- as it's still called by the family, even though the bicycle factory closed its doors in 1979 -- welcomes us back to the quiet streets of Vorden. From his childhood, my partner recalls spinning wheels that hung above the high windows. They're gone today, replaced by a banner advertising Scandinavian furniture. One lone bicycle sits on its kickstand under an orange awning.

"Thanks to Empo, there was never unemployment in Vorden, even during the thirties," Oom Bart says, shaking his head. We roll down the Dorpsstraat, or village street, and lock our Empos to the bike racks outside the "pearl of the Achterhoek," the 150-year-old Hotel Bakker. Collapsed on a plush bench in the gracious hotel dining room, looking across the street at the green-shuttered building that was once Oom Bart's home, I nibble on freshly caught, salt-cured herring and raise my frosty glass in a toast to Dutch pedal power -- "Proost!"

Lesley McAllister is based in Toronto.