How the Dutch created a casual biking culture
vox.com
vox.com
As a dutch person I would absolutely NOT want to ride a bike in the US, it's simply too dangerous. There are so many cars that are not looking out for cyclists. For example, I never saw my Uber/Lyft driver peek over his shoulder. In the Netherlands we fail our driving exam if we forget this even once. Another example is the insane speed cars fly past the "share the road"-bikelanes. It's crazy. I would feel really unsafe on a bike in the US.
I understand this perspective, but as a counter to this, if no one bikes in the US then this won't change. I ride all over San Francisco. In the last 18 years of me living here things have gotten better and better for the cyclist, but there are still many areas that can be improved. I encourage you to support local organizations, like the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, which can pressure local governments to make changes that improve safety for all cyclists.
For too long in the US we've designed our roads with the idea that cars have some right to the road that others do not. We're finally starting to rectify that in cities across the country, and it's only getting better.
I just visited SF, and it was notable to me how much of the city's infrastructure is given over to cars and parking: https://jakeseliger.com/2018/08/19/what-santa-barbara-says. The rhetoric on the Internet made me think the reality on the ground would be different.
The point I was making is how much things like SFBC and Critical Mass over the years improved things because of the community involvement.
I’d like to see bicycle boulevards and dedicate roads to bikes, but what we have is better than when I got here, and feels like it’s improveing at a rapid pace now.
I just did my driving test in the city, and this was drilled into my head by my instructor.
Infrastructure shouldn't be designed in a way to cause these types of turning conflicts. The general rule of the road is that vehicles on the right make right turns. Vehicles on the left make left turns, and vehicles in the middle proceed straight through the intersection.
Turning conflicts, like what you're describing, are a significant hazard to cyclists. Cars need to check for traffic[1] on their right, move to the right, and then make their right turn. Cyclists need to pass right turning traffic on the left.
[1] Cyclists are traffic.
> For too long in the US we've designed our roads with the idea that cars have some right to the road that others do not.
Bikes have always been popular, but quite a lot of the things described in this article have been fairly recent developments.
And these improvements are happening all over the US. I've been pleasantly surprised to re-visit places and see how much progress has been made.
- Valencia street being narrowed and bike lanes on both sides, improved protection is being worked on.
- protected lanes continue to be improved on Market, but it’s still not great.
- the wiggle through the lower haight is nearly a bike boulevard
- Ceasar Chavez, still not very safe, but traffic has been slowed down and bike lanes added on both sides.
- folsom street now has protected or very wide bike lanes to third street, and Howard now has wide bike lanes starting at 6th.
I mean yeah, it’s not amazing, but it is safer and is continuing to be improved. It will be a long time before we’re like Holland.
It's completely different here, I wear a helmet, go much faster, have a much nicer bike, have to pay more attention and would never ride drunk.
I still take it over sitting in traffic any day.
That's not geography, that's urban planning, or a lack of it. America's geographic size meant that we could sprawl, not that we had to.
And indeed, especially in the post-WW2 era, we collectively chose to sprawl out far and wide, greatly favoring the automobile at the expense of walking, biking, and transit.
> I would feel really unsafe on a bike in the US.
That makes sense, since yeah, it's dangerous as hell. Got hit twice the last year before I moved to Munich.
You're basically right, but it's land use regulation. We have plenty of 'planning' in the US, and it mostly keeps in place what's already there. If you look at the places built in the US before zoning codes and 'planning', a lot of them are actually quite nice because they were built more to adapt than things these days, which are "built to a finished state" to borrow a phrase from the folks at Strong Towns.
Is that right? A bit hazy after all this time.
It's a huge, fairly flat coastal basin, and although the city limits don't cover the whole area, Los Angeles itself is 500 sq mi, which is larger than Phoenix, or 50% more land than New York City. It's really, really big.
I used to think the opening city shots in Blade Runner were an obvious exaggeration but apart from the Tyrell Corp building it looked pretty much the same.
The US was still rather empty by the time faster transport came along.
I use my bike every day and I don't mind the winter either. I still can count the times I've been hit. Near misses though happen almost daily. Especially with cars turning right not watching bike lanes.
Good luck and keep on cycling!
Aside from this , it's overall pretty repuslive to see how my hometown continues developing with the expectation that people will just drive out and drive back.
In the US, I wouldn't dream of doing that - it's just too dangerous, because there's too much risk of being involved in a high speed collision. But, after having spent some time in the Netherlands, it's come to feel like a minor injustice every time I put my helmet on. It's a little reminder of how, in the US and much the rest of the world, we have blithely turned our public right-of-way into a space that's fundamentally dangerous for humans to be in.
However, I don't want it to be mandated by law. That has shown to keep a lot of people from cycling.
I'm Dutch and do my daily commute on my casual bike without a helmet. In the weekends I ride my road bike and wear a helmet. I've once had an accident on my road bike and broke my helmet (along with my collar bone). A few weeks later I went out on my casual bike (not wearing a helmet) to buy a new helmet for my road bike. On my way back, holding the new helmet in my right hand, my steer got tangled up in the helmet and I fell. Undeniable conclusion: Having a helmet with you on a casual bike actually causes accidents!
For normal traffic use, people in the Netherlands use bikes where you sit in an upright position, and they don't go very fast (like 15 km/h). You can take quick evasive action away from the road, or put a foot on the ground to prevent a fall. It's hard to imagine breaking a helmet on a non-racing bike here.
Also, according to some reports[1], there are 9 million bicycles in Beijing alone.
[1] Melua (2005)
I have a friend who takes her three children in a bike because she does not have a big enough car for three children seats.
I couldn't find the study that was posted on hn, but there are lots of articles.
https://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/the-bike-helmet-paradox
The short answer is, "wear a helmet if you have one, and try to get one, but if you don't have one, you should still bike anyway."
I think even safer (i.e. drivers keep more distance while overtaking) than no helmet was pretending to be female by wearing a wig with long hair.
My own sense is that the science seems pretty clear that, provided you are in a wreck, wearing a helmet greatly reduces your risk of serious injury and death. Helmets aren't perfect, and they may primarily be designed for lower-engery impacts, but even insufficient energy dissipation is better than zero energy dissipation.
There's a secondary claim that not wearing a helmet results in safer behavior than wearing one, and that outweighs any potential benefit. I'm not aware of any quality research to back that claim, and you'd never be able to get a study to pin the question down past an institutional review board, so I'm inclined to say that cuts very close to what we called a fundamentally unanswerable question back in my class on experiment design. (Well, actually we used the acronym most the time. ^_^ ) My personal sense is to think that expecting your garden variety distracted, chronically fatigued, or nonzero BAC driver to notice whether you're wearing a helmet in the first place, let alone modify their behavior accordingly, is giving them more credit than they've earned.
https://www.consumerreports.org/head-injuries/wear-a-helmet-...
The majority of serious injuries from cycling have one thing in common, says Fred Rivara, M.D., M.P.H., a professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington. “Two thirds of hospitalizations and three quarters of deaths from bicycle injuries are due to head injuries,” he says. “The most effective way to prevent that from occurring is to wear a helmet.”
Indeed, extensive research has demonstrated that a helmet is the best way[0] riders can protect themselves against head injuries—especially those that are potentially fatal.[1]
https://www.consumerreports.org/cro/bike-helmets/buying-guid...
Statistics bear it out: According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, in the majority of bicyclist deaths the most serious injuries are to the head, highlighting the importance of wearing a bicycle helmet. Helmet use has been estimated to reduce the odds of head injury by 50 percent and the odds of head, face, or neck injury by 33 percent.
Tangentially, here's how they test bike helmets:
In our tests we strap helmets onto head forms and use an apparatus that drops the helmets at about 14 mph onto a flat anvil to find out how well they withstand impact. An electronic sensor inside the head form monitors the force that would be transmitted to a rider’s skull in an accident.
We also test the strength of helmet chinstraps, attachment points, and buckles. We drop an 8 3⁄4-pound weight 2 feet so that it yanks on the straps to simulate the force that might occur in a crash.
EDIT: Add a paragraph and footnotes
[0] http://www.cochrane.org/CD001855/INJ_wearing-a-helmet-dramat...
People's bodies simply were not evolved for a concrete environment. Helmets are how we deal with that.
A lot of Americans also think it's too dangerous. It's an obstacle to getting more people on bikes.
When people at my workplace see me with my bike, or find out that I'm a cyclist, they beg me to be careful, promise to wear a helmet, and so forth. I have friends who are avid cyclists, but who limit their riding to dedicated bike paths or off-road trails, because they don't feel safe riding on the roads.
Just looking at pictures and videos, it's apparent to me that cyclists in the US and Netherlands have very different riding habits due to the differences in conditions. The Dutch seem so carefree. Americans seem to have a much more wary, defensive, and sometimes aggressive style, and may prefer more maneuverable bikes for a reason. You'd probably get used to it, as lots of us do.
We also probably have to pay more attention to planning our routes to avoid the worst of traffic. I know all of the dedicated bike paths and side roads in my town. Google Maps gives different routes for bikes and cars. Residential streets have lots of cars but not a lot of traffic volume. I actually encounter relatively few cars on my rides.
Much as I defend cycling in the US, I'd still prefer the Dutch environment.
Well, in the Netherlands it was supposedly the reason for demands for safer infrastructure, which in turn led to people starting to cycle more.
> Google Maps gives different routes for bikes and cars.
It does the same in the Netherlands, but I guess that's for a different reason: often roads are one-way only for cars, and bidirectional for cyclists.
(It's not as bad as it once was, but it still has the annoying tendency to avoid the Sarphatistraat, for example.)
That's basically how I am. I live in the DC area, and luckily for me there's tons of really nice bike paths like the W&OD trail. I can easily ride 50+ miles in one ride here just sticking to these trails, and see a lot of different parts of the area. Or I'll ride on subdivision roads that are very low-traffic. But there's no way I'm riding on normal high-traffic roads around here; it's just too dangerous.
I think the helmets are a big part of this.
If you go around telling people, "Body armor required," then they are not going to feel laissez-faire.
The other side is the presumed liability on the part of the car. Cars have almost all the responsibility to ensure they do not collide with a bike in the Netherlands. That makes cycling more pedestrian, you can just go and overall not worry about things around you.
But I do think that helmets get more attention than they deserve. Oddly enough, among experienced cyclists, a helmet is just part of the equipment. You either wear one or you don't. But non-cyclists (the folks who "advise" me at my workplace), the helmet is the first thing they ask about.
Oh, one more thing, European roads tend to be in a lot better condition. I had a near-accident last week because I didn't notice a gaping hole in the road that would have sent me over the bars.
But what difference does that make? Why would I be more likely to visit a different city rather than another part of a bigger city?
I was in the bike lane...
Also our metro areas tend to spread out quite a bit, so to get from one area to another typically involves biking >5 miles.
https://www.heraldextra.com/news/local/golden-spoke-trail-ne...
http://wfrc.org/programs/active-transportation/golden-spoke/
The buildings and motorways are an absolutely hellscape of trash design, though. Whole damn city is an asphalt desert with a building sprinkled here and there. Why? Because laws force businesses and homes to have parking that often takes up more space than the building itself.
For those of us commuting to work, to move from place A to place B and back, that is unfortunately not always feasible...
I grew up there and my friends and I used our (regular) bikes a lot to get from town to town. Because of the hills it was exhausting but doable. When I went to study up north, I remember being surprised how easy cycling is in the rest of our (flat) country: you can easily go on for hours!
And the topography doesn't hurt - its flat as a pancake.
Also isn't it possible to basically ride between every city in the Netherlands? I once biked from Rotterdam to Den Hague using only bike paths and protected bike lanes. I got the impression that I could continue riding to Amsterdam in the same fashion if wanted to.
You definitely could. A couple of years ago I've actually done a trip like that, Rotterdam to The Hague to Amsterdam (then onwards to Amersfoort) — it was about 150 km long, and all of that was on designated bike paths and lanes.
Of course that doesn't apply in US areas that do have higher population density, but there's a lot of country over here.
I wonder how much driving will change with technology before we get full self driving cars?
But ya, the USA still sucks for bikes. It’s not just the cars, but that you are in the same road with the cars in the first place. Netherlands is much better in that regard, with bike trails everywhere and intersections heavily engineered with an eye towards cyclist safety. Not to mention the laws are heavily biased toward cyclists.
When I ride in newer cars, I'm always surprised at how poor the outward visibility is. Front pillars have gotten enormous in order to house airbags, and the rear pillars seem to always be absurdly think with tiny, useless corner windows (for crush/rollover strength?). It's no wonder that you're more dependent on technology.
Luckily, rear cameras and radar sensors give me much better visibility now than I ever had with older cars that had more glass.
That's correct: a car's roof (or rather the pillars that hold it) has to be strong enough to not get crushed in case the car gets flipped. That's why pillars are so thick nowadays.
You will still find many physically separated bike lanes even on 50-kph roads if they carry heavy traffic, but it's not mandated by law. It just happens that sharing a road with cyclists also slows down cars, and that decreases traffic throughput.
The equation is not so simple if you consider that one person in a bicycle is one less car on the road, thus occupying a lot less space for the overall traffic.
well, while it's very safe to ride a bike here in Netherlands, sh*t still happens regularly and crazy drivers are there. Past year I had this accident : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUY7psClcbQ
> I visited the US recently and you can drive for 30 minutes in a car and you are still in LA, if you drive for 30 minutes in the Netherlands you're in a completely different city.
My not-so-pedantic comments to these facts are (a) LA is freaking HUGE (if ever fly into LAX at night, pay attention to when the earth becomes a solid carpet of city lights. It's a looong way from the shoreline). We aren't constrained by water on three or four sides like say, NYC/Manhattan or San Francisco.
And, (b), at LA's 101/10/405/surface street speeds, thirty minutes may only be three or four miles (or two, if you venture to travel at The Wrong Times), while you can get to one of the major secondary cities (Anaheim, for example) in about fifty minutes if you time it well.
So, while technically true, those points aren't representative of How Things Really Are, imho. (me: exclusive transit/bike commuter here for 6+ years)
Almost everything :) It says that there needs to be a separated, protected bike lane on every road that has a maximum speed over 30 km/h. This is not true (and pretty infeasible, too). The vast majority of average boring roads in residential areas have a 50 km/h maximum speed and no separated bike lanes (and often, if the road is small/quiet enough, not a marked bike lane at all). Most countryside roads have a 80 km/h maximum speed and no bike lanes.
I bet some details were left out that accidentally made it incorrect. I can imagine that there's some law/guideline going on that if a road is particularly busy, then it needs to be either max 30 kph or have separated bike lanes. But most suburban roads or countryside aren't particularly busy.
Look closely though, a lot has changed in the last decade. Most of the residential streets are now 30 km/h, with only the larger arterial thoroughfares (which do have tend to have separate cycling lanes) and roads in industrial areas left at 50 km/h.
> Most countryside roads have a 80 km/h maximum speed and no bike lanes.
A lot of those remaining roads that don't have a separate cycling lane have been turned into 60 km/h roads.
Wherever in our country do you live that this is not the case?
It depends where you are. I used to spend a lot of time in Raleigh and Cary, North Carolina and often borrowed a bike to cycle from Cary to Raleigh and around both places, I was told by many Americans that it was dangerous but in fact I only had one slightly difficult moment in hundreds of kilometres of cycling and that was a low speed bus that came within ten centimetres of me.
Yeah, that one. Your country is ridiculously flat with highest peak of around 300m above see level.
On the other hand, there are a lot of raining days in Netherlands! I was very surprised that Dutch don't care too much about weather, they ride on sunny days same as on rainy days.
The Dutch rain typically comes in 15 minute blocks as bands of clouds cross the country. So most Dutch cyclists would check the Buienradar rain radar app on their phones and adjust their departure time accordingly.
Coincidentally to this discussion, last weekend I fell off my bike in Amsterdam: Cycling too fast, in the rain, hurrying to an appointment, and misjudged a turning, braked too hard, skidded, and hit the gutter.
That was my second bike crash in Amsterdam. The first was 8 years ago, when I was cycling, carrying a TV. Also in the rain.
Apparently a Honda Accord 2018 weighs more than 3,000 lbs (up to 3,428).
Also, and somewhat surprising given the above, you can buy a Ford F-150 that weighs just 4,000 lbs
The Accord, for instance, gained almost 2 feet in length and 6 inches in width between the late 80s and today.
Of course, the trucks were smaller back then too - The Ford Ranger (1989) model weighed only 2800lbs.
Right, 100%. I wonder if the cheap electric-assist bikes will make more countries / cities essentially “flat”
Edit: Huh, I hadn't read the article yet; it appears not to be about moped-/motorcycle-like scooters as I expected (because there has been an increase in such scooters in the Netherlands in the last five to ten years or so), but about electrified kick scooters. (Dutch uses different words for each (scooter and step), so I had no idea about the double meaning.)
Incidentally the one age group in the Netherlands with an increase in road deaths in recent years has been 65+. That's largely attributed to them using Ebikes to travel much faster, while having comparatively slow reaction times and less resilience to injuries sustained in the higher speed crashes.
There’s an interesting clip from a documentary in 1972 about the neighborhood De Pijp in Amsterdam, when it was still very much a car-centric city. At the time children in the area protested how dangerous the streets had become and how they lacked safe areas to play.
https://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/12/12/amsterdam-chil...
Compared to the situation now, it’s vastly improved. Fortunately the car did not win and the city did not destroy itself with a highway through the middle.
Edit
Here’s another (recent) documentary you might find interesting:
I've read urbanism brochures from the 1960s, when the Technical University was getting moved from central Copenhagen to a suburb (Lyngby), and it's remarkable how car-centric the design was. An old airport, where the runway was converted into a huge parking lot, and commuting by car was carefully considered to weight all decisions.
I used to live in housing designed for factory workers of DAF. The company didn’t succeed because of other issues. But it is typically Dutch that they chose to design their cities for people instead of giving away what amounts to a subsidy paid for by lower quality of life.
I'm curious how you though the article failed to cover this issue? In fact, that's the first example that the article covers, that car-centric planning in Rotterdam post-WWII was changed to be bike-friendly in the 1970s.
Did the article get rewritten after you commented?
I'm curious why you interpreted my comment that way. I just added additional context.
In contrast, Rotterdam was mostly rebuilt after WWII. This gave them the opportunity to make the city more accessible for cars. Still you can get around Rotterdam by metro quite easily, and you are a first class citizen on a bike or on foot. i know lots of people living in Rotterdam who don’t own a car.
This really isn't limited to Amsterdam. Even at the zebra crossings where bikes are technically obliged to stop for pedestrians...they (and to be honest, I) most often don't.
Why did the kids want to play on the streets instead of parks or something?
The one on left vs. right really is not even close to an issue. I would guess most MPs of most parties cycle to work. There is literally not a (native) child that doesn't bike by 7. We even have courses for newcomers to learn how to cycle.
The reasoning behind this is, whatever accident happens, one of the two people involved is protected by a ton of glass and steel, one is out in the open. The one that is protected inherently has to bear more responsibility.
But you’re right...no one is discouraging biking.
If that is not possible, they design roads in a way which forces people to slow down to "safe" speeds. (50km/h or lower usually).
Can confirm. Colleague of mine met the Dutch PM (Rutte) cycling to work the other day
I don't own a bike any more.
I used to cycle 18km to get to work and if I would tell a Dutch person it was always "Oh that's nothing, I used to cycle twice that distance in the snow uphill when I was younger!"
Generally the rain was fine, it was the wind that can make you feel like someone is pushing against your bike that really got to me.
We knew where the dodgy guy hung out near the public toilets in the park, and avoided him (the teacher at school was a different matter).
I think ... people were less alienated from society then. It seems different now.
My parents were very unusual, to the point that my friends' parents would lie to them to cover for me, but the practicalities meant I still couldn't do much of what they did. I didn't own a useful bike, didn't have money for the bus etc.
It wasn't like this here when I was growing up.
Also wind.
This is why I'm still waiting for Google Maps and the likes to include an "I have a bike and am willing to use it to get to the closest train/metro/bus station" option.
Those are the facts. Don’t believe this propaganda.
I mean sure, you're right, the weather in the Netherlands is as nice as those picture only for a couple of months per year, but that's not the point of the article, nor does it prove/disprove anything.
The Dutch cycle year round, and while it is true that traffic in the summer is like double, cycling is still the main form of transportation for a significant portion of the population.
I cycle to work most days in Munich, so the climate is roughly the same, and I have rain gear and I'm used to cycling in the rain... I couldn't imagine cycling with an umbrella, but that's a different story... Maybe I was just getting a cold, but I was freezing while being soaked just walking around in the city (with my rain jacket, didn't bring the rain pants).
It is very possible to bike year round.
Anyway, firstly I've been cycling the half hour distance to work for about 20 years now and the number of times it rained is just a small percentage. Secondly, you if possible you can time your usage of the bike according to the weather forecast. Thirdly, we (the Dutch) always complain about everything. The weather included. Still I wouldn't want to live anywhere else (for a long time).
In US cities, most cyclist act like they're in a race. They must run every stop sign, charge down every hill, graze every pedestrian... in downtown Amsterdam most people were going at a leisurely pace and if you get in their way, they just ding a little bell at you.
Plus, the credibility hit that ALL cyclists take for this alone makes this not worthwhile in my view. Cyclists who respect the law like myself get blamed for the actions of bad cyclists. I've often wondered if this contributes to bad driving around cyclists, e.g., "punishment passes".
Of course it does, just like the few drivers who cavalierly pass a cyclist then make a right hand turn in front of them causing a collision or near collision contributes to cyclist animosity towards all drivers. The only thing unforgivable to most people is the proof that the people around us are humans and not robots: they make mistakes, they change their mind, they break the rules.
The point of these articles is to point out that creating the infrastructure properly eases most of the tension. Treating a bicycle as a separate form of transportation is better than treating them like a vehicle in most scenarios and making some limited exceptions for passing or driving on the sidewalk.
The faster you cycle on a road the safer you feel because you're more in keeping of the pace of the traffic.
This is just a
Seems like a pretty biased sample to me. I'm a cyclist, and the vast majority of cyclists I know respect the law and common sense. Yes, there are jerks out there, but they'd most likely still be jerks if they switched to driving.
It's possible that my own sample of cycling friends is biased too, but few cyclists I see on the road are as bad as phil248 described. And the worst drivers I see on the road are considerably more dangerous than the worst cyclists, by a long shot.
Eh, I think it depends where you go in the US. When living in Portland I couldn't afford a car and so I biked exclusively, and people were super mellow. Cyclists would even gently chide other cyclists for running red lights, failing to signal, not having lights, etc.
But there's also a lot of infrastructure to support the mellowness. Dedicated cycling lanes on both sides, priority around traffic lights, under/overpasses to reduce stops, flat roads and dense urban centres (with decent public transportation for larger distances) makes it easy to get to your destination quickly without having to race or compete for space. That certainly helps.
The best way to be in traffic is to not stand out. Whether it is car, cyclist or pedestrian. Just don't bother other people.
And tourists, who wander onto the bike lanes without realizing it. Mind you there's a lot of cramped and busy areas where it's far too easy to do so.
If you visit Amsterdam, look at the ground, stay off the red pavement unless you intend to cross it, in which case you look both ways and do a firm walk across it.
(all except the graze pedestrian part, I try to avoid that).
If we had the infrastructures to protect the non-racers, you would have non-racers on the road and would feel like that the vast majority of bikers are mellow.
I'm sure in the near future he'll be donating organs to some lucky recipient.
1: http://slocyclist.com/whats-the-average-speed-of-tour-de-fra...
Americans seem to think biking is mainly a sport instead of a mode of transportation.
Most dutch people ride on bicycles which are either A) in a constant semi-broken state (students are notorious for this) or B) riding a luxery city bike (usually high income families).
Other reasons that I could see for that: - longer average commute distance for US bike commuters vs other places (which means, you want a nicer/faster bike and comfortable/aerodynamic clothing) - there is a cultural element to it, especially for a certain age group (aka MAMILs) plus the higher relative price of racing equipment isn't an issue for this group
Plus, racing bikes are really very nice bikes. I like to compare it like driving a Ferrari to work, sure, it's not the best place to take advantage of such a car/engine, but it's still a better experience than a regular car (but YMMV, depends on the quality of the road).
I ride a reasonably nice bike for transport, which I keep well-maintained and always secure with two locks.
But most bikes I see are in a rather sorry state, with rusty dangling chains, wobbly wheels, flat tires and busted accessories. Yet they seem to still perform adequately well for their task.
If I’m pootling to the shops a mile away on my Brompton I generally don’t even bother with a helmet.
If however, I’m off for a 60-100 mile training ride with my club mates I wouldn’t dream of doing it in anything other than bib shorts, jersey and cleated shoes.
I mean you wouldn’t wear a business suit to the gym or jeans to go swimming would you?
Padded shorts and tight fitting lycra are the most comfortable things to wear if you’re going to cycle a long way, long time or just want to go fast on a bike.
If you don’t want to do those things wear what you like, that’s fine too.
Where and when are you looking? That's more or less how I look biking past Portola Valley on the weekends (on the rare occasions I get out anymore). But on the weekdays during commute hours, you'll find me on the Stevens Creek trail or Mountain View's bicycle boulevard instead, wearing normal work clothes, biking more slowly, and pulling a two-kid trailer. Most cyclists I see there don't look anything like what you're describing.
> What is the speed threshold?
> Anything where cars are traveling faster than 30 kph. So, what’s that, 19 mph?
As a Dutchman, this is so obviously wrong that it makes me doubt everything factual in the book they wrote. 50 roads without physical separation are the default, and 60 roads are often back roads where there is not enough traffic to warrant the space (=money) required for a separated cycling lane so those typically also have no physical barriers.
I guess the limit is 70km/h, as I can't off the top of my head think of any 70-80 road where cyclists don't have separate infrastructure, though I'm sure one can find an exception.
I was very surprised to learn that in Germany, they have no trouble with having people drive without even an indicated bike lane (I'd feel unsafe driving on a 50 road if people drive 50, there is no space left over, and there is no bike lane outlined) on 100km/h roads.
> Cycle tracks are all paved with this easily identified red pavement, an inch-thick top coat of dyed red asphalt
Inch-thick? 2.6cm? Have they even been to the country at all? Never have I ever seen the red paint so thick that you'd notice it when driving onto it, I'm fairly certain that doesn't exist anywhere in the country. The only tactile paint we have is the white lines on the sides of highways, which I assume is to wake dozers up.
'inch-thick top coat', they're talking about a top coat, not just the paint. To make sure the paint doesn't wear after a couple of months the entire top part of the cycling path is red asphalt. Though I doubt it is 2,6cm everywhere as it differs per municipality. But its definitely thicker than a coat of paint most of the time.
It’s a great place to visit. Lots of nice people and history.
biking in the netherlands was never about the environment or vitue signalling, we do it because its necessary. tax and cost of housing is very expensive relative to our salaries. a lot of people cannot really afford cars so we need another option. its more similar to biking in china or vietnam in that sense.
It's a data driven thing at this point. If repeated accidents happen on a particular bit of road, there will very likely be some follow up in the form of infrastructure work to fix things. Any new infrastructure that gets planned, this stuff is designed in from day 1. Much of this work is planned in order of priority based on things like accident statistics.
Many US cities are actually quite suitable for adapting them to cyclists. The roads are wide and there's plenty of room to start fixing the infrastructure to have separate bike lanes, safer intersections, etc. You can start simple with some road markings. It's not rocket science.
You pay $6/hr to ride one, which, assuming a very generous average speed of 14.5mph (the maximum of the bike), is an end user cost of $0.41 per mile minimum.
It costs me ~$0.35 per mile to drive a car. I also don't have to bother with any apps or worry about the battery being charged, both of which are inconveniences.
Also, just to set the record straight, I own an e-bike as well, and my cost to ride (assuming a 500*30 mile battery endurance) is 4 cents per mile, about 1/10x of what I'd pay for a limebike.
There is an upfront cost, yes, but you're also getting a much better quality bike than what you would get with a lime bike (which seems to be an almost-bottom-of-the-barrell chinese made ebike)
You're paying much, much more than $0.35/mile my friend.
It's my wife and I's preferred way of getting around for date night.
They all have bike lanes (well France sometimes have them) but what is different is that most bike lanes in The Netherlands are separated from other lanes. So you are and feel mutch safer.
So I believe that bike lanes are not enough. They should be realy separated from other trafic.
Oh yes, those huge things (trucks, too) with dark tinted windows are the pox on wheels. On a motorbike you sit higher and can look over regular passenger cars, and you can see all the road in front of you. But if you ride behind one of these antisocial fuck-you-I've-got-mine hulks you can't see the road, and it's life-threatening.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/14/611116451...
My 2016 VW Golf was very difficult to see out of, and that's a small(ish) box on wheels! I barely even bothered to look out of the mail slit rear window, I just use the backup camera.
Our Tesla 3 is even worse; the rear 3/4 view is virtually impossible, and the trunklid is so high you'll only see the roof of the car behind you. Again, you're far safer relying on the camera at that point. The car also has huge blind spots due to the insane US side mirror laws that require flat glass on the driver's side. I'm anxiously awaiting the 3 going on sale in Europe so I can buy an aspheric replacement that allows me to see more than the grille of the car on my left.
In other parts of Europe, road traffic is often much faster that speed limits (Central and Southern Europe) and drivers are not cooperative at all. Yeah, nothing that separated bike roads wouldn't solve.
I would classify myself as a "wielrenner". In Berlin for example, whilst the cycling infrastructure is also generally good as a cyclist you're practically forced to use these really thin cycle paths full of "fietser"s (to continue the Dutch terminology). That, in combination with generally very bumpy paths, can make getting from A-B quickly highly frustrating. However, cycling on the road is a nightmare. In some situations its forbidden altogether, and generally drivers are really aggressive about your mere presence even when they're perfectly capable of driving around you. Coming from the UK, I'd actually rather drive on the road with the knowledge that I'm a first-class citizen of said road, and be able to cycle at my own pace.
It's likely a better experience, and at any rate it's significantly safer: https://twitter.com/greenpeace_de/status/1034350589696716800
(I don't speak german but using google translate it looks like yellow is accident risk, light green is proportion of cyclists and dark green is cycling-related spending)
A presentation with a ton of examples of small infrastructural touches that make it safer to cycle in the Netherlands.
I love the picture of a guy moving a bed on an oversized and strange (to my eyes) three wheeler.
They are mostly rentals. I think IKEA rents out bakfietsen too.
I am reading articles like this to further my diabolical plot to make my little corner of America more people-friendly, in spite of how unpopular such goals seem to be with so many Americans (which is why I am jokingly calling it a diabolical plot). So actual info is good.
None of which is relevant to "Hey, cool, there are totally cargo bikes. That's a thing!"
The good news is that people don't generally die from pedestrian-bike collisions; it's a freak event and you are much better off watching your step in the rain unless you slip and fall, a much more common cause of death.
All the time I hear about "life-threatening" speed freaks on bicycles. No. That's not how it works. I'd gladly be hit by 250 lbs going 20 mph any day, when the alternative is being hit by 2000 lbs going 30 mph. Even disregarding that the latter is truly life threatening and the former is not, the cyclist is just as likely to get injured when hitting someone, unlike the car driver.
The only reason bicycles appear dangerous is because the city planners encourage cyclists and pedestrians to occupy the same roads, which would be ridiculous if it weren't so sad.
I recall red pavement from Hamburg, as well - is it a pattern/standard only for the more coastal/flat places, or common throughout Northern EU countries?
https://www.tv2lorry.dk/files/styles/16_9_large_2x/public/me...
Having been raised in The Netherlands, and being educated from kindergarten till university, and having three kids older than 11 years... I've never heard about a _cycling skill course_ in Dutch schools. Sure, there a classes (part of primary school education) about traffic rules, but children learn to cycle in their play time. I guess 75% of kids know how to drive a bicycle before they're 6 years old.
> Between the ages of 11 and 12 they have to take a written exam to show that they understand the rules of the road. They also do a practical exam.
Indeed, these exist. But the only training for that practical exam that I'm aware of is that the teacher is biking the route (it is known in advance) once with the kids, like a week before that "fietsexamen".
Oh, and nowadays that exam is part of Fietsexamen Nederland (related to Veilig Verkeer Nederland?), not the Fietsersbond.
I'll take Seattle hills over Dutch headwinds any day...
https://newworldeconomics.com/the-problem-with-bicycles/
Bikes are expensive personal transportation, compared to not owning any, they take up space in every home with muddy, oily mechanisms, they take up a lot of space in bicycle parks outside every desirable destination serving to push everything further apart for humans on foot, they don't mesh well with pedestrians (in a collision with a pedestrian and a fast moving metal bike, the pedestrian loses), they require equipment you might need to carry (locks, helmets, other), they need ongoing maintenance, they don't go well with nice clothes and tend to require places to change, carrying a change of clothes, or even showers, after any but short journeys in mellow weather.
Not true in the Netherlands.
>they take up space in every home with muddy, oily mechanisms
Usually, unless it's a very nice cycle at high risk of theft, it's not kept in one's home. It's just locked up outside. Bike garages are exceedingly common, especially in larger buildings or offices. Or at train stations.
>they take up a lot of space in bicycle parks outside every desirable destination serving to push everything further apart for humans on foot
Bike parking is an issue, especially in high congestion areas like train stations, but pushing things further for humans is most certainly not an issue in the Netherlands.
>they require equipment you might need to carry (locks, helmets, other)
Almost no one wears helmets in the NL in daily cycling and the locks are fixed to the bike or wrapped around the frame. This is really a non-issue in the NL.
>they need ongoing maintenance
Not much...and so do humans (you've still got to take care of yourself; even biking contributes to that).
> they don't go well with nice clothes and tend to require places to change, carrying a change of clothes, or even showers, after any but short journeys in mellow weather.
Most of the year the weather is mellow; people routinely wear suits/formal clothing without issue on bikes; many offices have shower facilities but most people don't use them because the weather is mild and people don't race. All of this isn't really an issue in the Netherlands.
I feel like you've posed a lot of complaints that really don't apply or really aren't such a concern in the Netherlands. Cities here tend to work very well for both pedestrians and cyclists.
Come visit the NL sometime...I think ít will change your perspective.
Yes of course walking is better but not everything people want to do is within easy walking distance, and bikes are preferable to huge infrastructure for public transport within a city.
bikes are preferable to huge infrastructure for public transport within a city
preferable to whom?
Everyone pooling their resources should make for way way better solutions than everyone solving the same problems individually over and over.
However, if I need to go to the hardware store ~5km away, I would have to take a long walk of about an hour, or take a ride on two busses taking a total of ~30-40 minutes each way, or I could simply jump on my bike and be there in ~15 minutes.
Yes, we should absolutely pool our resources as much as possible, but not everyone is going the same place at the same time.
But, designing for not-cars feels like a choice of designing for humans or designing for bikes, not both. If things are close enough for walking then most people don't need bikes. If there's dense, regular, clean, affordable public transport, you can't really bring one bike per person onto it and you shouldn't need to. If things are far enough apart that everyone needs a bike, and everywhere you go has a wasteland of a few thousand bike parking spaces to cover everyone who might go there at once, then you've designed for individual vehicles not people, and cars would be more comfortable and faster. In that sense, I would think it just as much of a failure either way.
Like, if you have poisonous plants, and you want edible fruits, but what you get is harmless inedible plants, in one way it's a lot better, but in another way it's no better at all.
The problem with car traffic is that it only really meshes well with car traffic. Making it mesh with public transit requires a lot of parking, and cars take up way too much space on the streets compared to bikes, the density is way too low for the amount of people moved.
Modern commuter bikes are simple, reliable and low maintenance, usually with hub gears and sometimes with belt drives that don't need lubrication. Even chains can be kept running for years and years with no maintenance at all. And you can absolutely bike in your normal clothes, people do it every single day here, summer or winter.
There's no way it would have worked if even 10-20% of the people had brought bikes, let alone everyone.
I Googled Copenhagen Bike Parking, and this was one of the top results: http://jtwonggg.com/2017/11/06/photo-diary-copenhagen-street... - those bike parks are not meshing nicely with a human world, they're big areas of nothing of any interest to living walking humans except for the individual bike owner, space taken up by matter storage that you have to walk further to get past, they're ugly, they're a greedy use of public space for "my personal transport", and that size of parking almost has to be replicated all over the place. Even if bike parks were underground, that's still prime city usable space which could be put to use by things of interest to more people.
The picture with the outdoors clothes racks and Zara shop - lots of pedestrians. Imagine a cyclist trying to go fast down that street - they can't, there's too many people. This either means the pedestrians have to dive out of the way (maybe urged by a demand of a ringing bell) or that the cyclist has to go at walking speed - and in that case may as well be walking. And if there was a rush hour of cyclists, that street would become a much less pleasant place for people to walk.
Bikes let you go further - ten miles is a fairly short bike trip but a long walk - but they do it by letting you go faster. You can't go faster in dense pedestrian traffic unless you prioritise the bike and make the pedestrians second class who have to watch out and make way, and that - each bike taking precedent over dozens of pedestrians - seems the wrong kind of tradeoff.
but then, Copenhagen appears to be a city with car-streets, and in that situation, preferring a bike over a car in a place spread out for cars, is possibly the best compromise you're going to get.
I will admit that my bike cost $550, but it's also a really nice bike. You can get a perfectly serviceable, reliable and comfortable bike for less than half that. And it'll last for years and years with minimal maintenance (or none at all, even).
Yes, obviously owning something is more expensive than not owning something. But if you walk everywhere, you also have to account for time spent going 5kph instead of 20kph, not to mention shoes that wear out quicker. I used to commute 3km by foot, and my shoes wore out very quickly, even good quality sneakers didn't last long.
Not to mention payment for using public transit or taxi services or car rentals.
>"they take up space in every home with muddy, oily mechanisms"
I park my bike outside, locked to a bike rack. I ride in the city, it has never been muddy. I do a lot more maintenance than the average cyclist, I wipe down the chain if I've been riding in the rain, and I actually lube the chain and other mechanisms once in a while. Most people don't do anything at all, and their bikes still give them years of service. On my bike the chain is exposed, I prefer it like that for ease of maintenance. Most commuter bikes have enclosed chains, some have belt drives.
>"they take up a lot of space in bicycle parks outside every desirable destination serving to push everything further apart for humans on foot"
They do take up some space, but dramatically less than most other forms of transport. Based on my experience here in Copenhagen, it really isn't an issue. Bikes left abandoned on sidewalks and in bike racks are regularly marked and then taken away, especially if they're obviously broken. There is plenty of space for pedestrians here.
>"they don't mesh well with pedestrians (in a collision with a pedestrian and a fast moving metal bike, the pedestrian loses)"
That is why we have sidewalks, bike paths and streets for motorized traffic, grade separated from each other. On shared traffic streets, cyclists slow way down and everything flows nicely. Only idiots would race their bikes down a street like that, it happens extremely rarely. Pedestrian/cyclist collisions do happen, but they're usually very low-speed affairs, unless a pedestrian steps out in front of a bike on a bike path, without looking. Certainly not the cyclist's fault.
>"they require equipment you might need to carry (locks, helmets, other)"
My primary lock is fixed to the bike frame and locks the rear wheel, it's completely unobtrusive. My secondary lock is a chain lock, which I carry wrapped around the seat post, again completely unobtrusive, it just stays with the bike always.
My helmet either stays with the bike (if it's in a shed or the weather is nice, secured by the chain lock that also secures the bike to a fixed object. Or I clip it to my messenger bag, or simply carry it with me, it's very lightweight. Or you could do what most casual cyclists do, and not bother with a helmet at all.
>"they need ongoing maintenance"
I do basic maintenance with tools everyone should have in their house anyway: Screwdrivers, hex keys, pliers and old rags. The only stuff I've had to buy specifically for the bike is chain lube, and you could get by with something like household 3-in-1 oil. Or just not bother at all, and get the chain replaced every 3-5 years or so.
The maintenance needs for a commuter bicycle are very light. They're literally designed to be dependable and low-maintenance.
>"they don't go well with nice clothes and tend to require places to change, carrying a change of clothes, or even showers, after any but short journeys in mellow weather."
Even when it was ~35C here during the summer, I never needed more than to splash some cool water in my face, and maybe change my t-shirt to a fresh one. Most workplaces here have lockers and showers, because cycling is so popular, they're mostly meant for the hardcore lycra-clad cyclists. Ordinary commuters simply ride in their work clothes or whatever, no problem at all. Take it easy, and you won't sweat. Or get an electric bike, they're becoming very popular for this reason.