Awesome!!

[Charlotte Berry]

Wow, I just love this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-AbPav5E5M

[Bike Chick]

How cool! Did you watch the ones next to it with people commuting in the rain and snow? I wonder how we could that to catch on in the US? Why is it so popular in the Netherlands? Is it because gas is so expensive?

[arielmoon]

I watched a bunch of them and I am fascinated. No helmets though... not even the kids.

[Jaclyn]

There's an interesting article on the helmet issue in today's WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304248704575574250616160146.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5

[Charlotte Berry]

Why is it so popular in the Netherlands? Is it because gas is so expensive?

Well, I guess there are clues in this one!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HgLqts3qJs

[Tri Girl]

I've seen that video before, but never the snow and ice one. THAT was interesting. I can't imagine cycling in the snow and ice. They are hard-core. Although, if that's the way your society is, you do it no matter what. I would love to live there (for that and other reasons).

That's an interesting article in the WSJ. I guess when it's a part of the culture like it is, changing that at the base level would be difficult.

[Charlotte Berry]

I saw the one in the snow, and one person even had a baby on the handelbars! I have a friend who teaches at the University of Amsterdam, and he had a head injury once from his commute like this, but it was not on a bike path and he was hit by a car. He learned the Italian language from scratch as a way of regaining his cognitive skills. He told me on the bike paths, never hardly but watch out when competing with cars on rural roads. Holland is full of bike paths which riders use in a very casual easy going manner. Just look at their bikes? It's much different then riding a fast road bike perhaps either going fast or training with your head down. They feel the dangers are much less, and the freedom of their culture much more important.

[Charlotte Berry]

This is astonishing! I would welcome such a problem the big cities here! I hadn't see hardly any of these videos until yesterday. It's certainly a breathe of fresh air! Going to Costco now, where you won't find a single bicycle anywhere in the whole parking lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z12dc7300yc

[nikkoblu2]

That's just the coolest thing! It's almost hard to believe a place like that actually exists...a cyclist's utopia:)

[marni]

lived in the Netherlands for 15 years and enjoyed a bike and a bus and an occasional train as transportation. Gas when we left was $5.00 a liter (which is slightly larger than a quart) and that was in 2004. Very few people especially in the city owned a car much less 2. The driving test in rigorous and expensive to take, especially when you are pretty much guaranteed to need at least three tries or a friend in high places. Most people ride bikes until they have a job which pays enough to buy a car which means that the median age for a drivers license is about 27- By the time they actually get to own/drive a car, they have been riding for a long time. Biking and public transport and that very strange form of transportation called walking, are more common.

We lived in the far outskirts of the Hague almost in Leiden and the bus into the center of the city ran by a block away every 15 minutes. From the central station I could find a tram or bus to anywhere in the city or suburbs about every 20 minutes and a train to anywhere within Europe every 45 minutes to 2 hours.

Everything is on much smaller scale, lots of local little enclaves of shops, mom and pop stores, farmers markets, theaters and restaraunts within a short very bikeable, busable, or walkable distances. A lot more relaxed way of life all together.

In the rain video, there is actually on rider and passenger where you can see the famous Dutch hop sit, a skill perfected as early as kids can trot along side a bike. You hold onto the riders waist, run along side until you match their pace and then hop up onto the bike rack behind the rider, sitting side saddle as it were. Believe me, it is more difficult than it looks, especially when the saddlebags are full of groceries and you have to be careful not to impale yourself on the stick of french bread. It's about mid video and the rider is coming from the right.

I have also ridden with a kid on the handlebars and another one in a seat behind me on my 3 speed of which only l l1/2 worked, sturdy steel dutch "oma fiets" with the front light run by energy generated by the the generator clamped to the rear wheel.

I so miss the separate bike lanes and lights and the fact that in the Netherlands, if you are in any form of motorized transport and you even touch a bike or bicycler the Koninglijke Marechusse (state police) will bury you and your vehicle under the nearest dike, after thay have taken every monetary object you own, garnished the wages in your family for the next three generations and auctioned your first born child into slavery.

I exagerate but not much. The drivers were all bikers before they were drivers, and so they know how to react. It helps.

I miss the Netherlands, even the weather, including the liquid sunshine you see in the rain video.

[Charlotte Berry]

Yeah, since most of the drivers of cars rode bikes possible for years as a way of life, once they get behind a steering wheel, they probably have a much different mindset then the typical truck driver here who will run you over while eating a sandwich and texting at the same time, not even caring to stop. How tragic that we don't get it as Americans. This video, from another source and only a week old haunts me. Even Denmark seems to get it, we don't. Send this to our politicians, oh, too late, mud slinging ends tonight!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXw_t172BKY

[Thorn]

The Cophenhagen one is also very good....your timing couldn't be better. I'm job hunting and I'm trying to stick to my guns and only look at jobs within bike commuting distance. I almost thought about stepping out of those bounds this AM...nope, gonna hold the line a little longer. Thanks.

[Charlotte Berry]

What a contrast. Here this explains in short and highlights the upside of biking in Copenhagen. They not only have wide dedicated bike paths, but they also have traffic lights only for bicycles. Imagine that, dedicated stop and go lights for the bike culture, just like the cars get. Also rent a bikes are all over the city, coin operated.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrKXSRafDOI

Then here is a nice little clip by the news in LA about road wars, cars against bikes. It's just crazy, and shows what is so WRONG about our culture. Cars rule the road, absolutely. Bikes are really, bike at your own risk always, where bike lanes are either non existent or a foot wide. What cracks me up is that someone said the sidewalk is for bikes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eO9mhyTk3hY

What my friend told me about living in Amsterdam, is that people only wear helmets for their racing bikes, never the casual utility bikes you see in most of those videos. They consider it simply too much trouble and impractical, although he said children wear helmets more then adults.

[Charlotte Berry]

Here's a nice thought to end this thread I guess.

One of the best comments, and repeated in a number of places about those videos from Holland and Denmark is you don't see any fat people riding those bikes!! I'm not sure if the fat people are the ones driving the cars or what, but I bet if were to look at stats for those two countries, you would see a much lower rate and overall numbers for obesity then the USA. They probably banned McDonalds there too!

[malkin]

There's an interesting article on the helmet issue in today's WSJ

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304248704575574250616160146.html?mod=WSJ_LifeStyle_Lifestyle_5

Interesting. Pretty weak arguments against helmet use, especially when taken together:
1. Helmets are dorky.
2. Wearing helmets makes cycling look dangerous.

We are dangerously dorky.

[bikegurl]

If some of the cities in America became more bike-friendly, it would help our neighborhoods (more people being in contact with each other, instead of consumed with their little world inside their car) and I think it would have a lot of other good effects, too. Where I live, many people are extremely poor. Often their car is an ego thing. If somehow, the need to have a car was changed, it seems that it might help America's poverty-stricken neighborhoods. Having a more bike-friendly system would probably also help the obesity problem!:)

[Charlotte Berry]

Here, people see riding a bike from a store with some groceries in the front basket means only one thing. It supposed to mean you are too poor to own a car, and what usually happens is people flip you off or they shout out the window to either get a car, or get a job! It used to happen to me, so I stopped running errands with the bike. Funny thing too cause I had three cars at my disposal. Just riding a racing, Cross or MB for exercise is barely accepted. It just means they accept the fact you are likely not poor and actually are doing it for exercise, but I heard other ridicules come forth, like you actually have time to ride a bike? What don't you get a life instead?

Lot of prejudice and ignorance built into the old culture. I can't wait for Gas to hit five dollars a quart, bring it on!

[Owlie]

That stereotype--riding a bike means you're too poor to afford a car--is often true here in the eastern half of the Cleveland, especially as the public transport fares keep increasing and they keep cutting back service(another rant entirely). Either that, or you're a college/grad student who doesn't want to walk the half mile to campus and grocery store.

[emily_in_nc]

It's just sad how the car is king in the US and anyone doing anything different (riding a bike or walking) is suspect. This morning it was chilly with a light rain, so instead of our usual ride to the farmer's market and food co-op, DH and I layered up, grabbed our backpacks, and walked to the bus stop, took the free bus into town, walked some quite a ways more to the market, then turned around and came back the same way. Ended up with about 5-6 miles of walking in addition to the bus trip. The only other walkers we saw were downtown, and everyone on the bus besides us looked a bit down on their luck. Cars were everywhere, and I'm sure at least a few of the drivers wondered what in the world we were doing walking in the rain with backpacks. The only cyclists we saw were a few college students on campus.

Oh to live in a place like the Netherlands, where biking (for adults) is just considered normal.

[Charlotte Berry]

Another thing is here kids throw rocks at cyclists, and even adults throw beer cans at cyclists. I even heard cow patties were thrown at cyclists and a friend once told me he was out riding and a group of cowboys dumped a bucket of you know what on him. We cyclists get the beat down in every which way. Another thing too is if you are riding a beat up bike, cops think you are a drug dealer.

Can't win, only persevere.

[Owlie]

No one flings abuse or anything else at cyclists (at least, not that I've noticed), probably because it's a fairly common sight. Cleveland isn't wealthy (hence the "can't afford a car" cyclists), and since I live near a university with a lot of graduate and medical students, I see a fair number of bikes. Fairly minimal hostilities, probably because people are used to them.

Riding on the sidewalk is perfectly legal here (at least, in most places), so people just ride on it.

Cleveland itself is trying to become more bike-friendly. The re-vamp of one of the main streets included a bike lane, and they just painted a bike lane near me. Granted, the former disappears and reappears randomly (and you have to make sure you don't get squashed by buses!) and the latter appears to double as street parking. I'll give them points for trying. On the other hand, we had that bridge project that failed.

[Charlotte Berry]

Here, we have the new University by the lake. The whole area is very modern and progressive. Many upscale homes, and bikes fit there, as you say, exactly. However when you go outside of that cubicle, you enter the mainstream retro culture where bikes are still seen as a nuisance. I remember a few years back even a Highway Patrol officer pulled me over one day and lectured me about how bikes just don't belong on the road, can you believe it?

The more you go into the rural countryside, the more contact with farmers and ranchers who clearly see bikes as an obstacle. On the highways where are perfectly legal, a few are known as death alley or blood alley here. Known that way because of so many deaths from car crashes, but not to forget the bikes deaths either. One infamous accident claimed the lives of two couples riding tandems. A young girl was reaching down to change the tape in her music cassette player she said, and that is why she did not see or know that she hit and killed 4 people on two tandems. How tragic beyond words. So here highways are very dangerous and I never ever use them. I use to, and it was really scary. I remember truck drivers used to go out of their way to hit me and I just would run off the road, and then I would look back to them and see them laughing in the mirror of their big Mac Trucks. They weren’t really trying to kill me, but run me off the road cause they think it’s funny.

The only safe bet here is the side roads, or the country roads, but for women, they are mostly afraid to use them without company, predators, lot of field workers and Hicks driving around, not to be trusted. It's a very dicey thing for women here on bikes. I know women who said they quit riding cause they just got too many taunts out on the road. Our culture is so extremely backwards compared to the Dutch or the Danes regarding the use of bikes as both transportation and exercise. Why are we so retro Romanistic, I don't know but the good news is possibly the end of cheap oil might force a culture change, and force people onto the bikes. However in the face of the vast expanses of the USA, it does not seem practical for extreme distances. More then likely what will happen is the end of urban sprawl, and more of the close knit community thing where biking is so much more practical.

When I talked to my friend in Amsterdam, he said everything he needs, even the most extreme out of the way place for his needs is not more then ten miles away. That is the key for those who use bikes in Holland or Denmark. In American, our model is backwards. We want to stretch everything out to as far as possible. Our version of urban sprawl must end. However you should know after living in Holland most of his life, he is also concerned Holland/NL is also becoming a very crowded place.

[channlluv]

Another thing is here kids throw rocks at cyclists, and even adults throw beer cans at cyclists. I even heard cow patties were thrown at cyclists and a friend once told me he was out riding and a group of cowboys dumped a bucket of you know what on him. We cyclists get the beat down in every which way. Another thing too is if you are riding a beat up bike, cops think you are a drug dealer.

Can't win, only persevere.

Geez, Charlotte, where are you?

Roxy

[Charlotte Berry]

I'm in California too, but there is big difference between the progressive coastal way of life, and the Redneck central valley. Good Grief, even Imax couldn't cut it in the central valley cause the valley culture are just not hip like the coastal culture. On the coast there is more of a health conscious ride your bike mentality, but in the valley, it's very closed minded. People don't think much of riding their bikes cause riding out of town only offers ranches and crop fields. Not a pretty place, smoggy too, dirty filthy air. No ocean breeze in the valley! The outskirts of the valley into the foothills, even worse. Full of Rednecks and illiterate children. I used to live in the valley, hated it. Now I live in the mountains, but the people are not hip, very behind the times. Air and water is better though at 2500 feet. Here no one rides a bike because going uphill is too hard. Lots of fat people here.

[featuretile]

Charlotte, I am so amazed at what you say about the central valley. I live on the coast and there are lots of cyclists. The drivers are pretty good. I try to stay away as much as possible from the main streets and ride in the country. I did not realize how fortunate I am. I did do a ride out by Fresno on the Blossom Trail route (where they do the century when the fruit trees bloom) and did not notice any problem, but maybe they are more used to cyclists since they do have a ride out there. I also did some riding on the American River trail by Sacramento.

I don't understand why drivers would have so much animosity towards cyclists.
I hope that will change some day in all parts of the country.

[emily_in_nc]

I don't understand why drivers would have so much animosity towards cyclists.
I hope that will change some day in all parts of the country.

It will change, I think, when gas prices rise significantly enough to get a lot more people on bikes, people who perhaps looked down on adults on bikes before. Until then, I don't think we'll see any significant changes in motorist attitudes.

[Charlotte Berry]

Those rides are usually in the spring when the air is clean and the trees are in bloom. Spring is nice, pretty, but that quickly turns into a very stagnant dry hot valley with really dirty air. It's been rated as the worst in the nation at times. But consider power in numbers, safety and confidence. Riding alone is never recommended, but there is power in numbers. I think when you see the massive numbers of bikes on the road like Holland, it sends a powerful statement to everyone. There is power in numbers, and it also commands a great deal of respect versus any one lone rider. I’m not sure critical mass is the answer, as that seems offensive and standoffish. How about instead that Critical mass just divided up into smaller segments all over the city to show us how it’s done Holland style? Don’t you think that would have a much broader positive impact then a pissing contest with motorists?

[marni]

When we moved there in 1976, at that point, the population density was the same to the density that you would get if you moved the entire population of the USA into the four states of MA, NH, VT and CT. And yet in spite of that there were still tremendous amounts of green space, farm fields, nature reserves and intercity open space. They tend to go up rather than out, and even then the popular jokes were all along the lines of "the Netherlands is so small that......"

Of course that was back before the majority of the north sea oil development, and it definitely changed a bit in feel, with quite a lot of development while we were there.


When I talked to my friend in Amsterdam, he said everything he needs, even the most extreme out of the way place for his needs is not more then ten miles away. That is the key for those who use bikes in Holland or Denmark. In American, our model is backwards. We want to stretch everything out to as far as possible. Our version of urban sprawl must end. However you should know after living in Holland most of his life, he is also concerned Holland/NL is also becoming a very crowded place.[/QUOTE]

[Charlotte Berry]

Back to business tomorrow. It's been a fun thread.

See ya!