Cycling in the US from a Dutch perspective

[BikeDutchess]

Interesting perspective (watch the video at the end of this blog too): http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/06/20/us-cycling-from-a-dutch-perspective/

[PamNY]

Very interesting. And the video is worth watching.

[marni]

having ridden in the Netherlands in the "dutch style" with an oma fiets and ordinary street clothes, I thought this dutch take on US cycling was very interesting but I think the writer also missed a couple of crucial differences. In the Netherlands, the children start riding at a very early age because the infrastructure of bike paths, driver awareness , and general cultural necessity and availability. The distances arevery much compressed in the Netherlands with the total land area being equivalent to roughly the size of New England. In the US a casual ride to do errands ( unless you live in the very core of the city or very near a shopping area) can add up to 10 miles, while in the Netherlands,that distance would takeyou to the next town or village. For many years many Netherlanders did not need to own cars to get from A to B. Since everything is so compact, walking or riding a bike was common. In addition, there is a highly developed intercity bus and train system as well as and a highly developed bus and tram system within each city. Car insurance is high, the driving licence is very difficult to get and the cost of gasoline was also very high.( over 5 dollars a liter when we left in 2005) I got the feeling that the general opinion was that most people had better things to spend their money on. The uncrowded streets except in the very center of the city, were an added inducement to ride or take public transport. Most people grow up on a bike and are so used to riding balanceing and carrying loads, taking off their jackets, riding in herds,riding one and no handed, helping someone a long with a hand on the shoulder and generally being totally at home and secure on a bike that it is totally second nature to them.

It will take a while before the same condition can if ever occur here, but each little step is a good step. And another perspective is always excellent learning material.

[nuliajuk]

I have a sister in law who is from Rotterdam. You can't get her on a bike for love nor money - she felt she had her fill of it, growing up there. On the other hand, I had a Dutch co-worker, also from Rotterdam, who was an avid cyclist - but he never rode to work and wouldn't even think of riding to the store. For him, cycling was long fast highway rides on the weekend with club-mates. In lycra.
So, they might ride like that in the Netherlands, but few continue to ride like that when they move here. And if they do bring their Gazelles and Omas here, they soon discover how unsuited they are to North American distances, roads, and hills. Especially hills.

[Eden]

Yeah.. I think you'd abandon your Oma or Bakfiets pretty quickly if you moved here.... (Seattle). I tow a trailer around here occasionally and I can tell you that there are hills that it is seriously difficult for even me (rather fit, seasoned rider, bike racer and hill climber) to pull that thing up. You'd have to plan your trips very, very well or confine yourself to a rather small area to avoid coming across places that would likely stymie the type of rider she wants to encourage.

There's a guy down the street from me who takes cool old Schwinns and converts them to geared with internal rear hubs. It takes that to really make them usable around here...

Probably wouldn't be too workable where I grew up (Pittsburgh) either... but where I went to college (Rochester, NY) was dead flat. Probably would be OK in a place like that. Still a bit spread out though..

[BikeDutchess]

I didn't mean to "dump & run" when I started this thread :)

It is very true that terrain/topography has a huge impact on how "bikable" a community is, as marni articulated very well. The Netherlands is a very densely populated country, and almost all the essentials are "nearby." I still remember when I first moved to the U.S. and brought my Dutch bike - it was pretty fancy (I thought) because it had three speeds! I was shocked at how hard it was to power that thing up the hills around here. And the nearest store was far away! Didn't use that bike much, and didn't bring it with me the second time I moved here (permanently that time).

But on the other hand, you have to start somewhere and there are places in the U.S. where it not only makes sense, but is already in development and in some communities many improvements have already taken place. In my own hilly city, where 12 years ago I had things thrown at me the first day I commuted by bike, it is much more common now to see cycling commuters and noticeable efforts have been made to improve the cycling infrastructure. Room for improvement will always remain. But even where it might make sense due to terrain and population density, there remains a huge obstacle in convincing the majority of taxpayers in our car-oriented society, who still think of cycling as merely recreation, to cough up the kind of money needed for really substantial and wide-spread infrastructure changes. I expect that it will always be an uphill battle.

Here is an interesting (and encouraging) video of the flip side: Americans looking at cycling in the Netherlands (http://youtu.be/22XM8-YTC98). nuliajuk, Rotterdam is mentioned in this video as well. I got the video off this blog page, which has a couple of other fun videos to watch: http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/07/14/americans-getting-inspired-by-the-dutch/