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Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

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Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#151

Post by ramy_d »

city41 wrote: post #126
ramy_d wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it - that competition is of bike thefts for unguarded and _unlocked_ bikes. Surely it means nothing. Do people not buy bike locks in those regions? Is it typical for a 13mm+ Ulock in Amsterdam to get broken?

U locks don't deter thieves at all. If they want a bike, they will get it no matter what. Almost everyone commutes on beaters for good reason. https://www.citylab.com/navigator/2014/10/your-u-lock-is-bas...

I always heard that a small U lock[1] is always better than a larger one and I never understood why. Now i know, that modified carjack is something else.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Kryptonite-Evolution-Mini-Bike-U-Lock...

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#152

Post by mercer »

eecc wrote: post #133
avar wrote: post #47

> If anything, having a tatty, battered old > bike affords more status as it attests to > a long and lasting love. As an Amsterdam resident: What a romantic characterization of our high crime rates! Yes, the reason I still ride a shitty old beater of a bike is definitely my long lasting love for that piece of shit, it's not because I know that if I buy anything fancy I'm going to have to never take my eyes off of it,…

Sure beats paying for a car, insurance, road tax, gasoline, parking... did I forget anything? Yeah, having your bike stolen sucks, particularly if on your way back home from a night at De School but whatever... still cheaper (and healthier and fun) Get it over, or you can go live a couple years in Rome and learn what it means to live in a hideous car-infested city.

How is De School? I've been meaning to check it out and I heard it's from the people that ran the club in the Trouw building, which I kind of liked by the (relatively) mediocre Amsterdam club standards.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#153

Post by internetionals »

eugeniub wrote: post #83
wila wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno, I used to ride the bycicle to the school in the city which is 25km away from where I lived. So 50km (31 miles) a day at least. In the village where I grew up that was pretty common.

The difference then is probably widespread access to cars. With suburbs being so spread out, most people would rather drive rather than bike more than 5 miles per trip, despite the big environmental and personal health consequences.

Not necessarily. Lots of people have a car and live more than 5 kilometers from the city center or their work. But a decent amount of people take their bikes when it is under 15 kilometers.

Grocery shopping is often less than 5 kilometers, but me and my neighbours often use the car for that (eventhough often it could be done by bike).

I think the biggest reason is purely cultural. It is normal (almost expected) that kids and teenagers go to school, sport and clubs by bike. You grow up riding a bike and it is your first real "liberation" from depending on your parents for everything.

It kinda represents freedom to go where you want to go before coming of age and being allowed to drive a car. (The minimum age to get your driving license used to be 18, though recently you can get a "starters license" at 17 as long as you drive under adult supervision).

And later on you realise that often taking the car, whilst great, isn't that more practical (and certainly not as economical) as taking the bike now and again.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#154

Post by ciaranm »

bradlys wrote: post #37
ricardobeat wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you consider a long trip? In my case I cycle 6.8km each way everyday, which is probably slightly above the average.

Anything longer than 30 minutes each way is probably beyond what many people would like to spend commuting. So, that's about 4-7 miles (depending on variety of conditions). Which, I gotta say, is not very far for most Americans. Most of us commute around 15 miles each way.

I commute about 4.5km by bike(each way) twice a day, in London. It's much quicker than public transport. 12-17minutes by bike, with traffic + stop lights. I'd be looking at 30~ minutes by public transport. Even a taxi/car is likely 20 or more. Cities designed before cars are (imo) - so much nicer.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#155

Post by Mz »

InitialLastName wrote: post #99
ashark wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just look at any suburbs: the inhabitants clearly disagree with me. Some of us just have kids and have noticed that all the city housing is either incredibly expensive or in slums, and the schools in the city proper are dangerous and terrible so we'd also have to pay for private school[0]. And we're not made of money. I'd much rather live in the city—I hate the car-centric lifestyle—but living there if I have enoug…

That's a chicken-and-egg problem too... inner-city schools suck because everyone with money took their taxes to the suburbs (for better schools).

Money spent on education correlates very poorly with educational quality at k-12 level. (This may be different a the college level.) Parental involvement and other factors are much stronger indicators.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#156

Post by ramy_d »

Nanite wrote: post #121
ramy_d wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get it - that competition is of bike thefts for unguarded and _unlocked_ bikes. Surely it means nothing. Do people not buy bike locks in those regions? Is it typical for a 13mm+ Ulock in Amsterdam to get broken?

It's not competition with unguarded/unlocked bikes. In order to minimize chance of theft you're competing for least desirability and most effort to steal. Most if not all Dutch bikes are by default fitted with an O-lock, which is a good first line of defense, combined with attaching your bike to a railing/bikestand/tree with a decent hardened steel chain lock.

I heard 2 horrible things about O-locks. 1 - Every bike has them in europe, 2 - you can open them by jamming a flathead screw driver through the keyhole and twisting. Any truth to that?

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#157

Post by mercer »

Camillo wrote: post #132
vincentmarle wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Rotterdam I used to "buy" my bikes from the homeless by offering a €5 kapsalon [1] in return for a bike. As a result, I didn't care too much if this bike got stolen and never bothered locking it, allowing others to take my bike. And then I would do it all over again. In hindsight I realize I was probably wrong to contribute to this ecosystem, but the way I saw it, I was feeding the homeless to provide a social goo…

> In hindsight I was probably wrong to pay homeless people to steal bikes. :D :D :D You don't say?

Just to provide context (without justifying it!): in my student days it was completely socially accepted to buy junkie bikes. The justification, to the degree that we bothered having one, was that we all had bikes stolen multiple times.

Most people I know stopped buying junkie bikes once they started making a bit more money though, so it's still generally frowned upon. It's just culturally not quite the same as outright theft (again, I don't approve of this personally but even I once bought a probably-stolen bike once).

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#158

Post by erikpukinskis »

dghughes wrote: post #114
TulliusCicero wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bike infrastructure in most countries is generally very bad compared to car infrastructure, or even walking infrastructure. This leads to not many people cycling, which gives you a chicken and egg problem: few cyclists mean little political support for biking. For cars in the US it's the opposite: even when major cities get big enough to where cars clearly aren't scaling well anymore, cities are often reluctant to re…

>Bike infrastructure in most countries is generally very bad compared to car infrastructure... My city just created a law that motorists who don't leave a 1m gap between their vehicle and bike will be fined. The problem is the "bike lane" is just a picture of a bike on what used to be the paved shoulder, the 30cm wide paved shoulder. And the biked lane can narrow down to nothing in some places. And it often includes…

No, it absolves the forward operator of everything and blames the rearward operator for everything.

You often can't pass another motorist without going into the oncoming lane either.

The fundamental question is whether you see the road as a way for all people, or if you see it as primarily a resource for the wealthy, with the poor allowed provisional access based on their degree of disturbance to the flow of money.

You seem to see denying wealthy motorists the right to travel at their preferred speed as a more serious issue than denying the poor the right to safe travel in any form.

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#159

Post by [deleted] »

giobox wrote: post #134
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be true for finicky road bikes with skinny chains and tires, but a single speed/internally geared bike with a coaster brake and wide tires is pretty much maintenance free. People in the US obsess about how many gears they have, but a bike with a straight chainline is just so much simpler and more reliable.

I completely agree, but not all of us have the legs for single speed in the places we live - 20% inclines and a single speed with something like the typical 46/17 style ratio is not going to work for a lot of riders.

[deleted]

Re: Why is cycling so popular in the Netherlands?

#160

Post by pfranz »

ramy_d wrote: post #93
chrisseaton wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Surely it means nothing Well I guess it means that you can't leave your bike unlocked in parts of Amsterdam, which is a shame.

You can't leave your bike unlocked anywhere. Ever. At anytime. How come this isn't the initial reasoning? In fact, you can't leave anything unattended or not secured. This goes for cars, bikes, luggage, homes, i don't know what else.

I was surprised to see hundreds of unlocked bikes in Japan. Sounds like it's common over there: https://www.reddit.com/r/bicycling/comments/3loaqx/bikes_par...
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