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Berlin's Plan to Become a City for Cyclists

citylab.com

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Re: Berlin's Plan to Become a City for Cyclists

#81

Post by sbierwagen »

comicjk wrote: post #78
sliverstorm wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe your parent is alluding to the fact that if you are regularly active & get exercise, biking at an easy pace on flat land in good weather won't even cause you to break a sweat, whereas if you sit on the couch all day it will. (Hopefully don't need a source for this)

I would certainly like a source. As far as I can see, the only way to sweat less over time would be to lose weight. A more-conditioned cyclist still does the same amount of work and thus produces the same amount of heat. Source: from the Washington Post, "athletes tend to sweat sooner and more." https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/wellness/sweat-its-...

I've been bike commuting in Seattle for ten years and I don't sweat during my commute, except on my way home during the summer.

Re: Berlin's Plan to Become a City for Cyclists

#82

Post by kqr »

kazinator wrote: post #58
sharpercoder wrote: post #4

I was in Valencia (Spain) a few weeks back. This city is one of the most ideal cities I have been to for cycling; flat, perfect climate, riverbed running right through the middle of the city, spacious roads and high density. One of the inhabitants told me they dedicated cycling lanes a year back or so. That was visible: They had painted bicycle lanes right over roads & pedestrian areas. I guess when the Valencian peo…

If the cycling commute is flat, it has to be long to get decent exercise, because you have to apply a flat-out effort and you cover a lot of ground. If my bike commute were flat, I'd prefer to be some 14 miles from work rather than the current 7. Or else I would have to run it (more often). To me, what would make an area ideal for cycling (if it has good roads and such) is: dry climate. No rain, no snow.

People often seem to miss this. In many ways, cycling is a terrible form of exercise precisely because it is such an efficient mode of transport.

Re: Berlin's Plan to Become a City for Cyclists

#83

Post by pg314 »

ekianjo wrote: post #48
AndyMcConachie wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Dutchie with no kids I must kindly disagree with you. Go to any Dutch city and you will see tons of parents riding on bikes with their kids. It's common to see 1 adult and 2 kids on the same bike.

Go to any city thats not flat and you will soon find bikes to be unpractical for about everything.

I live in a city that is not flat. If you have a bicycle with gears that is no problem.

Re: Berlin's Plan to Become a City for Cyclists

#84

Post by dirktheman »

kazinator wrote: post #58
sharpercoder wrote: post #4

I was in Valencia (Spain) a few weeks back. This city is one of the most ideal cities I have been to for cycling; flat, perfect climate, riverbed running right through the middle of the city, spacious roads and high density. One of the inhabitants told me they dedicated cycling lanes a year back or so. That was visible: They had painted bicycle lanes right over roads & pedestrian areas. I guess when the Valencian peo…

If the cycling commute is flat, it has to be long to get decent exercise, because you have to apply a flat-out effort and you cover a lot of ground. If my bike commute were flat, I'd prefer to be some 14 miles from work rather than the current 7. Or else I would have to run it (more often). To me, what would make an area ideal for cycling (if it has good roads and such) is: dry climate. No rain, no snow.

I'm Dutch. The Netherlands is one of the most bicycle-dense countries in the world, and we have a, well, less than ideal climate to say the least. Rain, wind or snow really isn't that much of an issue when you have the right outfit.

Re: Berlin's Plan to Become a City for Cyclists

#85

Post by _Codemonkeyism »

delackner wrote: post #79
_Codemonkeyism wrote: post #72

Berlin is a very bad place for cyclists right now. The governing SPD is a car maker party, always was and always will be. Working in Wedding near my work where the SPD governed since forever there is a bicycle lane on the pavement but unmarked for a decade with countless run ins with pedestrians. After doing nothing for 50 years there was a referendum and the SPD did a 180 and painted themselves as a cyclist party. S…

I’m curious if you have seen more about the plans the article discusses? Talk of proper physical segregation of bike traffic using bollards sounds very nice. Copenhagen’s concrete curb separating bike lanes from car lanes is the gold standard I hope to see more places adopt.

Copenhagen is a dream, whenever I'm there I admire the bicycle infrastructure.

Berlin often cites Copenhagen for their plans, but call me a pessimist, as this would mean taking away streets from cars, I can't see a lot of this happening. It was mostly to get the SPD voted into power.

Re: Berlin's Plan to Become a City for Cyclists

#86

Post by kayoone »

I did about 5000km in Berlin traffic by bike in the last 2 1/2 years and i can't count how often car drivers would have hit me without me paying close attention and having good breaks. At least every second day someone will cut into the bike lane while turning, not pay enough attention when turning right on crossings or underestimate speeds. Granted, i am not moving slow, and i drive a car myself and know that it is sometimes really hard to see bikes coming from everywhere so i accept these risks as normal, but improvements to the infrastructure would be awesome, since in many places it really is not great or outright dangerous. I recently visited Copenhagen and the bike infrastructure was amazing to see, however the city is 1/5th of Berlins size and there just is not a lot of car traffic.

Re: Berlin's Plan to Become a City for Cyclists

#87

Post by ThankYouByeBye »

kazinator wrote: post #58
sharpercoder wrote: post #4

I was in Valencia (Spain) a few weeks back. This city is one of the most ideal cities I have been to for cycling; flat, perfect climate, riverbed running right through the middle of the city, spacious roads and high density. One of the inhabitants told me they dedicated cycling lanes a year back or so. That was visible: They had painted bicycle lanes right over roads & pedestrian areas. I guess when the Valencian peo…

If the cycling commute is flat, it has to be long to get decent exercise, because you have to apply a flat-out effort and you cover a lot of ground. If my bike commute were flat, I'd prefer to be some 14 miles from work rather than the current 7. Or else I would have to run it (more often). To me, what would make an area ideal for cycling (if it has good roads and such) is: dry climate. No rain, no snow.

you can ride fat bike

Re: Berlin's Plan to Become a City for Cyclists

#88

Post by aaron-lebo »

kqr wrote: post #82
kazinator wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the cycling commute is flat, it has to be long to get decent exercise, because you have to apply a flat-out effort and you cover a lot of ground. If my bike commute were flat, I'd prefer to be some 14 miles from work rather than the current 7. Or else I would have to run it (more often). To me, what would make an area ideal for cycling (if it has good roads and such) is: dry climate. No rain, no snow.

People often seem to miss this. In many ways, cycling is a terrible form of exercise precisely because it is such an efficient mode of transport.

You can burn 700-800 calories riding for 20 miles or about 1 1/2 hours.

I wouldn't walk that much (hours of walking) or run that much (a lot harder on the body), so to me it's really great exercise.

That's also why I find kazinator's post a bit exaggerated. That dude's burning through a lot of calories every week. You can eat a lot of ice cream (personal experience) and still lose weight if you're doing 14 miles every day.

Re: Berlin's Plan to Become a City for Cyclists

#89

Post by ThankYouByeBye »

ThankYouByeBye wrote: post #87
kazinator wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the cycling commute is flat, it has to be long to get decent exercise, because you have to apply a flat-out effort and you cover a lot of ground. If my bike commute were flat, I'd prefer to be some 14 miles from work rather than the current 7. Or else I would have to run it (more often). To me, what would make an area ideal for cycling (if it has good roads and such) is: dry climate. No rain, no snow.

you can ride fat bike

ride a heavy fat steel bike with both front and back suspension and low tyre pressure and tyre treading for slowing the speed. Sit upright and keep the seat position low for inefficient pedalling.

Re: Berlin's Plan to Become a City for Cyclists

#90

Post by Svip »

Another important point often missed in these discussions is training. If you take a driving licence in Denmark, a big part of the training is how to deal with bicyclists. I have also taken a bus driving licence in Denmark, and there it becomes an even bigger thing.

Like counting bicyclists as you approach a junction you wish to turn right, placing the bus correctly, so you can see the bicyclists coming towards you in the right mirror.

Generally speaking, most other European countries don't have this extensive training on how to deal with bicyclists for drivers, so bicyclists are naturally told to watch out for cars on foreign plates (with the exception of Dutch plates, I suppose). And since their local environment don't usually have cyclists, drivers don't get to deal with it on a daily basis.

One thing is building the infrastructure, another is getting everyone else on board.

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