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How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

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Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#91

Post by KozmoNau7 »

dstick wrote: post #49

Don’t believe the lies! All the pictures in this article show a sunny city with happy cyclists. Apart from the last 2 months this is demonstrably false since everyone who lives in the Netherlands knows that if starts to rain the second you get outside to grab your bike and a strong headwind will follow you relentlessly, even when you make a 180 turn. Those are the facts. Don’t believe this propaganda.

There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes :-)

It is very possible to bike year round.

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#93

Post by bluejekyll »

jseliger wrote: post #29
bluejekyll wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a dutch person I would absolutely NOT want to ride a bike in the US, it's simply too dangerous. 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 or…

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 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.

Knowing what it was like before, and how much improved it is since then, definitely shouldn’t be taken to mean that it’s ideal by any means.

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.

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#94

Post by gamegoblin »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #83
merpnderp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was turning left to park at lunch and a bicyclist blew through two stop signs at ~45mph and almost t-boned me. I had wrongly assumed he'd stop at the two stops signs and I had plenty of time. Luckily he happily pulled into oncoming traffic to swerve around me. I'm sure in the near future he'll be donating organs to some lucky recipient.

What an arrogant view. What danger were you in, almost getting hit by something with 4% your total mass, surrounded by airbags? Yes, that cyclist really deserves to die for scaring you like that.

I don't believe OP suggested that the cyclist deserves to die, but rather if the cyclist continues that behavior, the cyclist will die in a cycling accident.

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#96

Post by antisthenes »

Afton wrote: post #32
sxp62000 wrote: post #21

The Netherlands are (is?) also very flat. If you go up a tower with a viewing area in one of the bigger cities, you'll see what I mean. You can see really far in the horizon! Maybe it's just easier to bike there so more people do it?

E-bikes are flattening terrain. Source: I live in Seattle, am an avid biker, and those Lime e-bikes are everywhere . People who wouldn't dream of biking because of the hills are now out on casual errands with those things.

Unfortunately I don't get the economics of lime ebikes.

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)

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#97

Post by HarryHirsch »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #85
pasta wrote: post #50

I once drove my bike through The Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg, France and Belgium. 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.

The other thing is that Europe doesn't have nearly as many huge SUVs as America. Helps a ton with visibility, driver awareness, braking speed, and less momentum in collisions.

huge SUVs

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.

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#98

Post by gamegoblin »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #90
merpnderp wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was turning left to park at lunch and a bicyclist blew through two stop signs at ~45mph and almost t-boned me. I had wrongly assumed he'd stop at the two stops signs and I had plenty of time. Luckily he happily pulled into oncoming traffic to swerve around me. I'm sure in the near future he'll be donating organs to some lucky recipient.

This is so inaccurate, it's almost laughable. The max speed in sprints during the Tour de France [1] is 43.5mph. Unless you encountered a Tour de France rider, I doubt the cyclist blew through at ~45mph. 1: http://slocyclist.com/whats-the-average-speed-of-tour-de-fra...

If the cyclist had just descended a steep hill, being in the realm of 45mph is not at all unbelievable. I hit 35mph coasting down a very small hill on my commute every day.

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#99

Post by gameswithgo »

ptaipale wrote: post #39
Rainymood wrote: post #2

As a Dutch person I am pleasantly surprised by this article, it gets basically everything right. One thing though is that our geography works well with biking. 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. Everything is just closer and hence more bike-able. As a dutch person I would abs…

Another thing is that Netherlands (most of it) is flat. Much nicer to ride bike on even ground than where there are even small hills.

The wind there is much worse than small hills!

Re: How the Dutch created a casual biking culture

#100

Post by gameswithgo »

neals wrote: post #26

It isn't all fun and games. I had to ride the bike to school for 5 years. Over in the neighbouring city. A 45 minute ride. Alone. Through wind, rain, wind and wind. And rain. That's also part of the culture, because it's safe and ok to send kids, 12 years old, on their own, in the dark over unlit forest roads. Through the wind. Also wind. Saves on bus fare. Which is also typically Dutch. I don't own a bike any more.

This reminds me of latvian potato jokes. Perhaps we need dutch wind jokes. Probably the dutch already have this.

Also wind.

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