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Comment by jacquesm | Hacker News Reader

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jacquesm·

> Come to Portland and you'll see what a real biker-friendly city is.

Come to Amsterdam instead.

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Amsterdam is 5,448 miles from SF.

Portland is 635 miles from SF

Amsterdam is 8.57 times further away than Portland

In my personal estimate, Amsterdam's bike friendliness is about 6 times that of Portland.

Therefore, it still makes more sense on a bang-for-buck basis, for an SF resident to check out Portland vs Amsterdam.

I'll throw in the 'more fun' factor then, which by my estimate is at least 20 ;)

I'm not so sure about that. There are some biker dedicated "highways" in Portland, and even a large bridge that is off-limits to cars.

I've been to Amsterdam several times, while I agree it's more fun, it's definitely not 20 times as fun. I'd say 6 is about right.

Hm, still 3 to go then. Guess I won't be buying you dinner then! But if you ever do make it past that hurdle let me know and consider yourself invited.

come to Portland, we'll ride around, and I'll buy you a beer. I think you'll change your mind

Indeed, Amsterdam is so biker-friendly that it is a hazard to pedestrians!

That's a good point actually, but the scooters are far more dangerous to both pedestrians and cyclists than the cyclists are to the pedestrians. Most pedestrian-cyclist collisions end with a 'sorry' or a bunch of cursing, rarely with an ambulance.

Yes! The Dutch should really ban bromfiets from the bike lanes.

Didn't Amsterdam have a "park it anywhere" bike share system about ~20 years ago? The white bikes, which if memory serves mostly ended up in pieces, in the canals, chained up to people's front steps, or repainted and sold by drug addicts for next to nothing.

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