Paris cycling numbers double in one year thanks to investment
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You now even get to see some congestion on bike lanes (Bd Sebastopol for instance), because they are too many cyclist on an older (and thus too narrow) bike lane.
This change, the new subway lanes, and the reduction of car usage in the city make the city much more enjoyable on a day to day basis, especially for pedestrians as cyclists are less annoying than drivers.
It's now up to the point that i rather wait for commute hours to be over before i take my bike to that side.
As an American pedestrian I find cyclists far worse on average than drivers. They far more often ignore traffic signs and I have seen multiple collisions including one that looked quite serious, though luckily no fatalities.
On a per person basis my personal annoyance scale goes subway riders have least impact, followed by busses, normal pedestrians, cars, joggers, then cyclists at the top. Obviously cars are quite dangerous but they are more predictable. Bikes and joggers seem to spend a lot of time looking at traffic not who they are going to run into.
Edit: To be clear I think this would improve as more average people start cycling.
Hundreds of people riding bikes to work. And as quiet as the wilderness behind my house in the rural USA. I could hear the wind in the trees, and that was it. Maybe a little drivetrain noise from a poorly maintained bike here or there.
I desperately want to live in a city that quiet. Back when I lived in NYC practically every environment was an assault on the ears.
These collisions are mostly at intersections, which aren't avoidable on a flat surface you would need to go 3D.
I'm in favor of raised sidewalks for pedestrians, but they are relatively pricey infrastructure.
Edit: > That no fatalities bit is the crucial part.
Globally I think the rates are quite a bit lower. But in the US it's closer than it might seem based on how many more drivers there are than cyclists. Cyclist only kill about 4 pedestrians per year in the US, but cyclists are also vastly less common especially on a per mile basis. https://www.nationalworld.com/news/politics/pedestrians-kill...
To be clear I don't this says as much about bikes as it does the biased population of people currently using them.
So yes cars kill ~7,000 pedestrians per year vs ~4 (2013-2020) for bikes, but normalize the numbers and bikes are also very dangerous in the US especially on a per mile basis. https://www.nationalworld.com/news/politics/pedestrians-kill...
https://www.statista.com/chart/17194/pedestrian-fatalities-i...
What's remarkable is that cars kill thousands of pedestrians _even after we've greatly reduced the frequency of walking_. If the pool were full of sharks then deaths by shark would quickly fall to 0 of course since nobody would swim anymore!
https://nypost.com/2019/08/31/nyc-bicyclists-are-killing-ped...
I've had food thrown at me by motorists when I'm in dedicated bike lanes.
I've been buzzed by trucks and buses while in bike lanes.
I see cars regularly use the bike lane outside my house to make aggressive passes of slower auto traffic.
Pedestrians have been killed crossing the streets near my house. All by cars, not bicycles.
Cars regularly kill animals. And not just squirrels, but raptors and fox and other predators we don't want to lose.
And on and on. We all have our anecdotes. The answer is dedicated infrastructure for a range of transportation.
You don't live in Boston, I see.
To the other responder, I agree that cars are frequently assholes to cyclists, but how is that relevant to cyclists abusing pedestrians?
I also find these complaints interesting, considering that it's generally considered the norm to drive about 10% above the speed limit, and especially pedestrians are happy to cross traffic lights at red all the time.
https://www.quadlockcase.com.au/blogs/news/8-key-facts-about...
https://www.udv.de/resource/blob/79324/c290c92fc2f0712187c0d... (sorry German)
Now of course as a cyclist, I applaud all this new infrastructure but I'm wondering if there's a way to appease this growing atmosphere of violence (and I'm not exagerating, I've seen several fights break out between motorists and cyclists). Given the very limited space available in Paris centre, I don't really see an easy way unfortunately...
Curious if that's also something you noticed / experienced ?
Bicycles take less space than cars, both on road and when parked, don't they? A four-lane bicycle highway is as wide as one-lane car road. If anything, people switching from cars to bicycles should produce more free space for the city, not less.
Am I missing something?
I knew absolutely nobody living in Paris driving to another location in Paris. It's always been metro first, bicycle sometime. Almost all of the passenger car you see in Paris are people driving from the suburb.
I see shouting matches at least once a week, angry drivers honking on streets they can't even pass a bicycle... And isolated infrastructure is not always possible...
I feel this has become another part of some culture war, where I just don't have a license and drive my kids around in a bicycle (I don't want to drive a car) so I'm some angry green extremist out to annoy every driver out there...
The influx of slower and less inexperienced riders with the (correct) mentality of "I have the right to cycle as slowly as I feel safe to", vs the previous (incorrect, but accepted) mentality of "keep up with traffic or pull over" amongst riders, made my cycle commute less efficient.
But it's better now. People learn, the city adjusts, attitudes change.
I visited in 2008 and while it was a great city then I definitely wouldn't have been as quick to take kids along for a bike ride.
Or did you somehow bring one with you?
One challenge with cargo bikes is transport - They're not allowed on trains (understandably) and carrying one on a car roof is a pretty big undertaking. This guy documented how, though! https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UBGT_eE4q0dJZWZrOoBdM80b...
I also remember 20 years ago, when a car was a normal way to move around in Paris. It hasn't been the case for several years for me now.
Around 2019/2020, something important happened: the critical mass for bicycle infrastructure was crossed, and nearly overnight a lot of people started cycling (no doubt helped by 2019 strikes and 2020 covid lanes). Since then, bicycles are a common sight everywhere.
I had to laugh out loud at this, please define "less annoying".
As a daily cyclist in Paris my very own statistics say that about 95% of them (yes, that's NINETY FIVE percent) are either color blind, suicidal or willfully ignore the most basic rule, aka red lights. And yes that include M12 signs which have arrows indicating directions in which running the red light is authorized, that is ignored as well. Breaking these 95% down into categories, the vast majority would be delivery guys - you can easily imagine their "excuse" - and (usually young) idiotic morons on bikeshares (Vélib, Dott, Lime, etc) who therefore do not own the bikes and therefore care even less. I'm especially angry at parents on cargo bikes who run red lights with kids with them, this is not only suicidal, it's borderline criminal. But, you know, they are saving the planet, or something.
So I kinda disagree with the "less annoying", cyclists in Paris are the reason why everybody in Paris hates cyclists.
The in my experience difference is enforcement. A higher proportion of cyclists believe they will get away with breaking rules and so you see much more of it. Once it’s a norm to sneak around that corner or cross that road then other rule breaking follows.
This can only be fixed with enforcement. It can be ameliorated with infrastructure and more permissive rules where appropriate but the only way to make cyclists less annoying is enforcement.
EDIT: I say this as someone who very rarely drives and even then only outside of the city.
Because of the fast pace, of course not everything is perfect but we have to celebrate this as much as we can.
Currently, a lot of people need to drive to get to an area they would walk. Everything is very spread out.
Of course, I can also drive almost anywhere with them.
A bike path is easier to drop in than rebuilding entire cites and relocating the entire population around those walkable areas. Bike paths take years, consolidating urban sprawl would take decades, even if the political will existed.
The best way to do this is to install public transport and facilitate bike use.
That's interesting because the article says the opposite, that supply (mostly) proceeds demand when it comes to mobility infrastructure. The fact that demand is showing so readily indicates there is much unrealized potential there.
One of the most common examples I know of is building a metro line to "nowhere" (e.g. a few stops past where it ends) - in 5-10 years that will be a bustling area because now it's connected.
This year I started seeing a significant amount of cargo bikes, the things that I had only seen in the Nederland before.
I don't know when the growth will stop, but it's already beyond what I could even imagine back then.
- many intersection are very poorly signaled if you are riding a bike (not sure for cars is much better) and old bike lanes setups put you in weird situations (ex: bike lane changing from "outside" of the road to "inside" of the road, without clear way to change from one to another)
- there is quite few temporary parking space for personal bikes. Velib works great until there is a rush hour and you either can't find bikes or a parking spot.
It takes decades (emphases on plural) in most places. Having seen it happen to my hometown from the start of the '90s until about halfway though the '10s as an example. And that was with a head start since in some places it was already done well. And that was in the often mentioned cyclist's Valhalla.
I’m confused by this analogy. Are cars Valkyries in this case, taking the souls of bikers off to Valhalla?
e.g. I was cycling home at night once when kids threw a brick at my head...
The US is headed on the path of autonomous vehicles as the solution. It's the perfect combination of things our society loves: 1) No new public investment. 2) Continuous, end-to-end air conditioning
The rest of the US is just going to double down on sprawl.
They have very different norms in Europe that Americans might confuse as crazy but are actually better habits IMO. E.g drivers in Florence and Rome followed few rules and basically drive by the “if it fits, it fits” manta. But they were always keenly aware of pedestrians and other drivers. They drive very light cars in streets where they can’t get above 15 mph. Even if they do get into more fender-benders, I’m not very concerned about a fiat hitting my car at 15mph. In short, their way of driving is safer and I feel much more comfortable around it.
Americans on the other hand seem to prefer deadly speeds in giant vehicles even in neighborhoods. My current neighborhood regularly sees F150s and King Ranches going 55+mph, on neighborhood streets. I saw a driver last year hit a dog they should have clearly seen and avoided because they were going about 45 mph and on their phone, they didn’t even slow down after they hit the dog. Americans regularly pretend pedestrians and obstacles don’t exist at all, and have way worse reaction times than what I saw living in Europe. Combined with the high speeds and heavy cars, driving is comfortable for the driver and terrifying for everyone else on and around the roads.
I also wouldn’t compare these American cities infrastructure to most European cities of the late 2010s. Excepting possibly NYC, which is sort of its own league in the US. Maybe they are comparable to the European cities of the 90s, but things have moved on a lot since then.
I hope you're joking. it's very rare to see a highway wider than 6 lanes in Europe, especially that runs through cities, whilst the aforementioned cities have a abundance of such monstrosities.
This is sorta true in part (in some places) because other options like walk/bike/bus/train have been so disinvested that in many places you really do need to own a car to get around with any level of dignity.
It does seem to be changing on larger US cities though, so I’m hopeful.
I dont think Americans care for the current road monopoly states have, or the monopolistic tolls and enforcement.
The idea of freedom of movement isn't really a European-centric ideal - its more uniquely American and derived from being a nation derived from those escaping injustices of Europe and searching freedom and liberty.
With the history of Europe being based in serfdom - peasants being forced to work their lord's land for protection - the idea of freedom of movement never really seemed to be of importance.
Those who deemed it important probably emigrated from Europe to America.
Car dependent societies don't allow many choices, you are restricted to only choosing a car for transportation.
Regarding it being an "American thing", Germany was the first country to build highways, and currently the highways there (Autobahn) don't even have a speed limit, so you could say that they provide more freedom of movement than the roads in the US.
The Autobahn was constructed for a similar goal as of the Interstate highway system - to act as a transportation backbone for the military during conflict. The fact that it's grown to what it is today is because it was built with free money (for the cities and states building them) and it became one of the safest ways to travel long distances without having to spend a lot of money.
Regardless, there's a lot more freedom to a car than a politically charged public transit system tied to a social credit score or even economic ability to pay whatever arbitrary fare exists. While cars do cost money, they also tended to keep going with a lot of abuse, and aren't tied to how politicians think of you.
Are cars cool? Absolutely. Are they some kind of freedom machines? As much as oil companies and car (excuse me - freedom machine) manufacturers would say otherwise, no.
So while infrastructure investment has helped (not to mention some nice tax write-offs and discounts on e-bikes), there are some other issues here. I like bikeable Paris a lot, but the ecological goals of this city's mayor demand much more investment in the city and regional authority's mass transit. It is unreasonable to expect commuters to bike in from many kilometers away. Biking inside Paris upon arrival should be the desired end result. Ultimately to get the cars off the roads, people need to feel good on mass transit so that they want to use it more than a car, and the impression I have right now is that many people are biking because it's better than sweating in filthy, delayed trains.
To that effect, riding a bike is and should be a delight -- not a mere alternative to defunct metro transit, but I know many who are terrorized or disgruntledby biking in Paris. To solve this intractable issue of getting more riders, cars have to be removed from the streets which need to be progressively closed to make room for more bike infrastructure. These kinds of plans well face strident criticism and backlash from the suburbanite commuters. In that vein, I am totally for the Grand Paris Express plan. Make Paris great for Parisians again!
That's great, but kind of obvious that if you build out dedicated bike lanes, cyclists are more likely to prefer them to alternate routes.
In most places I’ve been, the city will paint a line on a road where cars are going 50mph and call it a bike lane. There is no chance that will get me to start riding a bike. All it does it make the road worse for cars, by making it more narrow, or more likely, losing a lane.
One place I lived did get a protected bike lane going right in front of the building. I still didn’t use it, as it wasn’t really connected to anything else. Everywhere along the route I’d go, I’d simply walk. It wasn’t that far. Everything has to start somewhere, and I hope they build more, but so far drivers see problems without any payoff.
The worst of it was during the pandemic. There were construction barrels all over the city. It was hell to get around by car. I figured they were preparing for construction and ripping up the road. I found out a year later that the barrels were meant to create temporary protected bike lanes so people could get out and ride around to places during the pandemic. Cool… if there has been a single sign to tell people that’s what it was. Instead, it just made drivers mad, and the lanes weren’t used, because people didn’t know what they were for. More space taken from cars with no payoff in terms of reducing traffic through increased biking.
I want good bike infrastructure, but the plans and efforts I keep seeing still don’t seem that good. The useful paths are dangerous and the safe paths aren’t that useful.
That's not obvious at all; it's not even true. It's not uncommon in US cities to install long, wide bike lanes on major roads which see close to 0 daily users. Significant problems include:
- complete lack of physical barriers between cars and bikes
- bike lanes terminating at dangerous roads
- density is still low and there are dangerous parking lots at every destination
- bike lanes are exposed to direct sunlight in 100F+
- a non-trivial number of American drivers need extremely little push to intentionally hurt or kill bibcyclists
I dont count that as dedicated bike infrastructure.
But if we talk about all bicycle infrastructure, which is a conversation useful to have, it is clear from the multiple issues I pointed out (not limited to lack of physical separation) that simply building bike infrastructure ad-hoc and without holistic change is not useful.
Any real conversation about bike infrastructure would need to start with recognize a political line in the road is not real bike infrastructure any more than Amtrak using freight lines is a real passenger rail route.
Any conversation about expanding bike infrastructure needs to acknowledge existing bad bike infrastructure and common bad techniques in order to explain why we can't expect results if we use them again. Otherwise, they'll just get used again and waste more money. If all you say is "You literally have no bike infrastructure" to a city that literally has spent money and effort creating (bad) bike infrastructure, I don't see how that's helpful.
Not really, here in Poland there are new bike lanes, but they go far from the city, so if you need to commute you end up going around the city to finish in a bottleneck when you are approaching the center. So, want it or not, you end up using the alternate routes.
[1]: https://www.iledefrance-mobilites.fr/en/the-network/mobility...
Even though they lack some of the benefits of a simple bicycle, they drive the same infrastructure development that I need.
People are under the impression that things "are just the way they are" in the US, but it is very much a political choice to not dedicate more funding to keeping people on bicycles safe from automobiles.
Some of it is ignorance but a lot of it is not, and a continuing car-centric world is just their well understood and sincerely held value.
Like, if you like driving cars, a place like the Netherlands is great for it because you spend more time actually driving and not standing in traffic(because most people are out on bikes and not in cars).
As a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8RRE2rDw4k
Each car (often an SUV or a pickup truck) typically only has one passenger. Each bike also typically only has one passenger. But in the space of one car at a stoplight, you can fit 3 to 5 cyclists.
This is setting aside all other considerations - urban design, air pollution, land and property value, tax revenue, health, neighborhood cohesion, etc. Roads without provision for transit and non-motorized travel don't even do the job of a road well.
Oh The Urbanity had a good video on this, "What People Get Wrong About Induced Demand":
> In this video we explain why induced demand does apply to transit, walking, and cycling infrastructure, but with different consequences.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wlld3Z9wRc
Transit, for example, can get better with more ridership: more train capacity is added to a line, and more frequent service may occur for better throughput. Both actions would improve service for each individual rider, so while while one may not want it "crowded", having it busy is good. While with roads, an individual driver may want enough traffic so that a street exists, any traffic beyond that would probably only slow you down.
There are also externalities: more walking, cycling, transit reduces pollution and can improve individual health and the collective health of the population. Driving does the opposite.
EDIT: ok, ok, I guess e-bikes it is. Still there are cities like Copenhagen and Amsterdam where everyone bikes everywhere and they don’t all have e-bikes. Do they just bring multiple changes of clothes everywhere?
The amount of sweat is only correlated to the amount of heat generated.
Only way to counter sweating is to dress appropriately and/or ride slower.
I’m no expert, but that’s demonstrably not true. Evidence being two fit cyclists riding the same route, and one is visibly more sweaty than the other.
Also how much you sweat is a trained response. This is why athletes do heat training before hot events. There is more to it than some oversimplified physics based equation. It’s a biological system.
All these things are much more significant when going from someone who basically never cycles or exercises, to someone who does. It is less significant in pros, so keep that in mind if you are looking at studies of “trained cyclists”. Law of diminishing returns.
You could say that I do that every season(well, I walk all year round at least) and my observation is that there's maybe a short period of increased unnecessary movements that I do which produce more sweat, but after two weeks, when I relearn the right movements, it plateaus and sweating is just proportional to energy used - it's lower, but still there.
In any case I noticed that I would need to go frustratingly slow to be appropriately fresh for an office. Even at my leisurely pace of 15km/h I change my shirt when I get back from a ride, because it's simply uncomfortable otherwise.
I’ve always been an athlete from when I was a competitive athlete in my college days (cross-country running) but I’ve always sweated a lot more than average and it’s not correlated with my fitness. I’ve always been slim and fit and I’ve often noticed that I sweat a lot more than people whom I’m beating in races! That is, I can be fitter and faster than someone and still sweat more.
On the flip side, I am extremely cold resistant and when others are chilly and need to wear a sweater or coat, I don’t need it. My body just seems to run hotter than others, for better or worse.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9460081/
Adaptations include decreases in HR, internal body temperature, skin temperature, rating of perceived exertion (RPE), and sweat sodium and chloride concentrations, as well as increases in plasma volume and sweat rate.
Sweat rate. Sweat rate is a training adaptation. Thus we would say sweating is a trained response.
Yes, I have no doubt you are very sweaty. That doesn’t mean that sweatiness isn’t a trained response though.
And if you read the study and look at the results, after the heat training the average “sweatiness” was higher, not lower.
The whole point of this debate was that you can’t train yourself to sweat less, and I am still right in that assertion.
I’ve noticed that I sweat a “lot” more than people who are much less fit than I am.
My family is full of heavy sweaters, and I live in states where it gets into the 80s-90s in the summer. My girlfriend however seems to never sweat, even when pushing herself.
Admittedly, I struggle to maintain a "casual speed."
As an aside, when I started cycling I sweat a lot more than I do now. It is a mild form of exercise, after all. Once you get used to it, cycling at a leisurely pace takes less energy than walking.
Pay special attention to the "Chance of Muggy Conditions" chart.
The point is not that cycling is impossible but that it's attractiveness is highly variable depending on local/daily conditions, since you are exposed to the elements. Less consistency in conditions means the entire form of transportatin is percieved as unreliable.
The remaining 10% of the time is for just straight up unpleasant weather that catches you by surprise. For example, if I bike to work in the morning and there's a huge rainstorm when I would bike home in the afternoon. When that happens, I just leave my bike at the office and catch a bus home. Or Lyft if I'm feeling especially impatient.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20231220-why-oulu-finland...
Very likely issue here is that people who are used to cycle for sport only are not used to bike for transport. They don't do equivalent of walk, they do equivalent of run. So they get sweaty, because they race.
I've never biked anywhere that's super hot and humid and sunny like Orlando in the Summer. Theoretically, the wind from biking should help evaporate your sweat before you get "sweaty" - but it's got to be easier to get swamp ass in Houston than Amsterdam.
I think the climate would matter somewhat.
I’m in decent shape, but will sweat at a resting heart rate in a Southern US summer.
You get:
1. Faster trip, so less time to sweat
2. Faster speed, so more cooling, so less sweating overall.
3. Less exertion, so less generated heat by body.
Although if you live in a hot AND humid climate, I'm afraid there's just not much you can do. There are physical limits after all.
Think beach cruiser bikes not guys in spandex on race bikes
After some experimenting I found that my condition would be acceptable if I just change my t-shirt when I arrive.
My role was just your average dev so grooming requirements are a bit less than customer facing roles.
Also its all about temp management. I’d ware clothes that can be easily removed mid-journey so I can manage my temperature. Airy exercise t-shirts can cool you so well that if you don’t strain yourself too much you can avoid sweating altogether.
I think you meant "exertion". I did giggle like a child though (very sorry).
in that case, get an electric bike :)
I also like to find my bicycle where I left it. Which is not an option in many cities.
> I honestly don’t know but there are so many cities where people bike everywhere so there must be a solution
People have less and less money to spend on a car and fuel/electricity. Many are using bicycles not by choice but because they're broke. And it shows when you see the kind of bicycle they ride.
My car is an extension of my house and although I'll take public transports once in a while (public transports are free in my country), there's no way I'll bicycle everywhere.
Add to that that I do actually bicycle with a MTB, from point A to point A, with a 5-digit $$$ bicycle and there's no way I could possibly enjoy riding a shittier bike. And due to the insecurity (thieving scums), there's no way I can leave my bicycle anywhere in the city (gone in 60 seconds would be an understatement).
Same for my neighbor: he'll do 50 kilometers+ a day on his bicycle, but from point A to point A, with a roadbike.
Don't get me started as to when I was living in a rural area, with the closest highway being a 45 minutes (car) drive: I'd rant about how practical bicycles are there.
I just don't get it and I don't think I can get along with people who wants to put us all on bicycles and I don't think people who want to get us all on bicycles could get along with me. And I'm fine with that.
I'd be careful to assume people's social/financial status based on the bicycle they ride. Where I'm from, you get the cheapest bike possible not because you cannot afford something else, but because eventually it'll get vandalized or stolen, so if you only spent 20 EUR on the bike, it won't hurt as much to replace it with another 20 EUR bike.
Personally I’d rather spend my money on more interesting things than car ownership and maintenance.
You are creating a strawman though, people like me want urbanites/city dwellers to become cyclists because it's better for everyone living in a city.
If you live in a rural area where you need to go 10-20km to find a grocery store, yeah, it's not that practical to only rely on a bike. If you live in a dense-ish city where you can bike some 15 minutes to get to almost all of your daily needs, and with a 30 min ride you can get to 80% of your needs in a year then yeah, I will try to convince you that a bike is more practical for your day-to-day than driving the odd 3-4 km to get somewhere (and paying for parking, fuel, polluting the city, etc.), it's just stupid to drive this short if you don't really need it (e.g.: carrying big/heavy loads, being disabled, etc.).
It's odd to see this kind of overreaction to something that simply is better for your health, for the other residents of the city. It's odd to see how defensive car-centric people get by the suggestion that maybe more people cycling, and governments taking action to create infrastructure for it, will be overall better for a city. Even if you prefer to drive it'll be better for you.
Just don't create a strawman to distill your reactionary take, it always sounds like a whining child feeling their toy will be taken away... That's not the point.
> You are creating a strawman though, people like me want urbanites/city dwellers to become cyclists because it's better for everyone living in a city.
In my experience what people like the OP really mean by "I don't like that cyclist want to put us all on bikes", is that they want infrastructure to be catered for their car use (paid by the everyone), e.g. they say they can't use a bike because they (want to) live rural (rural infrastructure is heavily subsidised by city dwellers btw), but want to be able to drive into the city (despite city dwellers wanting less cars and more bikes). Thus they complain about "cyclist forcing everyone to bike".
Maybe in your place.
In my place (a big city in Belgium) people just use whatever bike they have that works and fix it up from time to time, but as long as it rides few people care how it looks. Especially since less shiny bikes don't attract thieves as much (although this isn't a big problem here).
I use my bike because driving in traffic is longer and the trip to school with the kids and back home would take 20-30 minutes depending on traffic, while it takes almost exactly 15 minutes by bike (with the kids in a trailer).
I use one of two bikes depending on where I parked my car (which I use once or twice a week to go to places with bad public transit. Otherwise it's parked somewhere within a 10 minutes walk radius, wherever I found space) and one of them looks like I fished it out of the river, the paint is gone in many places, but it's lighter. The other looks nice but it's quite old and heavy steel so I tend to use it less.
I also use my bike (the heavy one, I figure if I want to do exercise, the whole point is to do some actual efforts) for 50 to 100 kilometre round-trips, although less so these days, it was nicer when I lived closer to the countryside between France and Belgium.
But the most important thing is I hate the noise of cars in the city. I want to be able to walk with someone and talk in the street without having to shout or stop while a loud vehicle passes. I don't care about cars themselves, after all they're on their streets doing their things, if they take twice as long as I do to get somewhere it's not my problem. I just want their noise to be gone.
Dodging cars, taking gaps, sprinting at lights, constantly looking around... are all things that make you sweaty. Plus cars kick up a load of road grime and water (when it rains).
Comparing cycling on pleasant infrastructure to cycling on roads is a bit like comparing walking and running. They're similar activities, but the level of exertion is quite different!
In NL, they cycle with umbrellas. In Tokyo, rain ponchos are a common choice.
There's also this mentality in the anglo-sphere of commuting on a racing bike with a backpack. This choice is somewhat driven by the infrastructure, since you need to be fast and agile around traffic. However, in countries with developed cycle infrastructure, people tend to use upright bikes with baskets, racks and fenders. This makes one much less sweaty when riding!
It depends how tolerant you are, personally I consider a little sweat to be a fairly small thing in regard to the other hardships life will throw at you, and a very small price to pay to save thousands of euros of a lot of stress.
There is no magic bullet but make sure you eat clean and stay hydrated it helps with sweat smell, dress for the ride and not for the destination, a well ventilated outfit does wonder. I personally don't sweat much so it's ok, my gf gets more sweaty and it can definitely be annoying
This strategy along with suitable clothes will help for moderate climates. If you are heading out into 95 and up weather there will be sweat though.
I’ve also had the benefit of a shower at work which really changed the game, but that is a luxury.
2. get an ebike
3. don't live that far away from everything (I do everything by bike, but all daily things are max. 15 min away
4. don't live in Mexico
5. don't race / take your time. Average (non-sporty) cyclist goes 15 kph, i.e your do not get more exhausted as you would be when walking
6. for me: do not wear a backpack (i.e bike bag or basket)
7. have proper equipment (i.e I have a poncho. I get a little wet in the rain though because it does get warm underneath)
Until you go from one car to zero, the car is a damn good temptation.
I just did a round trip to pick up something from the library, a mile away. Could have walked, but couldn't have walked and got back in time before my meeting.
Most bikes sold in the US are historically not sold or marketed for transportation, they’re aimed at fitness/sport users. So they don’t come with fenders that would keep your pants clean, and racks you could put your bag on.
To keep from getting sweaty you’ll need to intentionally ride slower, again US bikes are not designed for this. The classic Dutch bike has a much more relaxed and comfortable posture that helps remind you not to work too hard.
These cities are almost 100% flat, it doesn't take much effort to bike in a leisure pace anywhere, you won't be sweating if you are riding at 12-15km/h. You don't need changes of clothes to bike as people do there.
I bike in Stockholm, in a longer route these days since I live in a house some 15km away from the city center, it is quite hilly and I ride a fixed gear bike so I do sweat, I do not carry multiple changes of clothes, I have my clothes for riding depending on the season (staples are a wind jacket, wool underlayers due to their good wicking for sweat), carry a small towel with me, clothes I'd like to wear when I arrive at my destination, and wet wipes. If I'm too sweaty I will wait a few minutes until I cool down, use the towel to dry the sweat and the wet wipes in case it's needed.
It takes almost no effort after you are used to the routine, like anything you just adapt to it and becomes the new normal.
The resistance you feel is just the fear of the unknown, it's absolutely doable even in places not as perfect for biking like Denmark, the Netherlands, Berlin, etc., in my case I just love biking and the added routine I might need after biking 15km is totally fine. Others will use an e-bike around here if total practicality is needed.
Worse: from an early age they dress considerably lighter than in other countries.
A friend of mine lived there for the first couple years of her life so she, ahem, adopted the tradition and now carries it over to the next generation with her two sons, who are essentially immune to cold already as by local standards they were always missing a layer or two.
Also 30°C in Amsterdam amounts to a massive heat wave, so there's little opportunity to sweat if you dress light enough.
But it's also about your destination and what is expected. Most of my destinations are people I like to meet or places I like to be at. A fancy restaurant or business meeting doesn't happen that often. Have you seen people at museums ;)
The Netherlands and Denmark are generally not that hot. I also think Dutch working culture has been influenced by people cycling to work. Clothes that fit the weather are more accepted. There might also be some bias to what kind of work you do opposed to what type of work is actually happening. A lot of people do work that will make you sweat more over the day than a short bike ride.
You can also get "moisture wicking" clothes, that might help with a certain amount of sweat.
There is quite a lot of e-bike use in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. Google "bakfiets" - it's a whole "suburban parents with a family size e-bike" cliche (but a good one!).
These cities are relatively flat, relatively cool (watch videos of cycling in Copenhagen and you'll see a lot of people in coats and hats), and you don't have to bike very far to get somewhere interesting. There's also the fact that there's a lot of bikes on the paths (which, for me, caused me to slow down considerably from my typical bike pace when I visited). This all combines to mean you aren't putting anymore effort in than a short walk: you just end up going a little farther in the same amount of time.
Re: the rest.
When I was a regular cycle commuter (in a Canadian city) I did pack a change of clothes, spare deodorant and/or wore a removable outer layer that resisted road gunk. Road gunk is _much worse_ on any route you share with cars. Dedicated bike paths tend to be quite clean. Paniers are far better than a backpack, since they sit on the bike frame, you barely notice the weight. But as other commenters noted: a little fitness goes a long way. After a year of commuting, my regular route wouldn't even cause me to break a sweat.
Depends on the restaurant obviously. Client meetings and appointments obviously depends on the location. If they're coming to your office then you would probably have already showered if needed. If you have the kind of job where you need to go to other client locations to meet with them then obviously you want a car because you're going to be driving a lot across clients. I imagine such people have cars in Amsterdam as well. For museums, nobody gives a damn. I've never dressed up for a museum in my life.
It is rare for people visiting us to ask for a parking permit.
(Drinking alcohol with the clients in the evening? Then it can't be car.)
Really not that complicated.
I invested in a good rain jacked with helmet compatible hood and a pair of rain pants and I am able to ride in all but the heaviest of PNW rains.
I do end up nearly always carrying a pannier with me wherever I bike (usually to hold the extra layers I need while biking) but that has turned out to rarely ever be an issue.
I have been able to replace ~80% of my car trips the bike, it could be 99%+ if I were a little less lazy.
I really hope US cities head in this direction. It is a no brainer for cities: 1. higher density -> lower taxes per person, higher tax rev per sqm 2. lower cost of living -> lower inflation 3. quieter; cars on streets are noisy 4. people see each other more; better social cohesion 5. kids are free from the house to do things
1) https://www.vox.com/2015/3/19/8253035/roads-cyclists-cars-hi...
I got a new bike about a year ago and have had no back pain since (until randomly yesterday, but I'm 41, I guess it's expected that it'll happen occasionally).
Biking doesn't seem like a back exercise, but you are using your core and flexing it a lot, and for longer than you would on any standard core exercise.
Building exercise into your day to day life is incredible valuable. If you're lucky enough to be in a place where biking is viable, I highly recommend giving it a try. It's not for everyone, but given the right situation, I suspect the majority of people would find it a positive change to start biking more. (I suspect this is true for a lot of exercise, but biking has the benefit of being a productive workout—similar to chopping wood vs. lifting weights, except few of us need much wood chopped.)
Unless you have one of those lounger bikes, you're getting an exercise that hits almost everything below your ribs.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/10/12/cycling-add-year...
Places for shopping and entertainment have been created in the suburbs since then, which is a win for the suburbs but not for Paris which has become depressing.