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> If you're going to get a bike for 20-50 EUR don't expect it to be some kind of fancy machine.

If you're getting a bike for as little as 20 EUR, except it to be stolen, if it is not obviously a "frankenbike" made from spare parts of discarded half-bikes. I have no respect for people that buy stolen bikes (yet many people do).

The bikes I've owned (they do get stolen a lot ...) were usually about 100-150 EUR for a sturdy no-frills "grandma bike". I might be able to get one cheaper second-hand if I looked harder, but when I'm without a bike, I really do need a new one quickly because it's my main means of getting around in the city, cars are inefficient (in the city) and public transport quickly adds up the costs you might as well have spent on that new (or second-hand) bike.

Amsterdam might not be a good example though, I've heard from my friends that live there it's annoying to get around in the touristic city centre, because of the tourists. Not even so much because the foreign tourists aren't used to bikes, but (from my own experience) tourists generally walk around in groups and Amsterdam's sidewalks are small, so they just sort of spill everywhere.

BTW I have never seen a "cars are guests" sign, anyone know what cities have those?

Here's a funny video of an American tourist reacting to the car-free city centre of Groningen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7gi2RxM1Qg (I'm aware it's not really representative of the typical American tourist, don't worry, but it's quite amusing still :) also for accuracy: the centre is not completely car-free; taxis, buses, police, ambulances etc are allowed, and there's a sort of maze of one-way streets that cars can take if they really need to be somewhere, except for the roads directly next to the very central city square)

I admit I buy bikes that are propably stolen. I lost one very expensive and one half that but still expansive bikes and I knew I would never get them back. They propably left the country. Now I still want to drive a mountain bike but I won't let them steal them for the 3rd time...that would be stupid. Thats why I buy them on the net, from newspapers or on flea markets for cheap. I am sorry for the guys whos bikes those propably are but as I don't expect anyone to give me my bike back by reporting it to the police on the other side of europe, I think realistic people should not expect me to buy the bike and bring it to the Police...those guys are advertising openly. If the Police is not giving a damn, why should I? I'm not a milionaire or Robin Hood.

>>. Thats why I buy them on the net, from newspapers or on flea markets for cheap

As a person who had a really expensive bike stolen - I would never buy a bike from those places, I would not want to finance any criminal activity.

If you want to buy a cheap bike there are charities which sell them, and these bike will never be stolen since they are given to a charity for free, so why would you steal a bike to give it away for free? And they the charity fixes it up and sells it for 30-40 euros so they are cheap and reliable.

> As a person who had a really expensive bike stolen - I would never buy a bike from those places, I would not want to finance any criminal activity.

This is kind of a prisoners dilemma. You don't buy, others will, and you won't stop anyone, only hurt yourself financially. Problem must be solved in other ways, because "voting with your wallet" is not always effective way.

It's not always about efficiency. It's about just not being part of it for moral reasons. You can't not support something ideologically but still partake in the activity without being hypocritical.

> You can't not support something ideologically but still partake in the activity without being hypocritical.

I can think of many situations where you could. And economic benefit often outweighs any ideology in places where people barely make it to the next paycheck.

Maybe for you. Not for everyone.

We don't have that kind of charity places here in germany or in my town. Edit: Even if we had, I wouldn't go there. I may not be a millionaire but I am not poor also. I am sure there are poor people who would need that bikes more then me.

Don't understand me wrong. I understand that I support the crime that hurt me in the first place. I am not stupid but when I see how the Police gave up on that kind of crime, why should I still support it with new bikes? I rather support them with the small ammount of money instead and still have my mountainbike and am not that angry when it gets stolen again.

I think there is a difference here though. By buying cheap bikes which might have been stolen, you can be supporting criminals which then see it as a profitable activity. If you buy a new bike you are not encouraging crime,because nobody will steal it if there is no place to sell it.

And I am pretty sure the police haven't given up on that crime, it's just easy to get away with it. When my bike was stolen a police officer came over and took the frame serial number,a picture of the bike and I do know they look around - I have been stopped on my bike before by the police who were looking for stolen bikes. It's just that those bikes can be easily packed on a truck and taken to another country,where no one will care, and there is no method to track a bike abroad, there should be a database with frame numbers that would be shared internationally.

Edit: And those charities are not just for poor people. The one where I live has all the bikes for sale arranged neatly in a shop, the only difference is that all of them have been donated, they fixed them and now they are selling them for reasonable amount of money to help people in need.

Yes, I did also go to the Police with my frame numbers. I also heard of people who know people who got their bike back...if you know what I mean.

As I said, when a criminal act reached the point where the (possible) criminals advertise their goods openly (in newspapers, on the net, on flea markets), I think they just crossed the line. They a) seem to be sure to not be cauth and b) have already enough customers. So with my decision to not give them 100€ but "give" them a new bike worth 10-times that, I support their established market even more.

When I was ~15, I idioticly tried to sell a box full of my copied C64 games. I have been visited by some undercover cops who sued my parents for very much money. I never tried that again...

The train stations sometimes auction off the bikes that nobody claimed, you can get one there.

I think the 'charity' part is not towards the buyer. There may not be any near your place, but the concept is you give a free item to the charity, someone buys it for a price, and the profit is used for people in need.

That doesn't make sense -- if the police really don't care, why you just steal one? It seems to me, that apart from having no ethical sense, you're simply a coward.

Quit rationailzing your behavior -- either sin boldly or stop doing it.

They probably didn't leave the country they probably left the area you live in and were sold on the net, via newspaper or in flea markets to someone who justified buying stolen goods in exactly the same way you just did.

Maybe they did leave just the area. Did not change anything for my legaly bouth and stolen bikes. They are gone and never returned.

Don't understand me wrong. I understand that I support the crime that hurt me in the first place. I am not stupid but when I see how the Police gave up on that kind of crime, why should I still support it with new bikes? I rather support them with the small ammount of money instead and still have my mountainbike and am not that angry when it gets stolen again.

It's only 20-30 euros more for a decent non-stolen second-hand bike, if you look around a bit.

Unless the stolen bikes you buy are in fact so cheap you can't have any possible doubt they are in fact stolen and you might as well steal them yourself.

There's at least one street in Haarlem that's 'cars are guest', the entire street is also paved 'cycle lane red' (not a big or lang street though).

At least one in Ghent, Belgium too.

I got offered a bike almost every night out in Amsterdam. I've had friends just pick up a bike instead of getting a taxi...

There is on in Wageningen, although you might not call that a city depending on where you're coming from :o)

The guy who wrote this article does not sound like a cyclist at all, where as you do.

The real question is why are bicycles not popular in more places. In Australia especially, wide roads, the cities are not that big, the weather is mostly nice, and so few people cycle.

I think the biggest reason is the lack of good safe bike paths and infrastructure most places. As someone (in the US) who bikes nearly every day as my primary form of transportation I'm quick to admit that bike commuting is dangerous. I love it, but it requires constant vigilance and careful attention not to get hit by a car or a door (and I live in Portland which is much more bike friendly than most US cities). Bikers frequently share lanes with fast moving cars and it's very common for bike lanes to end unexpectedly, leaving the cyclist in a dangerous spot.

I'm willing to accept these risks, but for most people it's not worth it. My wife also enjoys biking, but hates to ride on busy streets for fear of ending up on the wrong end of a distracted motorist. This limits her options to weekend pleasure rides on dedicated bike paths.

The trick to getting more people to cycle is to invest heavily in bike path infrastructure so that more people will feel safe using it as a primary form of transportation.

For zillions of examples what investing in infrastructure means, see http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com

Road redesign: http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/making-a-1960s-...

Parking facilities: http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/modern-indoor-b... (and, in a few years time: http://www.bouwpututrecht.nl/bu/2013/06/21/largest-bicycle-p...)

http://bicycledutch.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/amsterdam-cycli... shows that things have been even better, though.

Agreed.

- Spacey or dedicated lanes are a major requirement. And in my fantasies I'd like two kinds of lanes, speedy and casual. Riding around 25kmph for commuting can be dangerous if the lane thins out, people ride/run slow, kids play around.

- Also, secured parking spots. I refrain from riding when I don't know where I'm gonna park. Too easy to pick/steal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGttmR2DTY8 . Or a <20 bucks tagging device (in 2013 it's probably easy for many manufacturers)

I am from Portland, as well. And the "bike friendly" claim seems like a joke after having lived in Amsterdam for nearly two years.

I don't think we (Portlanders) have a clue what bike-friendly is. It would be nice if biking in Portland were safe enough that you didn't have to wear a helmet - like it is here in Amsterdam. (I happen to be back over here in AMS for a month).

I don't know about Australia, but Netherlands is basically a flat country where its tallest mountain (hill?) is 320 meters above sea level. Therefore, cycling is particularly easy.

And things are often at reasonable biking distances. Here in Palo Alto the city is flat and the weather is even more agreeable than the Netherlands, however, people mostly drive because they either live in a different town and commute to Palo Alto, or they live in town and commute somewhere else.

Longer distances make it a bit harder, but they can work if there's an integrated cycle-path network, and ideally some integration with transit. For example, Palo Alto to Mountain View is only 6 miles (10 km), a distance that's very common to bike in Copenhagen, and yet nobody bikes it in the Valley. Part of the issue might be that there aren't great routes. You either bike down El Camino, a rather intimidating proposition, or else you have to piece together a complex route by weaving through residential neighborhoods.

The bike->train->bike option can also increase the practical bike-commuting area, but it's hampered by Caltrain not running often enough or to enough places.

I made the Palo Alto <-> Mountain View ride 4/week for four years. My ride was bout 9 miles, which is longer than I'd expect most people to ride, but I couldn't afford to be closer.

Biking on the same roads as cars is generally not fun. I first used Middlefield most of the way, but that meant biking in with the cars. It wasn't until much later that I discovered Bryant street, which prohibits through motor traffic but allows bike traffic through. It's pleasant enough, but you are still sharing a road with cars and I've seen many simply blow through the stop signs on those residential streets (there are rarely any other people around anyway). Even with Bryant, half my ride was on a major auto thoroughfare.

The position of bike lanes on American streets is stressful for bicyclists. You basically have cars on either side. On one side you have cars driving and who want to make right turns across your lane. On the other side you have parked cars with drivers-side doors that completely block the bike path when open. These people also want to cut across your lane to enter traffic.

In my roughly eight years of bicycling around the bay area I've only been hit once by an auto, and that was one where he was fully at fault for making a left turn into me when he acknowledged he saw me in the opposing lane and thought I was slowing for him (I slowed because it looked like he was going to turn without having right of way). It was low speed and I wasn't injured. However, bicycling around the bay is not fun, despite having a few decent bike paths.

I've also biked in Amsterdam and I can attest that we have a long way to go. I believe we need to change our cultural attitude towards bicycling first, then the rest will follow.

This is true, NL is a small country and we really have to be conservative with our space. I was amazed to see, when I was in the US, how widely spaced out everything is, especially the suburbs. Those distances do add up quickly and perhaps make for less interesting bike rides. I'd probably still get one if I lived there, just because it's easier to get around for small distances, but I've heard for some people the nearest supermarket is a few miles away, then yeah, going by car makes a lot of sense.

You can't easily change such geographic/cityplanning type of differences either, I think.

It takes a long time. Vancouver, BC was very successful with this because they built a new transit system back in the '80s (Skytrain) and then clustered density around the stations. It's been extremely succesful, and there is also a complimentary system of bicycles boulevards for people to ride bikes.

Here in the US, however, the car rules, for better (but mostly) worse. I had an incident on my bike last Monday in Palo Alto with a car where I fell and broke my hand.

Trying to code with a broken hand is rather... interesting.

Sydney, Australia is ridiculusly hilly (as I could tell from my few week trip there a few years ago)

I would question whether Australian cities are not that big. Sydney covers an area comparable to Greater London. I've lived in Perth, Sydney and now London and I've progressively cycled less through each of those moves. Perth is a cycling paradise with an integrated cycle path network, Sydney ok depending on where you're commuting, and London is a nightmare even with the token 'cycle superhighways'. For me it all comes down to what is the least frustrating way to get to and from work.

They are popular in old cities in Holland. It's not so much that people prefer riding a bike in Holland to riding a car in Australia, with its _wide roads_. They prefer a 5 minute bike ride to a 30 minute hellish experience equal in complexity only to navigating the mars rover from earth. It isn't so much that bikes are so great, as that cars are a horrible horrible form factor for old cities.

And if you look at other old cities, you see the exact same form factor. Except those cities aren't flat, so instead of bikes they ride around on scooters. Think Rome, Greece, Paris.

Secondly, our other cities (Suburbia mostly), have all these nice bike tracks, because this is how our children navigate to school, their sports club and friends, independently from about 5 to 12 years old. (as they grow older, you increase the radius you allow your child to navigate and explore freely)

These bike lanes are safe, because it's our children riding there. Unsupervised. But their parents will use their car for everything, because in those cities you actually have the choice. And dutch people are just as lazy comfort creatures as everyone else, if given the same choice.

It's not so much that it's great to ride a bike in Holland, as that it's safe (because its how our children navigate) and that in old cities navigating a car a complete waste of time, energy and money. You will _literally_ sweat more.

Erm, when was the last time you were in Australia? Cycling is huge here, especially in Brisbane. The local council has spent a great deal of money putting in bike lanes and paths all over the place, and they're very well used. Every workplace I've been in for the last 5 years has had a large group of riders who commute every day on a bike, and most of those also cycle for leisure on the weekends.

Additionally the council has put in a bunch of rental bike stations all over the place, although most people prefer to just use their own I think.

I ride to work 4-5 days a week, and it's fantastic. It's faster than the bus (by a factor of 2, IF the bus shows up on time, or shows up at all), good exercise, cheap, and environmentally friendly. Our workplace has an End Of Transit facility (fancy name for bike lockers, racks, and showers), which has a long waiting list of people trying to get in.

Cities are fricking big in Australia, the urban sprawl here is crazy. Perth, a city of under 2 million population, is around 70 km NS and 25 km EW.

But bicycling IS pretty popular anyway.

Wow, do you really live here?

I had a bike impounded twice for parking it in a wrong place around the Zuid station. But it was only 15 euros to get it (they keep them on a parking lot in the direction of Halfweg

It could well be that Dutch people like cheap bikes because they are cheap (the bikes not the people! Although, ...) But even when they buy a new one they prefer the "oldtimers" - new bikes that look like they are from the 20s.

It's true that there are probably people who sweat, but there are very few people who take a shower at work

I agree that cyclists don't really respect red lights or right of way, but the article is correct that drivers are more sympathetic to cyclists than everywhere else

>I had a bike impounded twice for parking it in a wrong place around the Zuid station

I'm pretty sure there are signs everywhere in Zuid station that should place your bike in the freely provided bike parking lots. If they would allow every one of the thousands of people coming in with a bike to just park it in front of the station randomly, nobody would be able to get into or out of the station.

It's just common sense man.

> new bikes that look like they are from the 20s.

Because we optimize for durability, not status, not speed nor features. We assume abuse and we leave our bikes unsupervised the majority of the time. It's not just stealing .. having a hard to physically destroy bike prevents annoying kids and drunk teenagers from vandalizing your bike.

>It's true that there are probably people who sweat, but there are very few people who take a shower at work

I haven't ever been in an office with a shower. I don't know any place where it would even be an option. But every person sweats a little every day anyway. Fresh sweet don't smell. It's the old sweat that smells.

> It's just common sense man.

Sure, I wasn't complaining. In fact I think they should do it more often. Since they sell the unclaimed bikes to second hand bike shops it would perhaps decrease the prices...

> we optimize for durability

That is true, but you have to agree that there could be durable bikes which don't have the oma/opa fiets look and come with a normal stand not that useless frame which tends to get loose after half a year and doesn't even keep the bike standing in moderate winds..

> It takes skill to drive around the canals, especially with the cyclists and scooters buzzing around you.

As a foreigner who's visited Amsterdam, let me say it takes skill to walk around the canals for the same reason :)

Yes, the canals and touristic city centre in Amsterdam aren't a great example of bike-friendliness (which indeed also affects the pedestrians). Compare to Utrecht, which also has canals, things seem to be laid out a bit more sensibly.

(btw if anyone visiting NL and you have the time, do yourself a favour and don't just stick to Amsterdam, it's a 20 minute cheap train ride to Utrecht, which is just as pretty, but with less tourists swarming everywhere and therefore also less tourist-traps)

They are super bike friendly, considering how many people walk around there. It actually feels like a superpower, to silently fly through the crowds on a narrow one way bike lane. I just did that in july.

My girlfriend now wife put her bike up against a post near the train station in Leiden, with a chain. Later that day? Gone. Had to pick it up at the cities yard of bikes. Happens regularly if you're careless about where you park.

I can imagine that if you do that sort of thing around a very busy object, such as a station or a hotspot for tourists, then the city authorities will step in. But if you chain it to a post somewhere in a quiet part of town, or if there are already a thousand bikes chained there, they're not going to throw a fuss.

With all this focus on cities I'd like to give some perspective for people in the countryside. Simply put: within towns it's similar to cities but even easier (because there's less traffic to worry about), but outside of town the longer distances make it more convenient to go by car, unless you have a lot of time to spare.

That said, it's different if you're a teenager. You can't get a drivers license until you are 18 (16 for scooters though). We don't have school buses here. Regular public transport usually comes by once an hour at inconvenient times (for example, you arrive either 50 minutes early of 10 minutes late for class), take the long way round to pick up as many people as possible because otherwise it wouldn't even be profitable, and still manage to have the closest bus stop a few kilometers out of town. As a result, if you don't have a car and need to go to the city, going by bike is often just as fast if not faster, and of course cheaper. So going to secondary school by bike is extremely common - me and my sisters used to bike 18 km to and from school every day, and while few in my school lived that far away, based on my school I estimate 10 km to be the average distance for countryside kids biking to school.

I still roll my eyes when my friends say I live "far out of town" because it's a ten to fifteen minute bike ride.

Same here: rode 18km to school, and a few hours later another 18km back. As this was how everybody from my town went to school it wasn't something you gave any thought to!

Gas is expensive is a red herring. Gas is expensive everywhere compared to the US. Shorter distances make the price of gas comparatively irrelevant.

When choosing between car, public transport or bike, nobody in the Netherlands factors in the price of gas. It's not a consideration.

Oh yeah they (we) do, in the long run it matters. Driving around town, to and fro work, driving around for groceries etc. It adds up. A bike's gas is essentially free because nobody actually factors in the calories. I guess the biggest hurdle is simply how uncomfortable it is to drive around and park.

There's one answer to most of your points: Amsterdam is not the Netherlands in the same way New York City is not the U.S.

Especially the cycling culture in Amsterdam is very, very different from that of most other places in NL.

Do tell. I'm back here in Amsterdam for a month. Lived here for about 2 years, a couple years back... and we did some travel in other parts of NL while we were here. Biking didn't seem all that much different outside of Amsterdam, other than the volume of people doing it.

Can you elaborate?

The sheer volume of bikes is much, much higher in Amsterdam.

The culture of beat up bikes is not typical for the Netherlands, except maybe for student towns. Also, it is much cheaper to get your bike "fixed" in Amsterdam, so old bikes are kept going longer. ("fixed" being a bit relative because of the cultural difference, bike shops in Amsterdam will use duct-tape if necessary)

The middle-class mommy "bakfiets" was typical for Amsterdam until very recently.

Car ownership amongst people who can easily afford one is much lower in Amsterdam than anywhere else in the country. Nowhere is it that hard to get around by car than in Amsterdam, and in most places it's hardly possible to live without a card.

The total disregard of cyclists for traffic rules, including ignoring red lights and not having any lights at night is typical for Amsterdam.

Lots of outsiders (there are barely any locals left in the heart of Amsterdam) have turned cycling into a bit of a cult. Outside of Amsterdam, cycling is much more "normal".

Amsterdam people use bells instead of brakes ;)

Only this who have functioning bells...

In other words, the road to a healthy utopia of happy people on bikes is not to compromise, but to accept all of the cyclists' demands while completely ignoring the motorists' complaints.

Those are often not two groups of people. They are one and the same. That’s at least my experience here in Germany (where people bike less but still quite often). And that creates lots of empathy.

Also, it’s you – the motorist – who is moving around the several ton metal monster so of course you have the responsibility to make sure not to hurt any of the squishy meatbags around you. That just always seemed obvious to me. Keep a good car’s width distance to bikes when overtaking them (and not overtaking them if there is no space for that) and so on. (Also, I don’t know how the laws are in the Netherlands, but at least in Germany it isn’t so dramatic. Yeah, you are always responsible for keeping pedestrians and bikers safe but your liability is limited in certain ways.)

I'm not a motorist.

From my experience in Amsterdam (lived there for two summers), there aren't two disjoint sets: cyclists and motorists. Everyone has a bike and many people have a car. It's usually more pleasant to bike somewhere.

After half a century of designing cities around the demands of motorists, that seems to be a pretty sensible plan, yes.

> cyclists' demands

My personal experience from living and biking in both Copenhagen and London is that that word - demands - sets a very adversarial tone that is not at all helpful in London. No-one talks about cyclist's "demands" in Copenhagen, but they are well accommodated in city planning because there are a lot of them (of course, there's a chicken-and-egg thing here). In London, the organised cyclists come off as extremely militant and righteous and I have no difficulty believing that's a turnoff for plenty of people, ultimately hurting the cause.

This also applies to some Critical Mass riders in the Bay Area.