Habits are a key part of life. Simplicity often is the shortest avenue to success. With one movement, how you reach to open your car door, you can save a life. You can save a bicyclist from injury. Creating a new habit, retraining your movement when opening a door, can come with unquantifiable benefit. Learn the Dutch reach — don’t “door” …
Amsterdam is perhaps the best large city in the world for bicycling and bicyclists. It probably is, but Copenhagen is also always in the running. Furthermore, there are better bicycling cities than Amsterdam in the Netherlands, but they are smaller, so I’m not sure if they are in the same class. Anywho, if you haven’t …
Even though I am a lifelong biker, I don’t care about the latest in the “best” head gear, and even though I am naturally quite athletic, I don’t care about lycra sporting equipment and bikes that cost a fortune. It is not my aesthetic sense. I don’t care how many gears it has, or who …
Amsterdam, Bicycles, Butterflies — Flipping The Statistics From Australia Read More »
More or less, bicycle infrastructure policy and its relationship to riderships was the topic of my 2007 master’s thesis. It’s been obvious to some of us for a long time that bicycle infrastructure policy needs to change in order to give bicycle ridership a big boost, and public health would of course improve from that, …
Better Bicycle Facilities, Off-Road Bike Paths = More Bicycling Read More »
Below is a fun (& funny) video about Holland. Of course, biking is highlighted a bit. Biking makes life so much cooler, easier, more relaxed and carefree. It is used in (non-car) advertisements of all kinds simply to stick a cooler and more positive image on the product being sold. With bicycling at the center …
Holland Video — Biking Is A “Way Of Life” (The Original Cool) Read More »
If you’ve read many of my posts at all, you know that I love bikes — they are one of the greenest things on the planet, are cheap, are widely available, and are fun and relaxing to ride. You may also know that I lived in the Netherlands for 5 months, perhaps the best country in the world for bicycling.
I recently took a short little vacation to Berlin (just about 5-7 hours away by train from where I live). While I had noticed when I visited the first time (2 years ago) that it was a tremendous bike city and put it at #7 in my bike city photo tours series, I didn’t bike around the city on that visit. Additionally, it was rather cold and rainy, so biking wasn’t in full bloom there.
This time around, we (my partner Marika and friend Salah) were set on biking, a bit at least. The weather was nice and our friend got us some bikes. We ended up going on a bike ride that lasted 5 hours or so on our first full day there.
The Dutch are already well-known for having the best bicycle facilities in the world (well, there is a bit of competition between the Netherlands and Denmark, but the two nations are clearly on top of the world when it comes to this matter). Now, the Dutch are actually planning to improve their cycle networks with …
Dutch Improving Cycle Networks, Building Fast Cycle Lanes Read More »
I was just writing earlier on the power of cities and the progressive transportation choices cities can take to turn the world around (environmentally, economically, and otherwise). Looking at this from a different (and perhaps more negative) angle, IBM recently released a global “Commuter Pain Study.”
Topping yet another bicycle list, Amsterdam is #1 here because of the great bicycle photos to follow along with the fact that 40% of traffic is bicycle traffic in Amsterdam and the city is full of bicycle facilities, including a 10,000-bicycle parking garage at its train station. Amsterdam may not have as high a percentage …
#1 Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Great Bicycle City Photo Tour Read More »
Groningen would be number one on this list if we were looking at percentage of residents who bicycle for transportation purposes. About 57% of travel in Groningen is by bicycle! The city has been named the world’s best bicycle city a couple of times (1993 and 2006). It is a university city which is part …
#6 Groningen, Netherlands: Great Bicycle City Photo Tour Read More »
