Bikes in Amsterdam

Cal Audrain sent me a note and some pics from his recent trip to Amsterdam.  Here's what thought was interesting:

We noticed that they ride upright, not bent over, and the adults don't wear helmets.  I tried getting a picture that showed the distinction between the road for cars and trucks, the path for bicycles, sometimes separated by a curb and the path for pedestrians, again separated by a curb.  We quickly learned not to linger in the bike path when crossing a street, but continue directly on to the pedestrian path.  What a great city for getting around.  We got passes at the airport for transit - bus or tram - and just showed them each time we got on.

Cal and his wife Ann are globetrotters and it's not unusual for him to tell me about something those foreign biking that he likes, but he doesn't usually gush like this.

Pic-left gives us a pretty good idea what all those lanes might look like on the wider avenues.  Note that the bike path is delineated from the auto lanes not by a curb (or maybe it's a very short curb), but by a two-foot wide demilitarized zone of brick paving, which strikes me as excellent design.  The brilliantly dressed mom is wearing no special gear.  The guy on the bike behind her is talking on his cell, but that doesn't look so dangerous with this lane set-up.

Cal didn't explain the second pic, but I'm going to guess this is a tree in Amsterdam that the locals believe is inhabited by the spirits of bicycle gods, so every 4 years an offering is made and left to rust, replenishing the iron the tree's inhabitants crave.

The third pic shows gobs and gobs of bike parking along a canal.  And those crafty Dutch figured out that if you don't have room alongside the canal, you can just park a boat and use it for more bike parking.

Comments

[Shannon]

Wow. Way to go bike mom! Peddling along with not one, but TWO kids is impressive. For those who don't bike, trust me when I say adding 50+ pounds of kids to a bike can't be fun.

[Maroon]

Pic #3 is in front of Amsterdam Central Station - enlarge it and you'll see a multi-story bike parking lot in the background. Lots of people commute by a combination of train and bike.
RE: the weight of the kids: these bikes have been a recent hype, and they're quite heavy even without any kids in there:-). In the past, one kid would go in a seat on the back, and one in a seat attached to the handlebars.