Bicycles in Amsterdam

If there's one thing that Amsterdam is well known for other than sex, drugs and canals, it's bicycles. It is by far the most popular method of getting around the city, someone mentioned to us that there are 30,000 more bikes than people in the city. Your standard diamond frame two-wheeled bike that is so common to London and NZ is practically non-existant in Amsterdam, where old (ladies) style frames with 29" wheels are the norm. Internal hub gears, drum brakes, and a full chain guard are also standard which makes for slow heavy bikes, but ones which can carry a load (most guys seem to take their girlfriends or wives around town by having them sit side-saddle on the carrier) and need very little maintenance.



The equivalent of a tow truck for bikes - this one goes around collecting broken bicycles and brings them back to the workshop for repair



This one delivers about 100kg of frozen fish at a time. I didn't ask his permission to take the photo hence the evil stare. If you're reading this Mr, I'm sorry (but I'm sure that sultry look is a hit with the girls)



These stretch bikes are very popular as you can have a bench seat in the box to strap a few small children into, and still have room for the dog. Personally I though they were more like a bicycle herse than a people carrier, as the box on the larger version looks a lot like a coffin to me. Visit the homepage of the manufacturers of these bikes by clicking here . The child seat on the back is also very common, as is one mounted on the handlebars with a little clear plastic windscreen to protect the child from the rain.



This is a 3 storey bicycle parking building outside Amsterdam's central railway station. Click here to find out more about it.

The bike I really wanted a photo of but couldn't get is a tandem version of the fish delivery bike above, with the adult sitting to the rear and doing the pedalling and steering, and the child on a shorter seat sitting to the front. Below is something similar which I found on Flickr.




As mentioned above cycling is a very popular mode of transport around Amsterdam. What's more the riders enjoy the privilege of having right of way over all other traffic - apparently even when they are in the wrong. We have to say that we noticed that a lot of cyclists seem very laxidazy in their attitude to everything around them, and the skill level of the average Amsterdam cyclist seems to be diappointingly low. As it's such a popular mode of transport there are cycleways adjacent to, and usually seperate from, almost every road. However the downside we noticed to all the cycling in Amsterdam is that pedestrians are inevitably the ones who's safety is compromised in order to accomodate bicyles. Footpaths seemed ridiculously narrow at times (even more so than London ones), because some of the area had been requisitioned to provide the cycle lane. The problem with this is of course that everyone, whether a motorist, a cyclist, or both, is always a pedestrian at some time. This may sound a bit strange coming from a keen cyclist, but judging by what we saw in Amsterdam a mandatory right of way for bicycles over other traffic is a bad thing. It harms the community we all belong to, and makes us less skilled riders, skills that may well protect us from ourselves one day.