Thanks for posting that. I'm visiting Amsterdam (& Copenhagen too) in a couple weeks, and I am PSYCHED.
MyNameIsJeff
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 3:35 pm
BOOSH!Joined: 17 Jul 2007Posts: 2042Location: Nearest bar.
Those chains are pretty funny. My girlfriend spent some time in Italy and other parts over there and she told me how bike theft is a serious peoblem over there.
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laura
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 3:43 pm
Joined: 22 Jun 2007Posts: 1050Location: wherever the dance party is
packing boxes and purchasing plane tickets ...
Foo
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 3:54 pm
Joined: 27 Jul 2007Posts: 583
I like how casual all the biking is there. It's really a part of the background.
I was struck by the use of the crappy little rim-drive dynamos. The Dutch seem pretty pragmatic about most of their biking, you'd think either hub dynamos or LED bettery lights would have filled the market up by now.
keyholefish
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 3:58 pm
Joined: 25 Jul 2005Posts: 268Location: somerville, ma
hub dynamos or battery lights would represent too much investment - it's just a bike. they ride the kind of bikes I wish I could recommend to my roommate, girlfriend, coworker. they just seem to be hard to find around here; hopefully because demand is increasing.
Foo
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 4:06 pm
Joined: 27 Jul 2007Posts: 583
I can understand dynamo hubs but a decent set of bright LED lights is, what, $40 these days? The only reason I could think of was that with a dynamo you don't have to worry about dead batteries, etc.
Eric_s
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 4:14 pm
Joined: 07 Mar 2007Posts: 1691Location: the dirty south
keyholefish wrote:
hub dynamos or battery lights would represent too much investment - it's just a bike. they ride the kind of bikes I wish I could recommend to my roommate, girlfriend, coworker. they just seem to be hard to find around here; hopefully because demand is increasing.
that and they are REALLY heavy, so hills are a bit of a problem. I'd like to try an extended test ride and see how it works up steeper hills than portland has.
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pete jr
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 4:21 pm
Joined: 13 Dec 2005Posts: 1930Location: balls deepx
i can't find the picture right now but when i was having breakfast and just coming off mushrooms, someone rolled by with a shopping cart of children. there were like 12 of the little things in there, packed like koi. it confounded me.
derrickito
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 4:37 pm
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SeditiousCanary
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 5:10 pm
sorry, can't make it!Joined: 26 Jan 2006Posts: 2315Location: Fremont Troll
Eric_s wrote:
that and they are REALLY heavy, so hills are a bit of a problem.
Holland is so flat, I can't see this ever being an issue.
surlykat
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 5:56 pm
Joined: 05 Jul 2007Posts: 658Location: in the CD
I'm really glad he includes " - on a bicycle" or even better "on a bicycle in Amsterdam" in all the captions. I really had trouble remembering what I was reading from one moment to the next.
SeditiousCanary
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 6:11 pm
sorry, can't make it!Joined: 26 Jan 2006Posts: 2315Location: Fremont Troll
surlykat wrote:
I really had trouble remembering what I was reading from one moment to the next.
Really? Were you in a coffee shop at the time?
mcrawfor
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 7:02 pm
Joined: 09 May 2006Posts: 1039Location: Ballard
surlykat wrote:
I'm really glad he includes " - on a bicycle" or even better "on a bicycle in Amsterdam" in all the captions. I really had trouble remembering what I was reading from one moment to the next.
It's a good tactic for getting your images searchable though.
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TrikerTrev
Posted: Mon Aug 27, 2007 9:53 pm
Joined: 23 Oct 2006Posts: 2303Location: FOCO, MOFO!!!
pete jr wrote:
i can't find the picture right now but when i was having breakfast and just coming off mushrooms, someone rolled by with a shopping cart of children. there were like 12 of the little things in there, packed like koi. it confounded me.
dammit...someones was selling kids by the dozen?!?
shit, and i missed it! i need more cleaning midgets...the last batch never returned from Bens house (i fear Sketch pickled them for later).
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Remington
Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:28 am
Joined: 23 Jan 2006Posts: 457Location: Remington Country
Yeah, Europe is pretty cool for cycling. I noticed right away that Switzerland has the same laid back attitude about cycling, and it's been the same in France and Spain. Some major cities here have automated bike rental fleets for people to use, and they are popular. It's wierd watching everybody use the same bikes. Also, having someone ride on your rear rack side-saddle is fun.
Eric_s
Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:36 am
Joined: 07 Mar 2007Posts: 1691Location: the dirty south
SeditiousCanary wrote:
Eric_s wrote:
that and they are REALLY heavy, so hills are a bit of a problem.
Holland is so flat, I can't see this ever being an issue.
keyholefish wrote:
they ride the kind of bikes I wish I could recommend to my roommate, girlfriend, coworker. they just seem to be hard to find around here; hopefully because demand is increasing.they ride the kind of bikes I wish I could recommend to my roommate, girlfriend, coworker. they just seem to be hard to find around here; hopefully because demand is increasing.
I was responding to the idea of a dutch style bike around here. I totally want one, but I can't get it until I have at least some lockup outside of my house, because it's too big and heavy to carry up three flights of stairs.
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J
Posted: Tue Aug 28, 2007 10:21 am
Joined: 03 Aug 2007Posts: 179Location: by that one arco am/pm
Joined: 12 Jan 2006Posts: 475Location: U-district/Ravenna
When Sarah and I were there we rented bikes a couple of times. All the bikes are worth about 2/3 of the value of the locks that come with them. They all use dynamo lights because bikes are just another means of transportation. I never got the impression that the Dutch are passionate about their bikes, to them it's like riding the bus, it's just what you do. Considering that almost every available space that could be used to lock a bike was in use, there were almost no bike shops. It seems that most people use their bikes until they break down, and then spend $50 on a new one. To give an example of how many bikes there are there, here's a pic of a bicycle parking garage just outside of Central Station:
Oh, and for this guys link about nobody in Amsterdam wearing a helmet, that's spoken like a true tourist who never leaves the central downtown area. It is true that all the people who ride around at 5-10mph on cruiser bikes downtown do not wear helmets. However, they also have the right of way on every downtown street. As soon as you get into suburbia (Sarah and I took a 4 hour bike ride out into the farmland outside of the city) you would see regular road bikes and really high end racing frames. Anybody who was riding something other than a 1940s style city cruiser was helmeted.
Finn
Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 10:07 am
AlabamaJoined: 15 Sep 2006Posts: 303Location: Central District
MyNameIsJeff wrote:
Those chains are pretty funny. My girlfriend spent some time in Italy and other parts over there and she told me how bike theft is a serious peoblem over there.
Italy: Don't ever loose physical contact with your bike. Gypsies or punk-ass Italian kids will ride off on your bike right in front of you. (assuming they ride faster than you can run.) This is not a bike issue- Anything not nailed down seems to be fair game in Italy.
France: The village where I worked LITERALLY had a village bicycle. I got a free bottle of wine and a few meals for doing some basic maintenance on it. The next day I saw 3 kids riding it at once with 2 more chasing: the one-bike peloton.
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