Eco Lesbo Vego

Cycling: The Way of the Future?

The Netherlands is the land of dikes dykes bikes. The land is flat, and huge numbers of the population use bikes to get around. Check out this article, written by someone in Amsterdam at the moment. There are just bikes everywhere. The author wonders if this is the way of the future. It looks like an incredible future to me. Huge, free bike parking lots, filled to bursting.

Bikes in Amsterdam (photo by Annalee Newitz).

We have a bike station in Brisbane, in the city, but I don’t know how well used it is. The website says 420 cyclists use it daily. I do see plenty of cyclists taking their chances amongst the cars and buses, and zipping along the bikeway by the river. Not like in The Netherlands though. (Incidentally, lots of the commenters on the original article talk about how in some places it’s too hot to cycle everywhere. That’s why you have showers in the bike stations, like we do in Brisbane. Duh.)

I really like the idea of a city full of bikes… if only I could ride one without falling off.

I can only go in a straight line on flat ground. If I’m having a good day, I can make a really wide turn. That’s pretty much the limit of my ability. I think part of it is the type of bike I’ve been riding. I used to do ok on the bike I had when I was 12. It was an old, classic kind of bike. No cross-bar (a lady’s bike for the dyke, thanks!), upright handlebars so I didn’t have to lean so far over to ride it. Sitting up works better for me. I notice that lots of the bikes in the picture in the Amsterdam article have handlebars like that too. My bike woes really started when I got too tall for my classic bike and Dad bought be one that was on sale… it was a pink (!!) cross-trainer with the skinniest tyres in the history of the modern Earth. The falling began. Yankee Elv’s mountain bike isn’t much better, it’s one of the ‘bend yourself in half to reach the handlebars’ type.

I can’t scooter, skateboard, roller skate, roller blade or ice skate either. Balance is not my forte.

So far, I’ve stuck to walking… but as the bikes zip past me on the bikeway, I wonder if I should give it a try again. They all make it look so easy and fast. I could try a classic bike, like these ones. Or maybe an adult trike?

Does anyone else cycle regularly? How do you find it?

August 16, 2009 at 2:48 pm Leave a comment