Friday, January 10, 2014

Bicycle chic

As Marc van Woudenberg has written in his blog Amsterdamerize, bicycling culture is man made.  As I've been studying bikes, it's been fun to compare cities:

Photo credit: Marc van Woudenberg, Amsterdamerize
"Bicycle Cultures are Man Made", guest post for the European Cyclist's Federation

Boston is so full of youthful idealism, with so many colleges, and working away at Bikes not Bombs , (although there is still some old school MassDOT that sometimes ignores everything but "Level of Service, Throughput, and Crash Barrier Standards". http://bikinginheels-cycler.blogspot.com/ )  But with so many young people it is so sweet:


And then there is nature loving Portland, with mass naked bike rides and riders writing poems about potholes in winter:

The Tiniest Bright Spot

by Jamie Caulley


January —


Followed by the quirky, macho, damaged charm of Bike Snob, NYC, who obviously loves the pothole poem but can't admit it:
http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com/2013/12/this-just-in-if-you-need-me-ill-be-gone.html

NYC also has Casey Neistat:
Video credit Casey Neistadt
New York, you gotta love it.  See my earlier post "Maybe sports cycling isn't all there is?"

But then you get to the pros - Netherlands - 16 million people with 20 million bikes riding 200 billion km per year with style, and this is what you get:

The Cyclists from Thomas Collardeau on Vimeo.         Music: Ratatat- Loud Pipes

It all depends on what you want.  "If you build for traffic and cars, you get traffic and cars.  If you build for people and places, you get people and places."      http://bikinginheels-cycler.blogspot.com

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