Sint Intocht 2009, originally uploaded by Tom Resink Photography.

Sorry for the lack of new posts in the last two weeks. I’ve been traveling in Japan with my family. We’re visiting family and friends and talking about cycling wherever possible. I’ve also been taking lots and lots of photos. Check them out here in my Flickr Japan set

I’ve got lots to show and write about but frankly, being in a place is more interesting and productive than writing about it. So the blog posts about Japan will come in due time.

In the meanwhile here’s a little tidbit about WorkCycles happenings in Amsterdam: Once again Sinterklaas (the skinnier, less politically correct, Dutch version of Santa Claus) rode into Amsterdam from Spain accompanied by a bevy of Zwarte Pieten on WorkCycles bikes. It’s become their preferred mode of transportation, probably for their reliability, classic looks and ability to carry tons of sweets for both the kids and horses.

Tom Resink, WorkCycles mechanic and damn good photographer took the pics that you can check out in Tom’s Flickr photo set

The question whether cycling is decreasing in popularity in Amsterdam or the Netherlands has been raised here several times. Each time the answer has been “No, transportation cycling is actually increasing here.” Today yet more statistics were listed in the Bike Europe trade website that show that bike use continues to rise.

from Bike Europe (via Fietsberaad though I couldn’t find it there) with my commentary mixed in:

AMSTERDAM, The Netherlands – The bicycle is the means of transport used most often in Amsterdam. Between 2005 and 2007 people in the city used their bikes on average 0.87 times a day, compared to 0.84 for their cars. This is the first time that bicycle use exceeds car use.

There are not many places in the world where bicycle use actually exceeds car use, and certainly no other capital cities. But it gets better…

In 2006 the inhabitants of Amsterdam engaged in some 2 million trips a day, an 8% reduction compared to 1990. This is due to the number of trips per person per day falling from 3.6 to 3.1. The number of transfers has fallen in the old city within the ring road in particular.

These seem to be the total numbers of trips, made by all means of transportation.

The number of trips by car, compared to 1990, has fallen in all districts (-14%), whereas the number of trips by bicycle has only risen within the ring road (+36%). The bike is used most often in the town centre (41% versus an average of 28%) and the car least often (10% versus an average of 28%). This can be attributed to the restrictive parking policies enacted here since the 1990s.

Not surprisingly the higher the density, the more bike use is favored. Thus where we live and the WorkCycles shops are the number of bicycle trips is at least four times as great as car trips.

‘Dienst Infrastructuur en Beheer’, the infrastructure department of the city registered approximately 235,000 car movements in both directions at the city centre in 1990; by 2006 this had fallen to 172,000, a decrease of over a quarter. Over the same period the number of daily movements by bicycle rose from 86,000 to over 140,000 (+60%).

Let’s keep up the good work so that in a generation cars will be an insignificant part of the traffic and street scene in Amsterdam.

I periodically see fellow bloggers denigrating the “lycra crowd” with the basic idea that recreational cycling (at least if it involves wearing special clothes) is the antithesis of utilitarian cycling and just plain old bad. But why? Cycling is just plain wonderful, whether riding the bakfiets across town to bring the kids to school, or riding up a mountain with friends. All work and no play makes a dull boy! There has to be a place in the world for objects and activities without productive function. Otherwise there would be no art, sports, play, hobbies or fun… and that world would suck.

And many activities (productive or otherwise) are enhanced by donning specific gear. The doctor pulls on scrubs for surgery, the construction worker wears tough trousers with gear loops, knee pads and steel toed boots, and the fireman stays warm but not crispy in his Nomex coat and helmet. If you’re going to spend the day in the saddle you’ll probably be most comfortable in cycling clothes. Whether you’ll look good in them or not is another story.

I’m also perplexed by why people believe it’s impossible to be both a cyclist for transportation AND and cyclist for fun. I ride a no-nonsense utility bike every day to get around the city, and then (weather, work and family permitting) I get on one of my lovely sporty bikes and ride for a few hours. For much of my life that meant riding fast: training and competing in races. With the addition of Pascal our recreational cycling has generally become a family activity. Today we took maximal advantage of a Sunday with perfect cycling weather: We were out for 6 hours, though one doesn’t ride very fast while holding a sleeping baby in one arm, nor cover much distance with multiple cafe stops.

Anyhow, just ride your bike. Certainly do it for transportation, but don’t let the hair-shirt idealists stop you from going nowhere useful on your bike… in the tightest lycra sausage suit if you wish.

Tripping Angels presents “Konijnen Fruit’; a rabbit bakfiets cycling trip through Amsterdam. Unnecessary inside joke: It helps to have seen the classic Paul Verhoeven film Turkish Delight (“Turks Fruit”), which you should see anyway because it’s a great film and has some quintessentially Dutch cycling scenes.

In case you were wondering what people do with a rental bakfiets, here’s an example.

Wobine: Thanks. The next rental is on the house!

Houston Freeways

Here in the Netherlands we’re proud of the extensive and beautifully executed public transport system and bicycling infrastructure. Elsewhere they’re proud of other achievements. Houston, Texas, for example, seems to be proud of its freeway system… proud enough at least for Erik Slotboom (with a Dutch name, btw) to have written and published “Houston Freeways, A Historical and Visual Journey”, according to its website “the most comprehensive book ever written about a regional freeway system.”

Are you a freeway fan too? You can download the book free at this site.

Thanks to Steve Pinkus, emerging livable streets planning guru for the tip.

Hong Kong: World's Worst Cycling City

I didn’t know that David Byrne has a blog, but upon finding it I wasn’t surprised to find that it’s interesting, beautifully written, and demonstrates Byrne’s interest in cycling.

In his post “Hong Kong – The Future of No Future” Byrne describes cycling around Hong Kong, with fascinating social commentary along the way. He finally congratulates “…Hong Kong for being the worst city for cyclists that I have encountered in the whole world. That’s saying a lot. Worse than Napoli, worse than Istanbul. Worse than Manila! Hong Kong takes the prize.”

Secret Service from Amsterdamize on Vimeo.

Why bother advertising when your customers make sweet videos like this with testimonials about your bikes? Thanks very much Mark and Mark and I wish you many years of pleasure from your new WorkCycles Secret Service!

You might be wondering what this plan is that enabled Mark to buy the bike. In the Netherlands there is a tax law (called “fietsenplan” or “bedrijfsfiets”) to promote cycling. An employee can purchase a bike once every three years with pre-tax salary. You thus save 35-50% on the cost of the bike, depending on your tax bracket. The rule is very straightforward and the only real limitation is that the ruling only applies to the first €750 of bicycle price and €250 of accessories though the tax service (“belastingdienst”) doesn’t seem to care how it gets added up. The bike can cost more but you have to pay out of pocket for the portion over €1000. This law applies to all employed people in the country so, as you can imagine, many of the bikes WorkCycles sells locally are purchased under this ruling.

These statistics about cycling just in from the Dutch RAI, “branch organization for mobility”…

There are 19.1 million two-wheelers in the Netherlands (and 16.4 million people). This includes 634,000 motorcycles and about 500,000 mopeds and scooters, thus about 18,000,000 bicycles. Of course could pretty much guess this just by looking at the bicycle covered streets of each town. Its obvious there are about as many bikes as people, and they’re mostly city/utility bikes that live outdoors.

The number of motorcycles has doubled since 1998. Having (also) ridden a motorcycle for many years I can take some guesses about the significance of this: The motorcycle has steadily lost its bad-boy image, becoming more accepted and mainstream. As traffic and parking worsen the motorcycle (like the bicycle) becomes a suitable alternative to driving a car.

The Dutch rode rode their two-wheelers a total of 19 billion kilometers, about 3 billion more than in 1998. That’s approximately 1200 kilometers per resident of all ages, shapes and sizes per year. Considering the population too young or otherwise unable to cycle, that’s an awful lot of kilometers per person. One could argue that the inclusion of motorcycles skews the statistics, but then there are only 1/30th as many motorcycles as bicycles.

Elsewhere the bicycle usage stats are separated. Here we see that the Dutch cycle, on average, 909km per year, which translates to 2.48km per head, per day. This has largely held steady since 1991, the earliest year shown in the chart. Thus, a definitive NO to the question posed in an earlier post “Are the Dutch replacing their bikes with cars”.

Below some more statistics I find interesting

Sales of new bicycles in the Netherlands in 2007 by type (x1000):
846____City bicycle
227____Child’s bike
141____Hybrid / trekking bike
89_____Electric bike
48_____Mountain bike
33_____Folding bike
14_____Racing bike
50_____Others
3______Unknown
1401___TOTAL

Average purchase price for a bicycle in the Netherlands in 2007:
€603____All bicycles including department stores
€709____Sold through bicycle shops

Length of bicycle paths and roads per province:
872_____Groningen
997_____Friesland
1183____Drenthe
1401____Overijssel
549_____Flevoland
2182____Gelderland
947_____Utrecht
2307____Noord-Holland (Amsterdam region)
2198____Zuid-Holland (Rotterdam, the Hague region)
680_____Zeeland
2793____Noord-Brabant
962_____Limburg
17071___TOTAL

If 17,000 km of nearly perfect bicycle paths and roads doesn’t sound so impressive then just look at a map of the Netherlands to see how small this country is.

Source: RAI vereniging. Read it for yourself here. In Dutch of course.

UPDATE September 2009: A new and very thorough study of the Dutch bicycle path network was recently completed. It was determined that the earlier figure of 17,000km was highly inaccurate. In fact it was determined by actually measuring the roads with modern electronics that it is approximately 29,000km. But if that isn’t incredible enough consider that that is only a measurement of the bicycle paths separated from auto traffic. Painted bike lanes, as most of the world regards as “bicycle infrastructure” were not even counted. If they did they’d basically have to include the entire Dutch road network.

I guess I’m kinda out of the “bike culture” loop here in Amsterdam where most people just ride bikes without thinking or caring about them. My WorkCycles coworkers and I are definitely exceptions in this regard, even amongst our bicycle industry colleagues who too often just aren’t crazy about cycling. I suppose this explains how I’d missed the Yehuda Moon comic, now even with a story about a Bakfiets Cargobike riding mom. Nice stuff with some good inside digs interspersed. Rick Smith, the artist “gets it”.

Thanks to the Dutch Bike Co. Seattle Blog for the tip!

Cycling in Amsterdam, that is on Sunday morning along empty streets to the city center, falling on a slippery bridge, €30 fine for cycling on the sidewalk, moms with bakfietsen, regardless bakfietsen, and childless neighbors complaining about bakfietsen.

Cycling in Amsterdam is a citation from the Fodor’s Amsterdam travel guide: “If you weave on the bike or regularly stop to take photos, care stay out of the way of the locals who use these paths to get to work on time.”

Cycling in Amsterdam is 11,500 engraved bikes en 33,905 bikes checked on the street, of which 255 are known to be stolen by the police.

Is designer bicycle stores, and a toothless junkie who, for €10, “sells” an old wreck.

Cycling in Amsterdam is a white matter, and therefore reason for the Amsterdam Office Traffic & Transport Service to ask itself: “Is cycling for cheese-heads?” And: “Do highly educated foreigners, in fact, cycle?”

Is 50,000 bicycle thefts per year, and 27% bothering to report the crime.

Cycling in Amsterdam is the Multiple Year Bicycle Plan 2007-2010 for which a budget of €69.3 million is estimated.

It is also: 550,000 bicycles, on average 5 accident deaths and between 325 and 600 wounded cyclists per year, a bike network with a length of 400 kilometers, 8 manned bike parking garages and one multilevel bike parking structure by Central Station.

Excuses for the repetition but I’m just translating here: These are titles from a recent photo series in the Volkskrant magazine.

All in all it paints a pretty accurate picture of my world of bikes from the locals perspective. My first thoughts: