I'll be in Utrecht on Tuesday and I'm sooo looking forward to it. I'll be meeting with the Dutch Cyclists Union - Fietserbond. Kindred spirits, indeed.
5 comments:
merlin
said...
This is lovely Mikael - but for a person from hilly country it is rather meaningless. Do you have any clips of bicycle rush hour involving hills? Here in Seattle, our very first Bike Box was installed just a couple weeks ago at a hilly intersection. Some days I will see 5 or 6 bikes in a row heading up that hill (usually they pass me). There must be hilly places in the world where you get a true Bicycle Rush Hour on the hills. Sure would love to see that! Here, the hills are one of the excuses bicycle nay-sayers use to argue that "normal" people can't ride bikes. (I'm a 64-year old woman and I ride a bike up and down the hills, but obviously I'm not normal) The rain is the other big excuse; you've got lots of clips demonstrating that in other places, "normal" people ride in the rain.
Here in Edinburgh, cycling is on the increase (slowly, but it is increasing) and Edinburgh is not noted for being flat. As for rain, well of course it never rains in Scotland.
What really put people off cycling in town is motorised traffic, deal with that and people will cycle far more.
Hope we can find time for a bicycle tour!, for example to the university area: http://tinyurl.com/2wbxlep and to the unique bicyclepath along the red district from Utrecht: http://tinyurl.com/2ucrgd5 (Look at the fences to prevent the man walk onto the bicyclepath) See you tuesday!
Here on the South Coast of England I happily commute the 12 miles to work come rain, sleet or shine. People remark how amazing they think it is but as I keep telling them, apart from a hill in Brighton, it is flat. And a love of real ale means I hardly have a Contodor physique so anyone could do it.
The point is that although there is a Sustrans cycle path, it is useless. A combination of decent infrastructure where appropriate and dropping car-centric policies could make the South Coast a cycling and walking utopia. Our council (as do most Local Authorities) remains stuck in the 1980's however. Sustainable transport here means clearing bottlenecks so cars can go even faster.
Hill cycling: I should video or take a picture of the "côte Berri" or the Parc Avenue bike path in Montreal sometime. Better in the warm months because snow clearing here focuses on the convenience of car drivers above all else, making cycling (and even walking) very inconvenient in the winter.
5 comments:
This is lovely Mikael - but for a person from hilly country it is rather meaningless. Do you have any clips of bicycle rush hour involving hills? Here in Seattle, our very first Bike Box was installed just a couple weeks ago at a hilly intersection. Some days I will see 5 or 6 bikes in a row heading up that hill (usually they pass me). There must be hilly places in the world where you get a true Bicycle Rush Hour on the hills. Sure would love to see that! Here, the hills are one of the excuses bicycle nay-sayers use to argue that "normal" people can't ride bikes. (I'm a 64-year old woman and I ride a bike up and down the hills, but obviously I'm not normal) The rain is the other big excuse; you've got lots of clips demonstrating that in other places, "normal" people ride in the rain.
Here in Edinburgh, cycling is on the increase (slowly, but it is increasing) and Edinburgh is not noted for being flat. As for rain, well of course it never rains in Scotland.
What really put people off cycling in town is motorised traffic, deal with that and people will cycle far more.
Hope we can find time for a bicycle tour!, for example to the university area: http://tinyurl.com/2wbxlep and to the unique bicyclepath along the red district from Utrecht: http://tinyurl.com/2ucrgd5 (Look at the fences to prevent the man walk onto the bicyclepath)
See you tuesday!
Suzanne Brink (Fietsersbond)
A wonderful film, thank you for posting it
Here on the South Coast of England I happily commute the 12 miles to work come rain, sleet or shine. People remark how amazing they think it is but as I keep telling them, apart from a hill in Brighton, it is flat. And a love of real ale means I hardly have a Contodor physique so anyone could do it.
The point is that although there is a Sustrans cycle path, it is useless. A combination of decent infrastructure where appropriate and dropping car-centric policies could make the South Coast a cycling and walking utopia. Our council (as do most Local Authorities) remains stuck in the 1980's however. Sustainable transport here means clearing bottlenecks so cars can go even faster.
Hill cycling: I should video or take a picture of the "côte Berri" or the Parc Avenue bike path in Montreal sometime. Better in the warm months because snow clearing here focuses on the convenience of car drivers above all else, making cycling (and even walking) very inconvenient in the winter.
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