Dutch ebike Guardian article

[Raboa]

Hi, I saw this in the Guardian today.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/01/bike-country-n0-1-dutch-electric-record-numbers-e-bikes-netherlands

Thanks

 

[Benjahmin]

Just goes to show what a decent cycling infrasructure will do.
It seems there is a continued focus, in this country, of cycling being a sport only, with very few utility cyclists.
Perhaps the ever more desperate condition of the enviroment will help focus minds on where money should be spent.
Yeh, right - in ya dreams

 

[Geoff Sleath]

I'm quite surprised in a way that ebikes are so popular in the Netherlands. because the riding is so easy. I suppose they help in a headwind.

We've cycled quite a bit in the Low Countries and a couple of years ago we went on a CTC tour based on a barge which meant each day our 'hotel' room moved to meet us after our ride. We took our tandem which is just 2xperson powered but a friend took her converted Mercian and she didn't bother fitting her battery after the first day. She's around our age (70s) so not very young but she lives in a hilly area and got her bike converted because of that. The daily rides were quite short and leisurely (around 30/40 miles) and, of course very flat. A recommended way of seeing the country in comfort.

I've ridden with a lot of Dutch cyclists of all ages and they were all pretty fit. The great thing was to see groups of older riders on a sort of club run just bowling along 2 across chatting as they went. All on typical upright machines and wearing fairly normal clothes and bare-headed for the most part. The main drawback is that small mo-peds can also use the cycle paths - at least that was once the case; it may have changed.

Geoff

 

[flecc]

Just goes to show what a decent cycling infrasructure will do.
It seems there is a continued focus, in this country, of cycling being a sport only, with very few utility cyclists.
Perhaps the ever more desperate condition of the enviroment will help focus minds on where money should be spent.
Yeh, right - in ya dreams

The biggest difference is that they never stopped utility cycling, in the way we did from the late 1950s to the 1980s when we restarted only with some sport cycling.

Once a population has been lost to cars it's understandably almost impossible to get them back onto bicycles. Infrastructure alone won't do it.
.