Now You're Biking

The Dutch are all about biking; this you probably know. There are probably more bikes than people in Amsterdam, though nobody knows exactly because it’s impossible to count. Bikes locked to racks, chained to bridges, leaning against trees and walls, mired in the depths of canals, abandoned by roadsides. Bikes with no front wheel, front wheels with no bike, locks chained bafflingly alone to poles and railings, seatless bikes rusting away in huge lots. Then there are the thousands of bikes in use at any given moment, in bike lanes and on sidewalks, across lawns and over tram tracks.

The Dutch have very strong legs.

I got my bike last Sunday, the day after I got here, and in the five days since I’ve saved dozens of euro on tram fare, started developing some fierce thigh muscles, and learned priceless cultural lessons. One of those lessons is that anything you can do in a car, you can do on a bike. I’ve passed people eating, fixing their hair, and dressing or undressing while in motion. So many people ride and talk on cell phones at the same time that it hardly seems worth mentioning. Parents scold the small children in seats on the front or back (or sometimes both) of their bikes; men pedal what I can only describe as bike-barrows; girls sit side-saddle on the back wheel-covers of their boyfriends’ rides; a man in front of me this morning was rolling happily along with a 6-foot ladder tucked vertically under one arm. Exactly zero of the bikers and passengers here wear helmets.

I got my bike from an expat who was returning home, and paid 50 euro for bike, lock, two lights, and a receipt proving that it hadn’t been stolen. Since the lock and lights alone are worth 15 euro, and since secondhand bikes in the shops start at around 70 euro, you could say that I got an amazing deal. But you would be saying that without having admired the subtle rust color of its main frame, or having heard the insidious rattling and sqeaking noises that increase with speed. I have named my bike Lynette, as in Fromme.

Since the liberal application of WD-40 and a bit of bending of spokes and readjustment of the kickstand, Lynette has been a lot happier, and quieted down considerably. She still needs some attention, like the occasional tightening of the bolts that secure her front wheel, but she rides pretty smoothly now, and no longer seems to be in constant danger of exploding. And I think that her rusty coating will discourage would-be thieves as much as my heavy chain lock.

The traffic lessons I’ve learned on the streets of Amsterdam boil down to this: bikes do not fall into a middle space between cars and pedestrians—bikes can and will assume the functions and rights-of-way of both groups, as convenience dictates. This basically means that if you are walking in any given square meter in the city, you are in danger of being run down by a bike, and also that driving here is exceptionally frustrating, since cars have to yield (let op!) to bikes. As a cyclist, I love it.

What I don’t love are tourists, who think they can walk in the bike lane. Lynette only has so many swerves in her, so eventually I will be forced to plow on through a milling crowd when my nice loud bell fails to disperse it. I am secretly looking forward to this moment.

It takes about a half hour for me to bike to campus, but I’m working on shaving that down to 20 minutes. It’s about 10 minutes to Central Station along the IJ river, and 15 or 20 minutes across town to the museums and Vondelpark. My hair is now constantly a mess, and I have become very accomplished at riding into the wind in such a way as to keep my skirts from flying up into my face. Rain doesn’t deter most of the Dutch from riding, so it won’t deter me either. Snow probably will, though.

Once I’m back up and running with my (or a new) computer, I’ll provide some glamour shots of Lynette. And of lots of other things.