One summer, wearing shorts and a tank top, I wrecked my scooter on a gravel road. The whole left side of my body was one big dirt filled wound that my aunt cleaned with iodine and a tooth brush.Painful.
But that probably didn't hurt as much as gassing up does in Holland. You think $3.50 is bad, try $10 the gallon on for size. The first time I spent 120 euros (about $170) to tank the Volvo, I decided it was time for a new strategy.
That's why I'm biking to work again. I've even purchased a rain suit. Nothing fancy. Gray and dull with reflector stripes. So though I'd like to say I'm doing it because it's healthy or it's environmentally friendly, I'm really just avoiding a trip to the gas station.
A FEW STATS
Luckily biking here is about as normal as eating turkey at Thanksgiving. They have these cute little brick red bicycle paths literally everywhere, about 18,500 miles of them. There are probably as many types of bicycles and bike accessories as there are types of cars. In fact there are more bicycles in Holland than there are people, around 19 million. The government spends around 400 million euros a year on bicycle infrastructure. And if you can bear one more statistic, the Dutch bike an average of 560 miles a year going to school or work, running errands and picking the kids up from school. There are bikes with baskets, bags, child and pet carriers, one, two, three and four wheels, ones you lie in, ones that look like bullets. The newest edition is the 'lokfiets', translation the Bait Bike.
TRUST NO ONE
My first year in Holland, I very unwittingly parked my (mother's) bike at the station on a Saturday night, locked it and went back for it on Monday morning. It was gone.
What I didn't know then was that stealing a bicycle is also about as normal as turkey at Thanksgiving. It's hard to say how many get stolen per year because often the victim doesn't bother to report it and just steals someone else's. An educated guess is about 900,000. And it's often someone too drunk to drive and too lazy to walk. The bait bike could be the solution. My hometown Amersfoort was the first city to try the bait bike out. The police park a locked bicycle bugged with a GPS device somewhere in town and just wait for a idiot to reveal him or herself. And it has been very successful. There are 15 bait bikes in Amersfoort that help catch about 14 two wheeler thieves a month. Hopefully this will scare off the thieves for a while and I'll keep this bike longer that my first one.
Credit illustration: Sam Henry
