An ode to biking

Having Chinese heritage and grown up in the Netherlands, I feel my love for biking is coming through both nature and nurture. Even though I complain plenty about biking when visiting other places, since the bikes are not always top-quality but neither are all 4 that I have standing here, it is one of the best ways to move quickly and see more without tiring too much.

As the 15-minute city concept is winning in popularity, and as an unofficial reviewer of things, I thought I would reflect on the places I have biked and rank them. Since I do mostly bike in the city, if we go outdoors I would prefer my feet or a horse.

Beijing, China

Overall: a good place to bike if you want to care minimally about rules and safety, like to shout at people and try to bike on highways.

Pro: Beijing always felt a bit lawless, even though it is the center of power. I remember shouting at everyone on the road because: point A, there are a lot of vehicles on the bike lanes like electric carts, scooters, steps, hooverboards, cars and buses that may or may not belong there; point B, using Dutch curses or comments really grabs attention since it is unexpected for the Chinese.

The city has a very clear gridlike layout which makes it easy for biking since there are a lot of straight roads and wide boulevards. It is also a great way to try how close you want to bike next to cars or other faster-moving traffic. And it often moves quicker than many public transport options, which are especially crowded during peak hours and often make you walk more than you expect.

Con: Beijing traffic can be entertaining, but also annoying and slightly too dangerous. The amounts of times I biked past a car and was almost hit by a door was too high for comfort. There are also way too many traffic lights, because the grid creates a million moments when you will need to cross. In the old center around the Forbidden City with the small alleyways, hutongs for those in the know, can be a maze to find your way through and when a car comes, because why would they not be driving through these very narrow alleys, you are basically blocked from continuing your way.

And lastly, you may not be surprised to hear that many accidents happen and you are quite vulnerable on a bike. I have had many colleagues getting hurt (whereas I was the only one getting somebody else hurt on my bike but that is a story for another time) and you see many reckless delivery drivers trying to do their job (a.k.a. moving stuff as quickly from one place to another) which often seems to involve trying to go through you.

London, Great Britain

Overall: if your mind is not entirely consumed by the fact that you need to ride on the opposite side of the road, you can do some nice biking.

Pro: there is a public bike system in London, which I always encourage. Even though there are some height differences, these are not too big to be of any inconvenience with a limited-quality bike. There generally tend to be bike lanes which are mostly only occupied by bikes.

Con: why oh why did these people decide to ride on the other side of the road?! I do not think I will ever be able to wrap my mind around it. If you go straight, no problem, but you do need to curve eventually one way or the other. Also, bikes are not that common yet so it does feel like a car can creep up on you at any moment.

Aalborg, Denmark

Overall: it is definitely a bike-centered place and offers some nice routes throughout the city.

Pro: Denmark is probably one of the most well-known countries for its biking culture besides the other Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands. Of course this means that I am extra strict on its biking facilities since I think the biking culture is one of the few things the Netherlands really has going for it.

Biking in Aalborg this summer, I think it was quite comparable to biking in a Dutch city. Bike lanes aplenty, bikes aplenty, nice bike routes and wide boulevards where you can bike and walk next to each other (still a concept I am not convinced of). The main difference was that most people wore helmets (a concept I am more convinced of).

Con: I was surprised how many cars still were riding through the city with bike lanes on the side. I feel in most Dutch cities cars either need to drive quite slow or are rerouted on a ring outside the city. Also, there is quite a lot of wind which is unsurprising but always annoying.

Lyon, France

Overall: if you do not mind having to go up and down a bit with probably a bit of effort it is a nice city to bike through, especially if you want to see its different parts.

Pro: a public bike system! I think the shame in the Netherlands is that you need at least a personal public transport card to make use of our ‘ public’ bike system, OV-fiets. Anyway, it was quite nice to bike in Lyon (also because we could rent bikes 3 days for 5 euros and of course (a)bused that as much as possible) although the public bikes vary a bit in quality.

The city is quite sprawling so rather then waiting for public transport and then having to go through 5 stops to get to your destination, biking feels a lot more efficient. There are also some areas, like the Parc de la Tête d’Or and Parc Gerland that are nice to bike through. Also along the Rhône and Saône there is plenty of biking space and you could even go all the way to Genève.

Con: some of the bikes creak a lot, which is a bit annoying. The old city center also has a lot of cobble stones so it is probably not very nice to bike either. And going downhill I had a few moments where I was afraid any pebble on the road could send me flying off the bike with a pretty bad landing. There are also quite some roads which could use some maintenance.

Losing your way around

A few weeks ago, when I was still allowed to walk around freely, I found myself in an unfamiliar city with some time to kill. I knew the fastest way to walk from my current spot to the train station, but decided against it since it was nice weather and I would not have anything to do at the train station anyway. So taking my time, I strolled through some typical Dutch neighborhoods and made a detour to the old city center as well, making sure not to stray too far from my goal. It worked out well.

I tend to do this quite often, but realized that the reason it went well, is because I did it in a relatively small city (the Netherlands is small after all). When I lived in Beijing and Shanghai, I sometimes did the same. I would be done with work or returning from my sports studio and wanting to make life a bit more exciting, decide to do a detour.

The good thing about biking, is that you can more easily go further distances, even if your route turns out to be a bit longer than expected. The bad thing about biking is that I tend to do it at high-speed, which means I need to cover more distance if I take a wrong turn.

And the other disadvantage of big Chinese cities, is that many spots tend to look very much alike. Those cute hutongs and charming alleys? Very nice to wander for a while, but once you decide you want to now go straight home, it may not be that straight. The big boulevards and ring roads? There are so many of them, and most of them are dotted with similarly huge shopping centers and government buildings. You only end up knowing if you went wrong, once you notice the name of a subway stop which you did not expect to see at all. Which is not be close to where you need to be at all.

So that is how I spent a lot of time in China, lost on a bike. It will probably continue once I move to a bigger city here again. Something else to look forward to I guess.

Biking Battles: Work never seemed so far away

So you accept your role as prey and see if you need to call on your other bunny friends. After putting down the foot on the pedal, you decide to go for it and join your fellow friends.

The start is a wide road, separated from the main car road. So it should be easy cruising through the sun (when it is there), however in reality it only means that you need to pay more attention to the cars trying to sneak into your biking lane. They are not even being sneaky. Acting like the predators they are (see The jungle road) they push you away while giving you the side eye to make sure you do not even touch their precious skin.

Furthermore, it is not entirely clear to you how much brain power bunnies have, but there are enough moments where it seems very low, yours included. The amount of curves you made along the road and scares you had by suddenly having scooters, cars or even buses making some or a lot of noise because of your maneuvers would make any normal person question your sanity. But adaptability is the highest means the ones lower down the pyramid have to make it, so you go along of course.

And then suddenly you have trees, shade and absolutely nothing else changes. The largest difference it makes is that you can play hide and seek with your opponents and startle innocent pedestrians. A real obstacle are the bus stops on the side. The people getting off seem like real mice crawling around, seemingly walking deliberately in front of your bike or freezing at your first sight. After toying with them for a bit, you decide to go for the last stretch.

It is a bridge. With two roads that need to be crossed, way too many traffic lights and very little patience. Whenever you see the chance, you just hop in between everything. This means paying most or your attention to where vehicles come from, not the stupid lights. You especially need to be careful when going against the (traffic) flow since everyone always seems to act as if this is a rarity. And if worse comes to worse and you need to cross the road without the traffic lights, just inch forward and try to look the drivers behind their wheels in the eye. You are one tough bunny!

You manage all that, and you will arrive at the oasis. Green everywhere, people fishing, cars slightly following the rules (since the military is watching or acting like they are) and silence. Oh and then you need to go to work. Nothing is perfect after all.