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Amsterdam photos later this week, but in the meantime, want to see some crazy photos of bikes in Amsterdam?
When turning, people would just put one hand casually down on that side, or point to the ground to the left or right of them:
We saw lots of couples on dates, where the girls were riding sideways on the back of their boyfriends’ bikes. It looks cute and charming, although my friend Penny, who lives there, said that it feels like a horribly uncomfortable half-body ab workout:)
We saw people carrying crazy things:
We saw people biking with dogs in their front baskets:
More below…
And, most of all, we saw families on bikes–often three or four kids on a bike with one parent!
Other things we noticed about biking in Amsterdam:
* No one wears helmets, not even kids.
* People do everything while riding bikes: hold up umbrellas in the rain, eat sandwiches, smoke cigarettes, listen to music, talk on the phone, hold hands with their friend cycling next to them…
* Bikes rule the roads, even more than cars! Drivers watch very carefully for bikes, and pedestrians stay clear of the bike lanes. If there’s any question about who has right of way, it generally goes to the bike.
* There are big bike paths on pretty much every street in the city.
* The Netherlands has more bikes than people! The population is 16.7 million people, yet there are 18 million bikes.
We loved biking around Amsterdam–what a rad city!
(Photos from the brilliant Amsterdamize, Copenhagen Cycle Chic and Ottsworld)
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