Bikes and more

Well, it's still cold here.  Really.  Not cold enough that I bothered to get out tuques or anything, but with the windchill, it was -18 Tuesday morning.  The admin assistant in Stefan's department asked him whether he was cold yet, and he told her that it was about where cold begins.  It's starting to warm up now, though, so I think the speedskaters are going to have to be quick if they want to hold any of the winter races.  They've been waiting for the ice to get thick enough, but I'm not sure it's going to make it.

What else is new with us?  Not too much.  Stefan's in the process of fixing both bikes, which has been temporarily stalled by a combination of back-ordered parts and snow.  Mine (which I'll blog about once it's all fixed up over the weekend) is pretty much done, but Stefan's still needs a couple of pieces.  It wasn't too bad while the snow and ice were all over the bike lanes, because we weren't really going to bike anywhere anyway, but he's been without a bike for nearly three weeks now, and the choice between a half-hour walk to work or working at home is starting to wear on him.

It does mean that we've been walking a lot more, and you notice a lot more when you're walking than you do on the bike, when you're trying to avoid cars and pedestrians and idiots on mopeds.  For instance, you notice exactly who and what drives in the bike lanes.

I've mentioned this before: bikes here have automatic right-of-way over cars.  The right-of-way between bikes is much less clear, and seems to have a good deal to do with who's already stopped, how fast everyone's going, and who feels like playing chicken with other bikes.  Multilane streets nearly all have bike lanes on them, a strip of red paving about five feet across designated as a bike lane.  That's wide enough for two bikes to ride side by side, if you're used to riding and can ride with virtually no clearance between your handlebars and the handlebars next to you.  Otherwise, you ride on the road itself, and because the roads without marked bike lanes are generally quiet residential streets, you usually ride down the middle unless there's a car.

In theory, the bike lanes are exactly what they say they are: lanes for bikes.  In reality, I have seen the following vehicles in marked red bike lanes (images courtesy of Google Image Search):

• Normal bicycles.  Lots of them.  Some of them carrying various heavy or otherwise unwieldy objects, such as cellos, trees, fenceposts, bookcases, or suitcases.  A friend of mine saw someone carry a one cubic metre crate on a bike.  Some of them with two people, one sitting sidesaddle on the back.  Some of them with small children in a seat on the front or back.  Some of them biking one bike while pulling another next to them (I can't work out the logistics of that at all).
• Mopeds.  You know, Vespas and the like.  I hate them.  Despise them with a fiery passion.  They zip in and out of bikes and pedestrians faster than they really ought to be going, and most of them could desperately use a muffler.  They particularly enjoy passing on the inside around a corner or racing out from blind corners directly into bike lanes and sidewalks.
• Recumbent bicycles.  Like the recumbent bike at the gym, but, you know, an actual bike.  These are a pain: they're much lower to the ground than other bikes, and since you're usually looking straight ahead rather than down, you don't always notice them until the last second.
• Electric bicycles.  They're normal bicycles, but with a small motor that you can use to help you get up hills and such.  Although given the lack of hills around here, I think it's more for if you're too lazy to pedal.
• Bakfiets.  I don't think there's another word for this type of bike, and we just use the Dutch word.  That's a picture of it to the right.  It's a normal bike, with a large box inserted between the handlebars and the front wheel.  In theory, I suppose you could use it to carry anything, but what you usually see inside is children.  So far as I can tell, you can fit up to four kids under the age of about six in the basket.  I'm not sure what you do if they start fighting and unbalance the bike, because the kids seem to be fairly well-behaved while they're in the bakfiets.
• Tricycles.  Not children's tricycles, but adult-sized versions of them.  Yes, these exist, and yes, people ride them.  They seem to be largely used by people with balance problems and various disabilities.
• Side-by-side tandem bikes.  I didn't realize this existed either, but I saw one on a bike path just outside Eindhoven.  It looks like a bike version of a paddleboat, if that helps at all.
• Bicycles towing other bicycles.  This is hard to describe, so I found a picture.  You usually see parents dragging kids like this, because you can go faster and bring the kid's bike with you. 
• ATVs.  And not in the countryside, either.  I saw this on one of the main shopping roads in Eindhoven.  At least he was wearing a helmet.
• Old-people scooters. You know, the kind you see people driving through the mall and such.  This is pretty common, and let me tell you, they go fast.
• Wheelchairs.  Usually the motorized kind, because really, at top speed they can pass fairly slow bikes, but I did once see two older gentlemen in unmotorized wheelchairs who seemed to be racing one another, much to my entertainment.
• Unnecessarily-giant strollers.  I suspect that, like the wheelchairs (and the occasional person dragging a rolling suitcase), they opt for bike lanes because the paving is generally smoother and easier on the wheels.  On the other hand, the sidewalks here really aren't wide enough for giant strollers, so that may have something to do with it too.
• People who wander into bike paths without looking.  Are they a category?  Seriously, people will just walk diagonally across a bike path without glancing behind them to see if any bikes are coming.  That's why I have a bell.
• Small compact cars.  And not the kind that can't successfully drive in a straight line and thus swerve a bit into the bike lane as they drive.  This guy was in a small hatchback (not as small as a Smartcar... maybe a VW or Honda?) and opted to drive down the two-lane bike lane in order to get where he wanted to go.

What I haven't seen on bike paths:

• Those child trailers you see in Canada.  I suspect they aren't very maneuverable, especially for city biking, so they use a bakfiets instead.
• Tandem bikes.  You know, the cliche kind.  I've seen the occasional one in touristy areas, but that's about it.
• Kids under the age of about nine or ten.  Oh, the kids can bike, and from a much younger age than we start.  Much like Canadian kids get strapped into skates the second they can walk, Dutch kids get shoved onto a walking bike, like this.  They toddle along with legs on either side of the bike, tearing along the sidewalk.  The idea is to teach them the balance, I think.  The little kids have normal bikes, with adjustable training wheels, so that once they're almost but not quite ready to lose the training wheels, you just raise them an inch or so off the ground.  They'll catch the kid if they're tipping, but otherwise, they're biking normally.  Older kids bike in playgrounds, parks, down very, very quiet residential streets, and occasionally on sidewalks, but usually, they ride on the back of a parent's bike or get towed along.

In other news, Carnaval starts in a week.  We bought our costumes yesterday, but I'll save those for another post.  I'm not even sure pictures will do them justice, they're that... colourful.  Let's go with that.