Photos: Cycling style in Amsterdam

ok, number 7 cannot be a comfortable way to bike.

Amazing photographs. Thanks for such a fun post! Cheers. Or as they might say in Amsterdam Proost!

#4: turning across streetcar tests at an angle, while riding between another pair of tracks, and looks as relaxed as if walking down the hall. I doubt I have seen two men as stylish as these at one time in Portland, in any form of transportation.

Robert Plant (#25) is in Amsterdam, too?

I don’t understand why people knock lycra and clothes that are specifically designed to make cycling more comfortable. Riding in regular clothes is so sweaty and uncomfortable!

Great pics and great style. I would love to experience, but even better would be having more of that culture here.

My 2cents on the social issue in USA and PDX / Vancouver, I will try to talk to folks when I pass them (or rarely when the pass me 🙂 ) but people seem to be surprised that I’d talk to them. Honestly, on the streets bike culture here strikes me as almost impenetrable. Locking up bikes, riding, seeing people at coffee shops I very rarely get any sense that people feel any camaraderie for fellow cyclists. I’d say it is the same in NYC. I haven’t ridden in Seattle in years, and when I did there were so few cyclists, but even then messengers were their own group, and roadies were their own group and people weren’t friendly. When I ride in Spokane and when I lived in Kennewick people on bikes seemed to have solidarity with other riders regardless of bike type. Missoula and Bozeman MT are both just way friendlier all the way around and cycling community didn’t seem more or less gregarious than the rest of the folks, but I often fell in and road with people and met people while out riding in those places. Of course both college towns.

I would like to see this same type of picture set on a rainy day. Bike-specific clothing has some advantages; wet weather riding being one of them.

I love the relaxed urban style of these riders. On the other hand, I think most of their bikes look like junkers . . . but with bike theft as endemic as it is there, I would be riding a beater too. Derailleurs, pfft, who needs them in a Completely Flat City.

Ho hum, another photo essay and another debate about appropriate bike clothing and appropriate bikes. I do love these essays, and if people want to compliment the style of the riders, rock on. I will continue to ride in bike clothing on my 27 gear touring bike because it works for where, when and how I ride, as does the short dress and high heels for #7 or whatever any of the riders depicted in Jonathan’s essay are wearing and riding.

Vive le difference!

Having lived in Amsterdam and owned both a dutch bike and a bakfiets for the kids, it is different regarding clothing.
1. The Dutch really do dress snazzy. In PDX, not so much.
2. Riding there on a dutch bike with no gears or maybe 3 with an internal hub…these bikes are designed for the flat city short riding at slow speeds. Helmets not necessary. If it rains, you ride with an umbrella up one handed, or some wear a $10 rain suit from the drug store. Kids have a cover over the box. In snow, you wear a scarf, gloves and a hat. So do kids. I got to ride with a kid on the back seat and one on a seat in front of me between the handlebars every day to their school. It’s one of my favorite memories of fatherhood.
3. I ride a lot in PDX now. Ride to work 2-3x/week, and go cycling for thousands of miles outside town every year. I never wear work clothes when riding because I have hills. Big hills, which I love to ride up. I never got much fitness biking in Amsterdam. It’s kind of impossible actually. Here I’m super fit, even my commute gets me 100’s of calories of burn.

They are different. In parts of PDX, it’s very possible to do it Dutch but in others it is not. No reason to argue about it. What we need is the A, B, C approach mentioned by JM in the Utrecht post to address the different types of bike infrastructure needed in different settings. Stop the arguments about separated or not or what to wear. We have an ok start on the core of our city, but it still stinks compared to the Dutch. We have a winner in our “bikeways” around town but lack the major separated pathways needed for type C roads. Those are what everyone in Amsterdam knew and used to get around, they are the backbone and the core reason biking works. Bikelanes are useless on these roads. Bikeways are great for type A and maybe some type B applications. Cycling outside town is not biking as we are talking here and can be made a lower priority for now I think.

We need separated bike tracks on 6 major crisscrosses across town, then everything else will fall in place. I’m fine with a tax to get that done.

Jonathan —

I note that 14, 19 and 24 are the only ones panned with a blurred background — do Amsterdamers ride slower than bicyclists in the other cities where you’ve done photoshoots?

Great photos, thanks!

Ted Buehler

I rode home from the BTA Alice awards in a dress with a cut similar to that of number 7 (although i did swap out my shoes.). The previous posters are correct in that it was not particularly comfortable, but it beat changing clothes again.

Point is, it is certainly possible. A dressy event doesn’t mean you can’t bike!