(photograph © kiwidutch)
Few populations in the world use bicycles for everyday transport as much as the Dutch.
With high population density and flat terrain, The Netherlands has long recognised the social, physical and economic benefits of using bikes, especially within big cities.
It’s hard to find any street anywhere in Amsterdam that doesn’t have any bikes on it, so snapping a small selection was not particularly hard at all.
There are even traffic lights for bikes, they are about a meter high and feature, naturally enough: red, orange and green bikes in standard traffic light form.
The reason these are lower than regular traffic lights is so that you can press the button in the box next to it and if there is not already a bevy of cyclists around the pole, then you can lean against it without having to take your feet off the peddles whilst you wait for the light to go green.
Even the local window washers use two wheeled transport to take their ladders from street to street, although in this case, some repair to their flat tyres would make lighter work of it.
There are also plenty of cargo bikes (bakfiets) around, pervious posts to feature these are: http://kiwidutch.wordpress.com/2009/07/22/another-cool-bakfiets/ and http://kiwidutch.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/peddle-power-people-carriers-the-bakfiets/ .
It’s estimated that there are more than 700. 000 bicycles in Amsterdam, so come on, let’s take a look at a few of them…
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
(photograph © kiwidutch)
