The star letter this week.
The reader comments that he recently visited Utrecht on business and that
Quote:
on 19 September he counted 89 bicycles. 12 cars and 4 buses pass him by between 7.57 am and 8 am.
He comments that the buses were "bendy ones" with three coaches.
He comments that the cyclists were not riding trendy road bikes, mountain bikes - but were riding traditional bicycles with mudguards and a rear luggage rack. Nor he says were the cyclists dressed in trendy lycra - but in work/office clothes and had briefcases on the small luggage rack behind them.
Quote:
It struck me how pleasant the environment - the cyuclists commuting together and chatting away. What a shame when cisrcumstances force a commuter back into the car
Yes.. September this year was very pleasant. I would be inclined to go back to Utrecht in say end November to February to see if they are still riding to work though.
You always see more commuters on bikes in nice dry weather. Wet, dark and nasty - Utrecht can have a nasty Siberian wind sweeping down from the North German Plain
But I agree - lovely to just sit and breathe in the culture and way of life of a town. Pity we cannot do this sort of thing more often these days.
He says
Quote:
My mind ran over all the excuses .. fear of injury.,.. luggage.. young family. Few days in Utrecht swept this aside.
One young family sticks in my memory. There were two small children and dad clearly had a walk at the end of the journey as the youngest would need a buggy. Did he need his car? Well .. no. The yonger tot was in a seat by the handlebars; the older child on a seat at the back and behind the older child - buggy strapped on one side of the wheel and a bag on the other
I can only assume that this bike was a strong sturdy one and not a road bike! And that the weighting was stabilised.
The Mad Lad uses a trailer for their youngest and their 6 year old rides his own bike now. But he did have the boy on a child seat with him in the past.
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