Reply #6: Austin too [View All]

And a lot of people in my building ride bikes or take busses. I really appreciate the transit system here, for the most part. I came from North Central Texas where each burb chose to or not to set up public transportation, depending on the taxpayers' willingness to pay a little extra in sales tax. In fact I worked for a company way back when who's owner illegally used his labor force to lobby against allowing that tax. Stupidity.

Funny, I was reading this article this a.m. ~
~snipped~ http://slate.msn.com/id/2124561/entry/2124562/

I can't tell you how absurd it looked—and how utterly gleeful it made me—as these older couples, in prim evening wear, mounted their bikes and rode side-by-side into the night. They whooshed past me, pedaling with ease, and their conversations carried on undisturbed. The women's dresses fluttered about their ankles; the men's cigarette smoke trailed behind them.

"There's something about riding a bike that makes you feel like you're 5 years old," my American friend Carey, who lives and works here in Amsterdam, said to me. Indeed, these proper Dutch couples outside the theater seemed to morph, before my eyes, into bouncy little children. I half-expected the ladies to shriek, "Wheeeeee!" as their bikes picked up speed and rounded a corner out of sight.

The next day, totally inspired, I rented a bike from the shop by my hotel. (Of course, a helmet was unnecessary or at least unfashionable—no one wears them here. Nor do they wear Spandex shorts; or wristbands; or water-dispensing backpacks. They just hop on the bike and go, like normal people. You'll often see a mother with two kids perched on the bike holding groceries in one hand and a cell phone in the other.)