Bicylettes, Bicicletas, Velos, Fahrrads!

You probably know we’re obsessed with bikes. Heck, we even arrived at our wedding on a bicycle built for two. And we’ve been staunch supporters of SB Bike for over a decade.

Of course, Europe is biking paradise. Here we’ve seen the most dazzling array of bikes for racing, commuting, running errands, delivering goods and kids, and even for decorating storefronts, which immediately fosters that romantic, old world ambiance. We also discovered that, as expected, bike infrastructure is leaps and bounds ahead of most US cities. European leaders have embraced bikes, and almost every big city in Europe has prioritized bike and ped safety over car traffic. But most of this infrastructure is surprisingly new. In return, citizens have reaped numerous health and environmental rewards. So do us tourists: we relished cities that had rid their downtown corridors of polluting, dangerous cars and trucks, which made it much more pleasant to explore.

Of course, you probably associate the Netherlands with bikes—it’s the most-bike friendly country in the world. The high density of bikes in Amsterdam and beyond is a result of a continuous network of safe, mainly protected bike paths and junctions that often prioritize bikers over drivers. For instance, check out how the city of Utrecht remade itself into a biker’s paradise. Over 50% of the city rides, and when we visited for three days, we were shocked to see a continuous flow of bikes past our apartment at all hours. We also discovered the world’s largest (and probably most state-of-the-art) bike garage under the train station, which can accommodate 12,500 bikes. (It looked to be nearly full!)

Beyond the Netherlands, we were also impressed with the biking culture in Germany, Belgium, France, Ireland, and Croatia. In Munich I stumbled across the most insane collection of bikes at the Pinakothek der Moderne Museum, which features more than 70 of the most creative, slick, funky, and elegant bikes from the early 1800s till today (see last photo). The exhibit is appropriately titled, The Bicycle – Cult Object – Design Object. Here are some of my fave bike scenes from our travels thus far. Enjoy!