Dutch bike are different, more sturdy, built for bad weather, built for being outside in rain and wind and cold all day and night. Most of the time they are parked outdoors because there is no room to park them inside the house, especially in the bigger cities. They are relatively heavy, but simple and can easily survive twenty years outside. They will look horrible, dirty, old, broken, and they are.

Many bikes here have wheels that are not straight anymore. But still they are used daily. Tires are soft, chain is worn out, and still it works. They not only carry the cyclist but also his or her friend on the bagage holder on the back, which is probably wobbly.

OK, what I'm describing here is the typical student bicycle. It may not be efficient, but it is cheap and it works and it gets you there. We don't use these bicycles for long distances, but for short onces, going from home to the supermarket or school.

In Amsterdam and Utrecht at Central Station they have bicycle parking lots for about 20.000 bikes. And many times you have to search and search to find an empty spot. When you park your bike here, anyone can throw his or her bike against it, or pull another bike out of it with force, damaging your bike. Not everyone acts like this, but it happens now and then.

So bikes are efficient in a different way than the bikes I see on pictures in NYC.

>Even if it weighed five hundred pounds, as long as the handlebars are on a lubricated pivot, forward motion and striking the handlebar will knock the bike over.

The weight point is different. You really don't flip 'over'. That direction is as likely as flipping 'under'. Given enough momentum and a very heavy/strong object you ride into, your front wheel will collapse.

Again, on a dutch bike, all this has to happen at at most 15 km/h. You put your feet down and you are standing still.

>p.s. as a NYC cyclist, whenever I see a Dutch bike I think it looks incredibly inefficient. But that’s cool, whatever, all bikes are good as long as they're ridden safely.

They don't just look inefficient. They are. By design. They are faster than walking, and that's enough. Our trips on average are about 10 to 30 minutes at at most 15 km/h (<10 mph). They involve about 10-200 turns, about 3-50 stops.

Why? Because that's how they build the cities. If you ride at that speed, you wait for a green light just once (and then follow the wave though-out town). You can go faster, but then you have to wait at the next intersection. Also: you don't want to get to work/school/friends needing a shower. The amount of energy put into it, needs to be identical to walking for the same amount of time.

People move children, groceries, even furniture by bike. So they pick a bike based on durability, size, stability and how well you can stand still while remaining seated on your bike.

They turn a distance you can safely walk in an hour, into a safe 20 minute ride. And like most cities in the world, the cities are designed around the 30min travel time from any point A in the city to any point B in the city. This is by bike or public transport. By car it generally takes twice that time.

Why? Because cars are more likely to get stuck in traffic. They often have to take detours (many streets are just one direction). They have a problem finding parking space, etc. And then you pay about 1 to 5 euro per hour to park your car.

But if police sees a race bike going 30 km/h (20mph) they would stop it.