Holland
In addition to beautiful old architecture and canals, great beer and cheese, etc. what else catches the attention of most visitors to The Netherlands? …The number of bikes, and people on bikes, that you see everywhere!
Most people have saddlebags for their bikes which daily transport groceries, shopping, books etc:
Whereas other bikes have baskets on the front, and in this case, also a child seat in the back:
But the point is virtually everyone rides bikes on a daily basis:
Following are a couple examples of cargo bikes, or bakfiets as they are called. Many shops do their deliveries by bike.
Parents and grandparents use bikes like the following to drop off their kids at the nursery or school etc:
So babies learn balance from being ridden on their mom’s bike, and as small children soon are riding their own bikes.
Nowadays, electric bikes have grown in popularity. (And with electric bikes, you also see more people wearing bicycle helmets, though helmets are not mandated.)
For longer distances, most people take the train and so park their bike free-of charge at the train station.
The angle of this photo above doesn’t reflect this but in every bike parking lot, there are distinct rows of bike racks, and so just like a parking garage for cars, there are specific parking places.
Actually, the bike racks in most stations in the larger cities have a two-tiered type of bike racks, whereby another layer of parked bikes is created ABOVE the bikes on the bottom level.
