{"id":1593,"date":"2007-08-28T22:27:34","date_gmt":"2007-08-29T01:27:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=1593"},"modified":"2007-10-06T06:49:01","modified_gmt":"2007-10-06T09:49:01","slug":"thats-not-my-bike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=1593","title":{"rendered":"That&#8217;s not my bike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"dropcap\">A<\/span> couple of <a href='http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?attachment_id=1594' rel='attachment wp-att-1594' title='Bike, Train, Fries'><img class=\"alignright\" src='http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/08\/a_train_a_bi_ke_a_me.thumbnail.jpg' alt='Bike, Train, Fries' \/><\/a>days ago, there was a great <a href=\"http:\/\/www.metafilter.com\/64151\/Amsterdam-Bike-Culture\">Metafilter thread on Amsterdam&#8217;s (or Dutch) bicycle culture<\/a> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.ski-epic.com\/amsterdam_bicycles\/\">direct link to photos<\/a>). Generally speaking, what was possible to do in The Netherlands you&#8217;d be arrested for over here. Some annotations that are applicable to the discussion:\n<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>You need huge chains and locks if you don&#8217;t want your brand-new or dirt-old bike to be stolen.<\/li>\n<li>You&#8217;re allowed to carry kids whenever you turn 16.<\/li>\n<li>Every kid is being taught traffic rules at and around age 7 or 8.<\/li>\n<li>From the twins, I was the first one to be able to drive a bike and that was at age of 5, I believe.\n<\/li>\n<li>The biggest achievement as a kid was the very first time I drove on a bike to the nearest <em>library<\/em> (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=1279\">earlier<\/a>).\n<\/li>\n<li>Before I came over, I left my bike at the Deventer railway station, locked, naturally. On my return 4 years after, I expected the bike to be still there. Afterwards, I thought that that was one of the most ridiculous thoughts.\n<\/li>\n<li>When  I was a teenager, I reported a stolen bike at a police station. Later on, I found out that that was pretty naive: In the Netherlands hundreds of bikes are stolen everyday.\n<\/li>\n<li>At one time I bought a bike <em>with a locked chain<\/em> tied to its frame. I was lucky to have a friend with the right tools. I remember the poor excuse too and it&#8217;s so bad that&#8217;s not worth mentioning here.\n<\/li>\n<li>We used to have a set of race bikes and (this suprises everybody) used to tour (&#8216;race&#8217;) around with it, together with my brother. My favourite climb was the <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?f=q&#038;hl=en&#038;q=Holterberg+Holten,+Overijssel,+Netherlands&#038;sll=37.0625,-95.677068&#038;sspn=35.410182,58.359375&#038;ie=UTF8&#038;cd=3&#038;geocode=0,52.320498,6.409318&#038;ll=52.321045,6.409321&#038;spn=0.013352,0.028496&#038;t=k&#038;z=15&#038;iwloc=addr&#038;om=1\">&#8216;Holterberg&#8217;<\/a>, which is the only &#8216;mountain&#8217;  with a 10% elevation.\n<\/li>\n<li>I had an accident on that same mountain: While going downhill at 50 km\/h, I was hit by a car with a trailer. I was (miraculously) not hurt and my bike had only suffered light damage.\n<\/li>\n<li>At one time, I was touring with a friend of mine and he had a hard-time keeping up with me: we figured out that my weight was to blame for my speedy climbs.\n<\/li>\n<li>At one night, I (together with Alfons) accompanied  a female friend accross one of the Deventer bridges because her boyfriend was too lazy to bike her around in the dark. It was one of the weirdest and funniest drives.\n<\/li>\n<li>At one time I had to drive back home in a Fall storm: I remember &#8216;sailing&#8217; home, literally.\n<\/li>\n<li>Thanks to my dad, I&#8217;m fairly good at taking apart bicycles and doing repairs on them. There goes nothing above the smell of a newly-greased bike chain.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This also reminds me that the last time I officially drove a bicycle was during my stay in The Netherlands in 2004. We (Alfons and I) drove out to pick up &#8220;flemish&#8221; fries and some other typical Dutch junk food. So once in a while, my wife asks &#8216;what was in that stuff we bought when we were overthere and you guys drove the bike and it was a kind of uh, gross&#8217; (general answer: &#8216;horsemeat&#8217;). Anyway, after that bike drive, I became aware that I was totally out of shape. I remember having that same feeling during my second return in 2006: this time however, we <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=1373\">mostly walked<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of days ago, there was a great Metafilter thread on Amsterdam&#8217;s (or Dutch) bicycle culture (direct link to photos). Generally speaking, what was possible to do in The Netherlands you&#8217;d be arrested for over here. Some annotations that &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/?p=1593\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[89,90],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1593"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.hoogervorst.ca\/arthur\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}