Cycle Like The Dutch – The Trouble With Bicycle Racks

Cycle Like The Dutch -

There is something very undignified about losing a fight with a bicycle rack. Even if you do manage to win you still can’t walk away without feeling more than a little humiliated.The problem is that there are just so many bicycles in Amsterdam and so few bicycle racks to park them in. Bikes end up being forced in to them and tightly jammed together at all kinds of odd angles. And because it is often impossible to find anywhere else, you have no other option but to add your own bike to the tangled mess when you want to chain it up somewhere.

Parking and Locking Your Bike

Parking your bike in to a bicycle rack is an exercise in brute force and perseverance and it is very important that you don’t mind (or care) if a few things get broken in the process. Pedals get trapped in wheels and handlebars become entangled with brake cables. It’s like trying to force two unrelated jigsaw puzzle pieces together with a hammer (if they were both made out of sharp, rusty metal). It’s a task that would send even the most calm and serene of people into a blind rage. Even when you have managed to do it (and the urge to murder has started to diminish) the real trouble has only just begun.

Because you have now ‘successfully’ forced your bicycle between its two rusty neighbors there is even less room for you to manoeuvre and you still have to somehow lock your bicycle to the rack.

Reaching over the handlebars won’t work because you can no longer squeeze yourself between the bikes to get close enough (even when awkwardly stretching over while standing on one leg).

This often leaves you no other option but to crouch down and squeeze yourself awkwardly between the bicycles as you reach out, chain in one hand and the keys in the other, trying to lock bicycle and rack together and remain calm. However, as if this situation was not infuriating enough already you will inevitably find your goal frustratingly just out of reach when your coat or backpack suddenly becomes caught on some random bicycle part which you are now unable to free yourself from. At this point it’s worth questioning how much you actually like cycling and if it is all worth it.

But eventually, after much frustrated and annoyed struggling, you finally manage to reach and successfully lock the chain around the front of your bicycle and the rack. You can relax. You have been successful…

But then you try to stand up.

Trapped In A Bicycle Rack

Whatever random bicycle part you became snagged upon while trying to lock your bike is now the same one stopping you from backing out as well (and threatening to pull half your clothes off over your head if you try). It’s like being a fly trapped in a spider web made of bicycle chains and brake cables.

It is then, after a while of unsuccessfully struggling to get free a very embarrassing realization starts to settle in. You are a grown man (or woman) trapped in a bicycle rack and you have only two options open to you. Remain trapped for several hours or face the humiliation of having to call out for help from a random passerby (which should not be too hard because by now you’ve already drawn a crowd of onlookers).

And as if that was not enough you know that whichever option you choose you have to do the whole thing in reverse when you want your bicycle back.

Check out the next part in our hilarious look at how to cycle like the Dutch – Giving a Lift

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

23 Responses

  1. GamerGrrl says:

    Hahaha!

    My last bike had a brilliant gear system, unless you park your bike in public racks that is. Since the breaks were also the gear shifts, it was a very temperamental beast. If someone nudged the break/gear shift a little while wrestling with their bike, and I hop on being none the wiser, the chain would fall off if I was lucky. If unlucky, it broke. THAT was always a nice treat after a long day of work, especially when it was pouring down rain.

    Of course, I think the best part of the public bike racks is having long hair and getting yourself hopelessly tangled on some random bike bit while practicing to be the world Twister champion. Then either having to choose to rip the hair out of your head to make the train on time, or admit defeat and pray the random stranger you’re begging for help actually acknowledges your presence. o-O

  2. Invader_Stu says:

    Barb the French Bean – You’re going to love this then :p It’s just outside Amsterdam central train station: http://www.bakfiets-en-meer.nl/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/amsterdam-fietsflat.jpg

    Wezz6400 – True. It would be impressive to see someone Hulk-out but I’d never want to upset them.

    GamerGrrl – Owww. I’d hate to think how much worse it must be to get your hair caught. Thank god I have short hair. With that and gears it sounds like you have it much worse then me.

  3. iooryz says:

    And now try doing so drunk and with student bikes. It won’t look pretty ;-)

  4. Invader_Stu says:

    iooryz – The time I did it drunk was the same time I locked my bike to some else as well as the rack :p

  5. Andrew says:

    A bit different to this story but saw this just now and thought of you.

    http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19846214

  6. Invader_Stu says:

    Andrew – I can see why :p Damn. That Nick guy beat my record… but maybe I should be happy about that.

  7. Just saw the multi-level car park for bikes. WHOA. o_O

  8. Corinne says:

    It is because of this dance that I often walk when taking my fiets would be so much faster My Dutch boyfriend can never quite understand why it takes me so much longer than him to get my bike unlocked and untangled; I still can’t understand how he manages this feat so quickly every time.

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