When I first saw the cycling lanes here in Vienna, my little heart went pitter patter.
My bicycle was primary means of transportation (until I traded up to Jeff’s electric scooter) when we lived in China. I rode that $40US bicycle all over the Fair, Flat city of Nanjing. Rain was a deterrent, but it never got terribly cold there, so I kept it up all year round. I could pack a ton on the back of that cycle and did.
Look! 5 kilos of rice! Plus all of my other groceries. Oh, that brings back such great memories!
My cheap-y cycle required a few new parts over the course of three years, but I loved that thing and was quite sad to leave it behind when we left.
Now, cycling in China was quite the life changing experience (Country Roads). I had not really done much cycling for about twenty years prior to our arrival in Nanjing. After I ended up on the losing end of a dust up with an automobile, I decided cycles were the instruments of the devil. Or maybe cars were the instruments, but in that case, I’d rather be in the tin can than be the naked monkey hanging out there to be crushed by the metal monsters. Yes, I was psychologically scared. Deeply.
But with the advent of children, many things in life change. In my case, since I wanted my children to be sporty, I decided taking up cycling again was mandatory. I also learned to swim (hello!, yes, there are many people out there who despite years and years of early swimming lessons never really learned how to swim), and as I have chronicled, I continue to ski despite quite loathing it.
The bike parking lot at school. It is getting less crowded as the weather gets cooler ...
And I have to say, if you are going to plunge into something that you are afraid of, like cycling, going as far off the deep end as you can and making it work is a surefire way to success. Cycling in China? Oy! There are no road rules (well, there are, but “rule” sort of insinuates that people follow them. If a rule is broken by every living, breathing human, is it really a rule?). It is an every man, woman and child for himself sort of experience to be on a road in China. It took me a while to get used to it, but I eventually was quite comfortable among the hordes, although it was exhausting not only for the physical bits, but for the mental alertness required to leave home and return in one piece.
Arriving in the Czech Republic, one of our first discoveries was that we lived on a cycling path. Which, if you are not clear, is a place where bicycles are allowed, but not cars. For real. It did take my shattered cycling mind a few weeks to get used to the peace and quiet. For real.
And another key difference, though, was that cycling was no longer my main transportation. I had a car, and a tram system that met all of my transportation needs. I wasn’t cing to run my errands or to volunteer at school. I was cycling for the sheer pleasure of it. In truth, I am not a sporty person by nature. I like a good audio book and a lace knitting project more than I really like to cycle on a cold rainy day, but the path was convenient, I do enjoy the feeling of being finished with exercise (and I have discovered that one must actually start the exercise in order to have that nice glow-y feeling at the end) and so I cycled for the "fun" of it.
I did occasionally haul myself out to the grocery shop, but my bicycle is a sporty, sleek sort of thing and did not come equipped with the practical sort of baskets and strapping on places that my Chinese bicycle did. So, cycling was more fun and exercise and functional.
And then, Vienna. Oh, my, this is a cycling city. People here take cycling seriously. In fact, and we will explore this topic more tomorrow, they take it way, way too seriously.
Where there were bicycle paths in CR that winded through the city, they followed the river, and generally had their own routes – they weren’t part of the roads or sidewalks. Here, the bicyclers basically get their own chunk of roadway or sidewalk, and loathe to any pedestrian who get in the way.
Here's an example of the kind of status cyclers have: this sign means "no entrance (it's a one way street), except bicycles." The Austrians allow cyclers to cycle the wrong way on one way streets. Although, to be clear, only where marked. If it is not marked, you can be stopped and ticketed: they are serious all six ways to Sunday. That is my bicycle in the photo, by the way. Notice the rather classy plastic bag over the seat?
It rained last night and I don't yet have one of these:
And, drum roll please. I have totally pimped my ride:
While I can't carry quite as much as I did in China (I had a front basket and a back carrier there, here a front basket would interfere with my mad gear switching skilz. I only had three gears in China, where as here I have some enormous multiple of 42), I do feel that I have sufficient cargo room for my grocery runs. What more do you need?
Continuing on this random path of jumping topics every paragraph, I have to post his photo. I totally love how this family maxes out the carrying capacity of one wee bike. They just need a little cargo carrier behind the trailer and they can do grocery runs in style. Although if I were this mom, I would just tuck the groceries in with the little human in the tag along trailer.
Tomorrow (and possibly forever onward): More on the Seriousness of Cycling
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