Originally Posted by
CrankyOne
Holland (a province in The Netherlands) is relatively flat, The Netherlands is not. If you ride the route for races such as Amstel Gold you'll find out. And yet people still ride upright Dutch bikes in the hilly areas.
The Amstel Gold race is held in a tiry little corner of The Netherlands that is almost Germany...hardly representitive of the rest of the country. Holland is more representive of The Netherlands terrain than where the Amstel Gold race is held. I've been to The Netherlands...it's dead flat, especially compared to just about anywhere in the US. Even Iowa has more hills.
Originally Posted by
CrankyOne
More so, these are the preferred bikes for people all over the world. They're ubiquitous in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Spain, France, China, and elsewhere. In the late 90's there was a move towards other styles but that lasted only about seven years and shops say that demand went back to Dutch uprights. That's what people who use their bicycles for daily transportation prefer. Some people with very long commutes (greater than maybe 15 miles) or lots of steep hills will ride hybrid or road bikes but even for longer commutes you still see far more uprights than anything.
Sales statistics don't agree with you. Mountain bikes outsell "city bikes" in Europe almost 5 to 1. Road bikes sell at about the same rate. Someone is buying...and riding... all those mountain bikes.
Originally Posted by
CrankyOne
This excuse that we can't use them here because we have hills is a fallacy.
No one said that we "can't" ride them here in the US but most people don't want to. If they wanted them, the sales figures would reflect that.
Originally Posted by
CrankyOne
This also ignores that even in the hilliest places the majority of shorter distance errands for eating, shopping, school, or groceries are relatively flat and that it is only for the longer distance trips that many hills are encountered. Ride the bike for the short local stuff and drive a car for the fewer trips that involve mountains.
You can't say what shorter distance riding is for the entire US. Some people, out of necessity, are going to ride short distances that are flat and some aren't. It's a big country with a very widely varied terrain.