HobbesOnTour

You think Amsterdam is bike unfriendly? Try riding into Venice!! That's a whole city that won't let you bring a bike in!


I'm sorry, but I have to wade in here....


Amsterdam is extremely Bike Friendly and to suggest otherwise is just unfair.

I think it's fairly common knowledge that where there are lots of bikes there are lots of thefts. That's life, unfortunately.

As for the Hotel refusing the bikes.....
A lot of the Hotels in Amsterdam are in buildings that are several hundreds of years old and have been adapted and upgraded over the centuries. These older hotels, especially, are very small and just don't have the space for bike storage. A lot of rooms in these hotels barely have enough room for 2 people, never mind 2 bikes.

The lesson to take from this anecdote is not that Amsterdam is bike unfriendly, more that if bike security is that important to you, then that should be a condition of your reservation.

There are hotels that will happily provide the secure space - they're typically newer hotels and more expensive.


My preferred approach to big cities is to avoid staying in them. Instead, where I can, I'll stay outside the city and hit it as early as possible in the morning. Cycling around an empty city at dawn, hitting all the sites, watching a big city wake up is a fabulous experience!


As for the topic at hand, the bike I use for touring is an old (Mid-late 90's) Trek MTB.

I got that bike because I wanted
Steel Frame (Insert backwoods smithy jokes here)
26 inch wheels (say what you like about old fashioned, but even at low speed my dynohub generates decent power.

Also, I am not mechanically minded in any way and wanted to learn about bike mechanics. I'd much rather do that on an old bike than a sparkly new one.

A part of my logic also, was that in the case of a catastrophic failure a similar frame would not be an issue to source (and cheap) and the components would be easily transferable.

Also, I didn't have the money to fork out for a "touring" bike.

It's an advantage that my bike looks like crap, but it was not my intention specifically to get a cheap bike to deter theft. I'd be very disappointed if my bike was stolen, not because of the cost, but because I've put such work into it.

Having said that, having toured exclusively in Western Europe, I have never taken any specific security precautions other than locking it. And I don't even do that all the time.

Most places are very accommodating for cyclists who wish to leave their bikes in a secure location when visiting places. Ironically (for the Americans here), the only place that I have been refused the facility to leave my bike in a visible location was at the American War Cemetry in Limburg, NL. The security guard insisted that I use the bike parking facilities which were out of sight. In fairness to the man, he promised to keep a close eye on the bike.... and he did.


To conclude, bad things happen everywhere. A bit of common sense goes a long way to preventing them.

And writing about them on Bike Forums just makes them seem more common than my experience suggests they are.

Frank