I saw just one in Paris on my most recent trip and feared for the guy's safety as he zoomed through a busy area w/o brakes. Amsterdam, and all of the Netherlands, prides itself on road etiquette, but it still takes some sharp spacial awareness to ride most European cities. You tend to have less room for error or an unexpected stop--even with the bike lanes.

In my experience, you have to ride more predictably in Amsterdam since cars, bikes and scooters ride very close together and don't slow to a crawl just because they're within a meter of a pack of bikes. That said, drivers are more aware and their smaller cars can stop on a dime.

They're just so damned practical there that I can't fault them for not "catching on" to fixed gear bikes for the road. As they've got velodromes everywhere, I'm sure they're aware that they could ride those bikes on the street.

So, sorry for the rant-ish tone, but here's to the Dutch...