Cycles in Europa
I thought about bringing my bike on vacation with me. Gee, two weeks on foot… I don’t know. Decided to forego the ordeal at the airports but did some looking around anyway. In Brussels, I found some interesting commuting stations for electric bikes. They work like a club you have a membership in. You get to use a bike and a charging station downtown:
I saw very few bikes being used, except for some absolute junkers that looked like they wouldn’t even roll.
In Sicily, the cycling blogs said “don’t bother. The hills are many, the roads are very narrow, and the drivers insane”. I can vouch for all that. I had arranged for a rental bike, but decided to save my life instead. Oh… by the way… in Italy don’t give the Seattle “thank you” wave when someone let’s you in traffic. They assume you are flipping them off and respond accordingly.
In Rome, also there little cycling traffic, probably due to the scooters and the huge gaps in the paving stones. Definitely a place for MTN bikes with really really huge tires.
Comments
Oct 15
Mike
Interesting. Paris has a similar bike system to the one you mention in Belgium. My favorite is Zurich. You can rent a bike for free at the train station, and the town is very bike friendly. Italy, not so much.
Nov 12
Chris Fast
I had to drive a rental car in Sicily once. The only person crazier than the drivers I was battling with was one lone road biker fighting his way through rush hour traffic in Catania. I didn’t see a single biker in Naples or Rome. You’d have to be insane to ride a bike in that country. Maybe that’s why they’ve got so many top level pros. Years of natural selection has eliminated all the bikers with slow reactions.