Last week my daughter and I biked to school as we regularly do. For the first time, however, she was now on her own bike. The Dutch Bobike seat, which was so difficult to find in the U.S., now seems to her like something that’s for babies. Nostalgia that these almost unexpected transitions trigger is tempered by knowing that I savored every minute I had her on my bike, as we wandered through the beach and the marinas, over the rocky boatyards with unhurried conversations.
In any case, thinking of how the Dutch contributed to my sweet experience, I am reminded that the Netherlands hasn’t always been so bike friendly. It took a full-on movement, with plenty of resistance, to get their phenomenal network of safe bike paths, and with it the correlated health, environmental, financial and quality-of-life benefits, that are the envy of the world. Watch this six-minute piece that explains how the Dutch got their bike paths.