Traveling in Europe, one usually passes thru Amsterdam somehow. We were on a bike barge trip that ended there. What an amazing place with all the thousands of bikes. How anyone finds their own parked bike is a mystery. After riding for a week in the countryside, we were all afraid to ride in Amsterdam. It is another world. Reading this book now that I am home, gave me the history and background of this special biking city. I'm inspired to be off on my e-bike after reading this in my city.
I am also interested in reading Pete Jordan's Dishwasher book. ( )

Pete Jordan's book serves three purposes: first, it's a memoir of his coming to Amsterdam in 2002 for a five month urban studies program and ending up staying for over a decade so far and raising a child with his wife. Second, it's a distillation of the ideas behind what makes a great cycling city. But mostly it is a detailed history of over a century of cycling in Amsterdam based on deep archival research. Jordan focuses on the rise of cycling in Amsterdam and the many aspects of the culture that makes it successful but also chaotic. The occupation by Nazi Germany leads to attempts to ban the Dutch from biking and the bike becoming a symbol of the resistance. The bike is also central to the counterculture movement of the 1960s. And in the 1970s and 1980s, when Amsterdam became overwhelmed by cars, there was the fight to reclaim the city for bikes. There's a downside to biking in Amsterdam with the high levels of bike theft, and Jordan also ponders why so many bikes end up in the canals (and admiringly watches the city employees who have to fish them out). Even a bike tunnel through the Rijksmuseum is a constant source of wonder and conflict.

It's a wonderful and engrossing book and makes me want to pack up and move to Amsterdam right now.
Favorite Passages:

It was past midnight. What the hell were all these people doing out on their bikes? Why were they all moving so unhurriedly? And why were they in my way? That’s when it struck me: It’s the middle of winter; it’s past midnight—and I’m stuck in a bicycle traffic jam. My haste vanished. I decelerated, accepted the pace of the others and appreciated the rest of my ride home. From then on, whenever anyone asked why I had immigrated to Holland, I didn’t hesitate to reply: “So I can be stuck in a bicycle traffic jam at midnight.”



The most gender-neutral characteristic noted: the carrying of ironing boards. Of the 16 people spotted with an ironing board, 8 were female, 8 male. Far from being an ironer myself, the meaning of these stats is unclear. Further study on this topic is required



The most gender-neutral characteristic noted: the carrying of ironing boards. Of the 16 people spotted with an ironing board, 8 were female, 8 male. Far from being an ironer myself, the meaning of these stats is unclear. Further study on this topic is required the lingering animosity toward the Nazis for all of their misdeeds. Over the next few years, whenever a German tourist in the Dutch capital asked a local for directions, the Amsterdammer was apt to either give false directions or ask for his bike back. If a German requested service in an Amsterdam café or restaurant, oftentimes the response was: “First, return my bike.”



A car is acceptable as a means of transport only within thinly populated areas or from a thinly populated area to the city. Cars are a dangerous and totally unsuitable means of transport within the city. There are better ways of moving from one city to another. For these purposes, the automobile is an outdated solution.



The film drew the audience’s attention to each renegade cyclist, leading us to overlook the obvious: the vast majority of the cyclists were actually obeying the traffic rules. Later I watched the film again. The number of cyclists highlighted as lawbreakers? Nine. The number of cyclists in the film who broke no laws (that is, stopped for the traffic signal, rode within the bike lanes)? One hundred and seventy-four. By featuring the 5 percent of the cyclists in view who were scofflaws, the film helped to embellish the image of the Amsterdam cyclist as out of control. Yet if the film had highlighted the law-abiders, the message could just as easily have been this: 95 percent of Amsterdam’s cyclists obey traffic laws. Maybe we aren’t such a bad lot after all.

( )

After my recent trip to Amsterdam I became interested in the city and its massive (by American standards) number of bicycle riders, so when I saw that the Kindle version of this book was on sale I bought it immediately and started reading it shortly afterward.

Pete Jordan, a self described "bike nut", was born in San Francisco and spent a decade there and in Portland, Pittsburgh and other American cities before he decided to move to Amsterdam with his new wife to pursue a graduate degree in urban planning at the University of Amsterdam. The focus of his studies was an examination of the history of bicycling in the city, the often lawless mind set of its bicyclists and bike thieves, and how they impacted the development and culture of the Dutch capital.

This book starts at the end of the 19th century, when bicycles first became available and affordable to ordinary citizens, and continues through the present. Amsterdam's compact size and consequent lack of space for parking cars, its narrow streets, the high cost of automobiles and gasoline, and the more relaxed pace of life in the tiny country of the Netherlands compared to the massive and spread out United States were all factors that led to the proliferation of bicycles in and outside of the city. Amsterdammers then and now embrace their bicycles as extensions of their own bodies, and any laws or pleas to restrict their usage or their right of way on the roads were met with indifference and were often ignored, most notably during the Nazi occupation in World War II when German officials attempted repeatedly to impose order on the cyclists but failed miserably.

In relating the story of Amsterdam's cyclists Jordan provides an interesting history of the city itself, which, like its cyclists, cannot be separated from its bicycles. He intersperses his and his family's experiences as bicyclists, beginning with his first collision with a bicyclist upon his arrival to the city, and including his son's initiation as a stunt cyclist, his wife's training as a bicycle mechanic, and his own development as a bicycle historian.

In the City of Bikes is a well written and very interesting book, which gave me greater insight into and appreciation of the bicycling culture of my newest favorite city, and enhanced my knowledge of the history of the Dutch capital. ( )

The cover is what attracted me first to the book. Then, I saw the title and assumed it was all about bikes in Holland. I was pleased that I was right. The book is exactly what you would think it would be, with a lot more history, more about the people, the land, the experience and so much more. Not only did I come across familiar things but I learned so much more. If I had sat on the bike myself, I don't think I would have taken as much in as I did with this book.

Peter told it in such a way that kept it interesting. ( )

The cover is what attracted me first to the book. Then, I saw the title and assumed it was all about bikes in Holland. I was pleased that I was right. The book is exactly what you would think it would be, with a lot more history, more about the people, the land, the experience and so much more. Not only did I come across familiar things but I learned so much more. If I had sat on the bike myself, I don't think I would have taken as much in as I did with this book.

Peter told it in such a way that kept it interesting. ( )