Here is a great article posted by my friend Lizzie on Facebook about the Dutch and their bikes. I love the balance between cyclist rights and responsibilities. The only thing I take issue with is the lack of helmets. You can suffer a preventable, traumatic injury by falling off your bike without a helmet (or one that isn't on right). And if there really are hardly any collisions with cars, almost any bike injury would be prevented.
I guess I also have become a supporter of lycra (technically, I suppose, it is a supporter of me!), which the Dutch aren't. I don't wear it all the time and don't need the padding my shorts offer for short trips, but it is really nice to have shorts that don't go for their own ride during my ride to work and to have jersey-like/breathable shirts, since I am a sweaty person and it is humid in MN.
We are headed on our way to today's MS event: the mud run. This is event number three of three for me for this year. I guess when I am done, I'll get ready for rowing camp.
Info about the event:
http://main.nationalmssociety.org/goto/MaggieMuckhoney2013
I think that you shouldn't let not having a helmet keep you off the bike. If you don't want to take a bike because you don't want "helmet hair" then leave the helmet at home and take the bike. That being said, I think if you have it wear it, but below is a link to an interesting video regarding bike helmets.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07o-TASvIxY&sns=em
Bernie