I found two videos from two places we call “home” at My Dutch Bike - The Netherlands and San Francisco.

The first video comes to us from the Netherlands taking place in the 1950′s. I noted in this video the type of bicycles I saw were predominantly city bikes with riders at very upright sitting positions. The types of bikes you see in this video have not changed much to the bicycles you would see in the Netherlands today. Coincidence? I think not. If one was to ride a bicycle every day as second nature to get from one location to the the next destination, it would make sense to be in an upright sitting position as nobody wants to be stretched out while carrying groceries or a passenger on the rear. That brings me to my next point.

Just as Holland is known for bicycling as a means of transportation, it is also known for bikes carrying another person or several children or even dogs. Seems like they were doing this 60 years ago and continue to do it today, but have further specialized in types of bicycles to do these duties (i.e. - Bakfiets).

I noted in this video and also from my previous trip to Amsterdam that nobody in the Netherlands seem to wear helmets. Having come from San Francisco, almost everyone is wearing a helmet. There is even a mandatory helmet law for riders under the age of 18 in San Francisco and almost everyone over the age of 18 still continues to wear a helmet. Despite safety preferences, I was informed by some Amsterdam locals that this preference was more of a result of cultural upbringings. I understood that as bicycles were just another integral component in everyday life (just like something as plain as socks in one’s life), the Dutchman I spoke to told me that he didn’t necessarily consider his bicycle as a “vehicle” and that by wearing a helmet, it would further deem his bicycle as a vehicle rather than something he would get around. He then told me he doesn’t wear kneepads when he walks and falls, so why would he a wear a helmet biking as slow-city speeds anyway?

The second video isn’t so bicycle-specific as it is more just a glimpse of the Market Street corridor in San Francisco in the 1900′s. As some of you may know, we are currently located on Market Street in San Francisco at between 2nd Street and Sutter Street.

The music accompanying the video is actually by Air, titled La Femme D’Argent (The Woman of Silver/Money) and it shows a video taken on a streetcar going down Market Street towards what is known today as the Ferry Building at the Embarcadero in 1905. While it’s not a video mainly about bicycles, you can see bicycles, horse drawn carriages, cars and pedestrians running around in the way of this streetcar. I have to say Market Street has come a long way since then because riding a bicycle on that street in 1905 doesn’t seem all that enjoyable.

Our shop would be about 5:00 minutes into the video on the right-hand side 105 years later!

William Hsu | My Dutch Bike

This entry was posted by william on Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 11:32 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.