The always amusing, ever venerable BikeSnobNYC tore into an article from the New York Times today about the rise in popularity of Dutch-style bicycles. While I’m always happy to see a rise in popularity of cycling, the manner in which they framed Dutch bikes as the next big thing in cycling fashion, as a polar opposite to any other bike meant (according to them) only for the sporty, is what irks me and BikeSnobNYC. The article states:

Which bike has an acceptable level of manliness? These are tricky questions. As the parade of 10-speeds, mountain bikes and, more recently, fixed-gear designs knocked the upright, old-school bicycle off the road, accouterments like fenders and chain guards came to be seen — by men, at least — as eccentric. If a guy is going to get on a bike, he wants to imagine he’s Lance Armstrong, not Pee-wee Herman.

The article does go on to list a Dutch bike’s disadvantages, particularly its large weight (around 50lbs) and sluggishness that makes it difficult to manage carrying up stairs or navigating through traffic. BikeSnobNYC notes:

the Dutch city bike invasion is yet another example of fashion disguised as practicality. More accurately, it’s fashion backlash disguised as practicality. What happens when people start wearing baggier and baggier pants? Tight pants make a sudden comeback. What happens when ratty trucker caps become all the rage? Clean, flat-brim fitted caps supplant them. What happens when microbrews take over the country? There’s a renewed interest in PBR. And so forth. So what happens when impractically minimalist bikes become fashionable? Impractically practical bikes suddenly seem a lot more attractive.
…
And that’s what’s so annoying about the fixed-gear fad and the fixed-gear backlash. They both seem to subscribe to a notion that there’s no middle ground, and they only define themselves in terms of the other. Hate track bikes? Ride a tank! Don’t like sluggish bikes? Ride a track bike!

One of my bike friends from back in L.A., John Vu, had a great rant on the iBOB list. (Emphasis is mine.)

I love Dutch bikes, but they just aren’t very suited to places like L.A. They are great if your radius is like five flat miles, preferably with good bike infrastructure, but here a lightweight with 28mm tires, fenders, a saddlebag, and a generator light is much more useful.

On any given day in L.A. I can be at work near the beach in Santa Monica and out exploring the hills of Eagle Rock with friends, assisted by the train or bus. I just can’t imagine doing all that on a Dutch bike, sorry. If you don’t believe me try schlepping one up stairs or just onto a bus rack.

And it’s folly to suggest that you need a certain kind of bike to wear non-bikey clothes. My friends and I ride those kind of bikes all over the city, almost always in “regular clothes.”

While I’m ranting: I’m a bit tired of the attitudes embodied by the Copenhagen Cycling Chic and similar blogs. They’ve said what needed to be said: Look, people around the world ride bikes for transport in regular clothes. But what needs to be said now is that we aren’t all so lucky to live in a bike-friendly city and if we are to make progress we have to just start riding and not worry that we don’t have ideal bike situations. Perfect is the enemy of good.

I think we can humanize cycling without Dutch-style town bikes and separated bike lanes and such. Also, I’m a bit put off by how they look down on people who do anything remotely recreational or sporty on a bike or bike enthusiasts. Aim your rod brakes elsewhere.

Another unintended effect is that the nonrider who doesn’t live in a bike-friendly city will read these blogs and see the images of idyllic city bike culture and contrast it with what their car-centric cities, giving them another excuse to not ride. I have this conversation several times a week, the “L.A. is too dangerous to ride in, unlike Portland/Davis/Amsterdam/San Francisco” talk, and I wish I didn’t have to. The idea is to agitate for better bike infrastructure, but now is that going to happen if everyone is afraid to get on a bike in the first place?

He brings up a lot of great points – the reality that bikes can belong to everyone without resorting to the “impractically practical” or snubbing those who have sporty enthusiasm for cycling, and that circumstances are different for every area and pining for a cycling utopia can hurt the cause of bike advocacy.

Case in point of the impractically practical: Back in L.A., Bronwyn had two bikes. One was a lovely, restored, electro-forged Schwinn. The other (and the one she brought to Japan) is a late 90′s GT road bike. Both are really cool bikes, but the Schwinn probably had a good 20 pounds on the GT. Between our apartment and the Saturday morning farmer’s market was a big hill. Guess which bike got taken out on those Saturday mornings more often. Hint: it wasn’t the one with the basket.

Of course Japan has its own form of the Dutch bike – the mamachari.

While it shares many of the same attributes as the Dutch bikes – chainguard, fenders, rack, and lights – it lacks a few notable things. Namely, the fashionista condescension and the $1000 price tag (mamacharis sell for around $150 at department and hardware stores). They carry the same cultural cool as I’m sure Dutch bikes do in the Netherlands – which is to say none. As the NYT writes, “riding a bicycle to work in a suit and tie is as notable an act as drinking a cup of coffee, there is no bike culture — all culture includes the bike.” Though there certainly is a bike culture in Japan, as I’m sure there is one in the Netherlands.

Like John, I do actually like Dutch bikes and mamacharis. I’d never own one because they’re too limited for the kind of riding I do, but I appreciate their place as an everyday practical tool that is useful for and accessible to many. They’re certainly better than the boat-anchor “mountain” bikes available in Wal-Marts throughout the States on which you’d be a fool to actually take off-road (about which an interesting discussion worth reading was coincidentally started on the bikepirates livejournal community today). It’s the fetishization of European cityscapes, and the divisive one-or-the-otherness between the trop pratique and the trop sportif that I find so distressing. It is one of the primary problems in the perception of cycling in the United States. Bikes can be a part of culture, not just bike culture, but Dutch bikes aren’t the only magical keys that can do it.

ADDENDUM: As another coincidence, Bronwyn forwarded the same NYT article to me while I was composing this post. Looks like it’s getting around. While I have my disagreements with the article, I’m at least happy to see increased visibility of bike topics.

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