I am not a cyclist. I will never be a cyclist (sorry Moira!) but I do see the value of a bike. In particular, the Stockholm city bikes. Which are not the most technical bikes in the world. They only have 3 gears and have a back pedal brake (which I actually love) but I find them particularly useful since you can just pick them up and drop them off all over the place. It is worth timing it right, or checking before you go there are bikes available (the website has a live count of where there are bikes and where there are spaces) but all in all, they are kinda ace. It def helps that we live pretty close to 2 stands so can mostly get one. Like this afternoon, where I wasn’t sure what to do, so I figured I might as well go for a cycle. I mean why not, I already paid for the card (a season ticket for £25 or a 3 day pass for £20), and I can go off and see whatever I find. The bike is mine for up to 3 hours. And its like sneaking exercise into real life. So today I cycled the whole way round the island, decided it didn’t feel too much like hard work and went round Gamla Stan too. These are things I’d never do at home. Not there's bicycle access at home, not a decent set of cycle paths for those of us not confident at roads (but the drivers here are so much better with bikes anyways). So it’s a very pleasant basically free afternoon. Hurrah.
Plus, borrowing bikes, you can take them on 1 way journeys and not get stuck with a bike somewhere, and you don’t have the whole maintenance thing. Apart from the much smaller initial cost, there isn’t the upkeep costs or time. The only problem I’ve found with these wonderful bikes is that you can only get them between 6am and 10pm, which I understand, you don’t really want to encourage post pub cycling, but I have discovered that it at least feels like it takes so much less effort to cycle home than walk that I really would rather cycle. Not in a drunken way, but my late night wishing I was on a bike isn’t when I’ve been drinking but when I’ve been out dancing or hanging out at the boys house. Also, we have found the way round it is to pick up a bike just before 10 and then you still have 3 hours to return it, although I have only done this once since I am usually too busy and forget until after 10!
I do have to say tho, having cycled a few times, I do now get overly annoyed when people walk in the cycle lane, or cycle down the wrong side, or just don’t get out of the way!! That’s what the bell is for! You should no by now (in Stockholm) that you always get out of the way of bells. But apparently there are some crazy cycle folks. For example, I did see a woman talking on the phone, not hands free, while cycling across a four way junction without slowing down!! I’m not even sure she looked! Also, getting overtaken on a cycle lane by a scooter, and I don’t mean the toys kids play with – that was shocking! I was massively unimpressed with him – get out my cycle lane!! I am sure tho that I am also of some annoyance, last weekend I had to run across the marathon with the bike so that I could cycle down the cycle path, but I did wait for a gap and literally run across it so I wasn’t much in anyone’s way. I think I may also be one of the slowest cyclists on the island. I am getting better, more confident, but I am still one of the slower ones. I do think if there were more gears I would cycle faster, I don’t like the way you can get so much fast freewheeling than pedalling in a lot of areas.
I have also experienced the problem of too many bikes. Or rather, the stand I want to leave my bike at being full. This has now happened twice! Once was during the marathon so I guess its not really surprising, everyone wanted to go see that not cycle around. And the other was the time I was running late to meet a friend and had to drop my bike off so I could get on the tube, that was a bad moment because the only other racks I knew were getting further away from my destination, although I may have actually been quicker cycling further and then being closer to a tube station, but still, I think I may need to start carrying a map since there are a lot of racks I don’t know the locations of (ie not on Söder Gamla Stan or just onto the mainland)!
This is pretty much todays route, http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=4551888, only less straight, but the website doesnt seem to recognise that there's a path round the waterfront that can be cycled on the whole way
Also, the gorgeous city bikes look like this (we're so cool!!):
Also, the gorgeous city bikes look like this (we're so cool!!):
