They are popular in old cities in Holland. It's not so much that people prefer riding a bike in Holland to riding a car in Australia, with its _wide roads_. The

They are popular in old cities in Holland. It's not so much that people prefer riding a bike in Holland to riding a car in Australia, with its _wide roads_. They prefer a 5 minute bike ride to a 30 minute hellish experience equal in complexity only to navigating the mars rover from earth. It isn't so much that bikes are so great, as that cars are a horrible horrible form factor for old cities. And if you look at other old cities, you see the exact same form factor. Except those cities aren't flat, so instead of bikes they ride around on scooters. Think Rome, Greece, Paris. Secondly, our other cities (Suburbia mostly), have all these nice bike tracks, because this is how our children navigate to school, their sports club and friends, independently from about 5 to 12 years old. (as they grow older, you increase the radius you allow your child to navigate and explore freely) These bike lanes are safe, because it's our children riding there. Unsupervised. But their parents will use their car for everything, because in those cities you actually have the choice. And dutch people are just as lazy comfort creatures as everyone else, if given the same choice. It's not so much that it's great to ride a bike in Holland, as that it's safe (because its how our children navigate) and that in old cities navigating a car a complete waste of time, energy and money. You will _literally_ sweat more.