{"id":611,"date":"2026-07-27T19:10:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T19:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jacknorton.org\/blog\/?p=611"},"modified":"2026-07-27T19:17:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T19:17:02","slug":"the-dutch-kinda-hate-bikes-and-why-thats-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jacknorton.org\/blog\/the-dutch-kinda-hate-bikes-and-why-thats-good\/","title":{"rendered":"The Dutch indifference to bikes (and why that’s good)"},"content":{"rendered":"

My family visitied Amsterdam on vacation this summer and I expected to glory in the bicycle-centered utopia that I'd read about. I\\'m a bike guy. I built my own bike, read about bike parts, and pay attention to bike journalists. I can tell you the factory in Taiwan in which my bike frame was produced. I recognize focussing on an object as a hobby is a bit odd, but I'm ok with that. <\/p>\n

Most other bike guys I know laud Amsterdam as a bike-centric utopia. Yet, in my short time there (4 days) I did not find a bike-crazy community. <\/p>\n

In contrast, the Dutch I talked to or witnessed didn't care much about bikes at all. The majority of the bikes I saw were not facncy, or well-cared for, often the bikes were all-but-ignored except when ridden. Here's a Dutch Omafiets with a sagging, rusty chain and yet is lock with a heavy chain lock and saddle lock! \"Image\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

I rode a similar but better maintained bike through a large park for an hour, the bike is called an Omafiets or grandma bike, and it was a terrible riding experience, slow, hard to steer, and heavy. Where was the bike nirvana I saw on Youtube! The Dutch seemed indifferent to the bikes in their midst, even as they rode around the best bike network in the world. <\/p>\n

Amsterdam has removed 10,000 car parking spots in the city and plans to remove<\/a> another 10,000. Bike repair or rental shops outnumber car repair or rental shops in Amsterdam. And everyone, from 2 year olds perched in car seats to grandparents heading to the grocery store seems to bike. Are there cars? Sure, but, cars don't dominate the city. <\/p>\n

With so many people who bike everyday, how come I witnessed so little interest in actual bikes as the mechanically wonderful objects they are? At least part of my attempt to answer this question is to pay attention to analogous situations in my life. In my neighborhood, most families have two cars. Rarely do we talk about who made the cars, what the parts are, what parts we might like to swap or improve. The automobiles just exists, and most residents only care for what the car can do, which seems at least partly what's going on with the Dutch. The Dutch don't love bikes, but they love what bikes do, which is get people around a city easily, efficiently, and with no polution. <\/p>\n

I've been thinking about this contrast, a city that privileges biking with a populace who are indifferent to their bikes as I consider my current digital humanities tools in my classes. I've often tried to convince students of how cool the tool is -- look at this GIS map of the ancient world! -- and received an unethusiastic reception. What I'm contemplating, is how to build systems that improve students' learning that highlight what they can do with the resources I'm sharing. <\/p>\n

In the past I've adopted a philosophy for my teaching known as capability theory, advocated and developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nusbaum. Capability theory argues resources should be allocated not based on utility (such as the greatest good to the greatest number) or rights, but based on what allocation of resources expands peoples capacities. So, giving women the right to education does little unless a society also provides women with resources to ensure their safety and life, such as housing , healthcare, and transportation. Put another way, resources should be allocated based on what the resources help people do. Expanding access or rights is fine but enablign action is the goal. So, people who bike and walk have the right to occupy most Dutch city streets and cars are guests and must yield to humans. What this right enables, however, is the capacity to move safely through the city for all ages. <\/p>\n

In Amsterdam, the entire transportation network enables people to move across the city without cars. And this transportation network includes bikes, but the bikes aren't the point. The quality of life is the point. If I substitute "quality of life" for "learning" I think about how my assignment networks support (or don't) students. How am I building their capabilities to learn, not just focus on a single tool? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My family visitied Amsterdam on vacation this summer and I expected to glory in the bicycle-centered utopia that I’d read about. I\\’m a bike guy. I built my own bike, read about bike parts, and pay attention to bike journalists. I can tell you the factory in Taiwan in which my bike frame was produced.Continue reading “The Dutch indifference to bikes (and why that’s good)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacknorton.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacknorton.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacknorton.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacknorton.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacknorton.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/jacknorton.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":622,"href":"https:\/\/jacknorton.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions\/622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jacknorton.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacknorton.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jacknorton.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}