However, it is more pleasant riding on the outskirts of town. There are bicycle lanes that are separate from the cars, and these seem safe to me. Also, there are beautiful rides along the river Schelde, and down country roads past farmhouses and grazing cows and sheep.What is wonderful about bicycling in Belgium is that the government here promotes cycling. Gent has a population of around 235,000, and there are about 60,000 students in town, and each one uses a bike. When you look around, it feels as if half the population is riding around on the paths with fixies, road bikes or beat-up steel cruisers with (legally required) lights and bells. They do provide bicycling lanes, even though I find some dangerous, and they have whole bicycling super highways that connect different towns just like highways for the cars. They even have days in which the towns are closed to cars and open only to cyclists and pedestrians. This took place recently and Chris and I had a wonderful time riding through the medieval city of Gent. |
The bicycles themselves are very interesting here. Besides the stadtsfiets (city bikes) which we have, and the koersfiets (road bikes or racing bikes), there are bakfiets (a bicycle with a wheel barrel like carrier in the front) which are used to carry children, personal items, or items for your business. We have some in the states, but not the amount that you see here, and not with seats to carry your children. These I find very endearing, and I have tried to take several photographs of mothers or fathers riding with their children in a bakfiets. There are also Onderwaterfiets, meaning underwater bikes, and no this does not mean that they ride underwater with them. They are three to four person bikes with one adult seat and two to three small seats for children in which they all can pedal. Onderwater is the name of the company that makes them. |