“I learned to bike before I learned to walk. Biking wasn’t really a choice,” master’s degree student Rosalie de Groot (22) says of her childhood in the Netherlands.
In Dublin, where she has lived and cycled for the past year, “it’s very different”.
Menno Axt (30) agrees that cycling is “almost as natural as walking somewhere” in the Netherlands.
“Its seen as a mode of transportation, it’s not seen as an activity,” he says.
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But, comparatively, cycling in Dublin, is “absolutely horrible. I’m surprised that not more cyclists get killed on the roads with how it’s set up here”.
So far this year, nine cyclists have been killed on the State’s roads, Garda statistics show.
Eoin Hernon (24), an engineer from Galway, has also noticed the difference in roads culture since he arrived in Amsterdam five months ago.
He says the Dutch capital is “a cycling paradise”.
“I just saw a couple well into their 70 or 80s trundling along on their bikes … everyone is in the bike lanes,” he says.
He cycled throughout his teens and kept it up while studying in Galway even as his friends “outgrew” their bicycles as they learned how to drive.
“When you’re cycling above the age of 16 people are like, ‘Why don’t you have a driver’s licence?’,” Mr Hernon says.
This dominance of the car in Ireland, he says, has created “a divide between cyclists and drivers”.
Infrastructural improvements are gradually making Dublin and Galway safer for cyclists and active road users.
The European Cycling Federation’s infrastructure tracker says 11.8 per cent of all public roads in Dublin now accommodate cyclists.
This is still far lower than Amsterdam and the Danish capital Copenhagen where a third of all roads are designed for cyclists.
Infrastructural development goes beyond painting cycle lanes.
Mr Axt says Dutch local governments have put lanes above the roads next to pedestrians and have installed separate traffic lights that allow cyclists to move before cars or with pedestrians without breaking the lights.
However, in Dublin and Galway, slower and more vulnerable cyclists are often funnelled into lanes with double-decker buses, which he says means “the bus is annoyed and the bikes are scared”.
Ms de Groot has noticed in Dublin that the “traffic here is less efficient and you bike through red lights all the time, otherwise you would be waiting forever”.
For example, the newly developed North Wall cycle path has cycle-specific lights at pedestrian crossings.
However, some lights change at the same time as those for cars, meaning many cyclists continue to cross them when they are red.
[ To normalise invective against cyclists is to miss the point spectacularly ]
It is “confusing”, Ms de Groot says of these rules. “Sometimes you can’t help but be in someone’s way – you’re either bugging a car or you’re bugging a pedestrian.”
Mr Hernon says Amsterdam’s cycling story could be an inspiration because 50 years ago it was as car-congested as Galway is today.
Now “every bit of infrastructure has been designed with bikes in mind”, he says.
And while it is sometimes the “law of the jungle in Amsterdam ... there’s mutual respect on the road”, Mr Hernon says. Car drivers and pedestrians are always looking out for bicycles.
“There’s an unsaid rule to be predictable and don’t crash into people,” Mr Hernon says.
This universal “code” by which cyclists operate is less present in Ireland.
The unpredictability of cyclists, in combination with drivers who are not used to sharing the road with bicycles, creates a greater sense of danger for everyone.
Mr Hernon says he has looked drivers “in the whites of their eyes to be like, ‘You can kill me here’” to make sure he has their attention.
Aaron Anderson (26), who is an engineer at Novo Nordisk in Copenhagen, Denmark, says smart planning can change a city’s transportation culture.
“The infrastructure is just built for [cycling] ... the city government really made it a priority when designing the infrastructure. It has paid dividends because the city centre is never congested,” he says.
Nowadays, Mr Anderson says, “if you don’t have a bike people will ask you why you don’t have one”.
“If you see a woman with a large basket in the front with two kids, you wouldn’t bat an eye here. In Ireland, people would nearly call the guards for the kids’ safety,” he says.
Mr Hernon says the traditional Dutch bikes – “omafiets”, which have no gears but have a back-pedal brake – are a lot slower than the road or racing bikes typically used in Ireland. Their design reduces the potential for injury should someone crash into pedestrians or other bikes.
Ms de Groot says: “In Amsterdam, most bikes look like they’re about to fall apart. Here, people have race bikes just to get to work.”
Mr Anderson says cycling is so normal that not having your bike for a social activity in Amsterdam and Copenhagen is restrictive.
But Ms de Groot says she avoids bringing her bike to social activities in Dublin for fear of being the only one lugging it from place to place.
Mr Anderson and Mr Hernon describe cycling in their cities on the Continent as “freeing” and “peaceful”.
“I enjoy cycling through the city … you can really feel the atmosphere, the buzz and the mood of the city, it’s the best way to sightsee,” Mr Anderson says.
Mr Hernon says “there’s a lot to be learned from the cycling culture here” in Amsterdam.
