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Photo: Reinhard Krull/EyeEm/Getty Images
I don't particularly like riding my bike.
It's not that I hate it, but I often find other ways of getting around more useful.
In Hamburg, for example, where urban sins, aggressive people in cars and the weather sometimes make it difficult for cyclists, I think a combination of public transport and private legs is the ideal solution.
This is of course a matter of opinion and also depends very much on the individual usage and environmental situation.
In the summer holidays, like on the wonderful Danish North Sea island of Fanoe, I like to ride my bike a lot.
But in February in Hamburg, in the constant drizzle and uninterrupted darkness?
I'm not crazy.
I admire people who ride their bikes in all weathers and at all times - but I'm definitely a fair-weather cyclist myself.
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Nevertheless, during the pandemic I often cycled to the editorial office to avoid the masked crowd on the subway.
My way to work is about ten kilometers and leads from the north of Hamburg to HafenCity.
The route is – with the exception of a stretch around the main train station, which apparently was designed by someone who doesn’t like people – a prime example of how cycling in a big city can be made attractive, with specially designated cycle lanes along the Alster and on the west bank of the Outer Alster.
The path is so beautiful that you could actually charge an entrance fee for it.
The only thing that annoys me are cyclists.
If I'm waiting at a crossroads or traffic lights, I can be sure that the cyclists behind me won't get in behind me, but somehow next to or in front of me, even if there's no space for it.
After several months of observation, I came to the conclusion that these people can be more or less clearly divided into six groups:
1. People younger than me.
They recognize this from the wrinkled face under my helmet and want to use the stop to safely overtake me as an older and potentially slower road user.
2. People wilder than me.
You can tell by the helmet over my wrinkled face and want to use the stop to safely overtake me as a safety-conscious and potentially slower road user.
3. Riders of e-bikes or pedelecs.
They recognize that I am riding a conventional bike and want to use the stop to safely overtake me as a potentially slower road user.
4. Racing cyclists in functional clothing who have to undercut a route time for training purposes and cannot take slower road users into consideration - whether at a traffic light or somewhere else.
5. Cargo bike mothers or fathers who transport small people in a storage facility and expect that I, as an older and obviously childless road user, will give them the pole position at the traffic light out of pity.
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6. Adolescents whose thoughts are unfathomable, who, due to the Airpod, don't notice much and have to concentrate on their cell phones.
In any case, I come very far down the bicycle pecking order.
And sometimes I wonder what the road would be like if drivers behaved like cyclists at a red light.
When the Porsche driver and the Tesla driver squeezed past me on the left across the green strip in order to be able to start faster at the traffic lights, while the SUV driver on my right carefully pushed forward over the footpath to the intersection, that was also the case if it's still red because she's in a bit of a hurry because of daycare.
In any case, one thing is for sure: With my Caddy I would be at the bottom of the food chain there too.
Perhaps the traffic in the city as a whole would work even better if everyone behaved like this.
There would be fewer traffic jams because the faster ones would get from one traffic light to the next more quickly and would not stop at every red signal when nobody was coming from the side.
Or someone is coming, but who could also brake or swerve himself.
It may be that everything went better if, as a driver, you didn't let any bureaucrats and their traffic signs dictate when and where you had to stop, but improvised more often;
also uses the footpath, green verge or the opposite lane when other cars are blocking the path.
May be.
I doubt it, and since I'm a rules-based philistine, I'd prefer it if traffic behavior adjusted in the other direction.
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Now you could ask me, "What's your damn problem anyway?" You could say, "If you, wearing a flashing helmet, can't deal with being left behind by people who are 30 years younger than you are at the intersection, you need therapy, but you don't need it new traffic rules.« I would stir this objection in my heart, concede that there may be some truth to it, but then brush it aside in the context of an objective overall assessment of all the facts.
Because apart from my numerous personal problems: If you want more people to switch from cars to bicycles and thus the number of cyclists will logically increase sharply, then it will probably not be enough to do everything in urban planning to protect cyclists from parked cars and protect right-turning trucks.
In front of electrically operated cargo bikes with a length of more than two meters and a total weight of more than 200 kilograms, in front of pedelecs operated by pensioners and in front of rowdy racing cyclists.
And female drivers.
Actually, I would even wish that bicycles, like e-scooters, would have their own license plate.
It would be a sign that bicycles are taken just as seriously on the road as cars, and traffic violations could be more easily prosecuted and prosecuted.
And if anyone were worried that a bourgeois like me would keep taking photos of cyclists breaking some rule - don't worry.
Unlike many others, I don't even have my cell phone in my hand when cycling.
