It's quite common in the Netherlands to see couples cycling along hand in hand. It's also quite common to see people who are retired cycling, and they hold hands too.
This couple are cycling into the city centre, along one of the main routes - a bicycle road along a canal on which cycles have priority over cars.
Matching bikes, matching jackets, still in love.
How many hours have they spent together on their bikes ?
How many kilometres travelled ?
How many wonderful experiences shared by bike ?
In the Netherlands, the over 65s make 24% of all their journeys by bicycle.
And... what road conditions are required to make this possible ? Just how much subjective safety does it take for people to keep people cycling for their entire lives, and to allow people to continue to cycle hand in hand in later stages of their lives ? This bicycle road is no longer a through route for cars, but it does allow through travel for bikes. The result is segregation of modes without a cycle path.
Here in the UK we often see couples trapped in their cars, stuck in traffic, in a full-on row.
ReplyDeleteBeing trapped in a metal box together, at the mercy of incompetent driving is often the final straw in a marriage overloaded my materialistic strain.
Well, perhaps... But they could also be "young lovers" of the older variety, starting over. Springs eternal, eh?
ReplyDeleteGreat photo.