Bollocks to Amsterdam and Cycling Chic

One can't help but admire the cycling culture that exists in Amsterdam.  It's the most cycling friendly capital city in the world. 60% of inner city trips are done by bicycle.

Amsterdam though has also become the massively overused in cycling safety debates. And it's entirely unhelpful.

Take the helmet debate for example (for the non-cyclists, there is a large percentage of cyclists who don't feel helmets should be mandatory). Plenty of people point to the fact helmets aren't mandatory in Amsterdam, yet they enjoy a very low road cycling toll, especially given they have massive numbers of cyclists. The annual cycling fatalities tend to be in low single figure country.

But saying helmets aren't needed here as they seem fine without  in Amsterdam them is a massive reach. They have far better infrastructure for cyclists in Amsterdam (vs. Sydney), and drivers are far more used to having riders sharing the road. Hence there are far less incidents that puts a helmet to the test in the first place.

Yes Amsterdam is a great place for cycling. Just be very careful how one interprets any insights one draws from there. It's overused and often invalid.

Now onto cycling chic. Cycling chic is basically the fusion between cycling and fashion. Invariably this is captured by the definitive image: a thin, pretty, young lady cycling the streets of the city on a cool bike with no helmet in sight:

Or if it is in sight, it's entirely unhelpfully positioned:

Why no helmets? Well it fails the cool test, you see. Your hair can't look cool or "chic" under a helmet. Well go visit the local brain trauma unit at hospital and tell me how chic that all seems. 

As much as Mandatory Helmet Laws might discourage some from riding, and that in turn limits the development of cycling infrastructure, I just can't stomach safety being put to one side for the sake of fashion. So I do thus despise the notion of cycling chic.

(and before anyone says it, I know the MHL debate is a complex one, and much of the stats don't make as clear a case for helmets as many might think. Personally I think that's down to the massive changes we're experiencing in the cycling landscape skewing the data: cyclist numbers are up massively. Have a read of this in the SMH if you remain unconvinced)