Meet the Germans: Germany’s love for cycling!

Is Germany only the land of cars? Shabnam says yes — and no. Even though
Germans make and drive a lot of cars, they have a deep relationship with bicycles that goes back a couple hundred years. And when it comes to bike-friendliness, Germany ranks quite high among other countries of the world.
Shabnam didn’t know how to ride a bike when she moved to Germany from India in 2017. In this episode of Meet the Germans, Shabnam faces her fears and takes a ride down Germany’s bike lanes.

What is it really like to bike in your country? Let us know in the comments!

CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
00:12 How important is cycling to Germans?
01:10 Shabnam learns how to ride a bike
01:44 Germany’s historic connection to the bicycle
02:46 Why do Germans love bicycles so much?
03:17 Should the infrastructure be improved?
04:09 Why did Shabnam learn cycling?
04:45 Outro

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Are you even German if you don’t  know how to ride a bike? Maybe not.  Welcome to this new episode of Meet the Germans,  and today we’ll talk about Germans on bikes,   which may or may not include me. Keep watching to find out!

Before moving to Germany, I had no idea  how important cycling was to Germans.  Don’t blame me because everyone always told  me that Germany is the ultimate land of cars! Which, of course, is still very true! But the numbers say that today Germany  has around 60 million registered motor  

Vehicles. Whereas there are 83 million bikes here. Which means, statistically, almost every German  has a bike today. Woah, that’s a lot of bikes! Germany is one of Europe’s  top 5 bike-friendly countries.  Also, according to surveys, the German city of  Münster is the world’s second most bike-friendly  

City behind Utrecht in the Netherlands. The city has hundreds of kilometers   of bike paths, and state-of-the-art  infrastructure developed just for bikes. For Germans, cycling is more than a  hobby or a sport; it’s a life skill.  Maybe that’s why 97% of Germans know how  to ride a bike, and for the 3% who don’t,  

There are opportunities to learn, even as adults! Which is great for me, because I never learned   how to ride a bicycle back home in India. So now, after living in Germany for 7 years,   I am finally learning how to  ride a bicycle, the German way.

At the German Cyclists’ Club, I took  a two-day cycling course for adults.  Here, I not only learned how to  balance myself on a bike but also   some important cycling rules in Germany. Like finding the perfect bike for you,   wearing the correct helmet, using proper lights,  

Checking if everything on your bike works,  and reading the street signs correctly. But don’t expect to take your bike  out on the streets the very next day.  It’s not that easy. So how am I  cycling now? We’re almost there. 

Did you know that the Germans have a very  special historic connection to the bicycle?  A Laufrad like this is usually a  German’s first bike as a child.  This Laufrad and most other  modern bicycles owe their   origins to German inventor  Karl Drais from Karlsruhe. 

It was Karl who created the OG  “Laufmaschine” or the “running   machine” in 1817. This brought him the title  “father of the bicycle”. Wow, what a guy! But nowadays, bikes in Germany are more  than just “running machines”. If you ask me,   Germans use a bike for multiple purposes: 

Relaxing on the go, going to  work, transporting their children,   carrying groceries, burning calories and  sometimes carrying their entire lives!! This isn’t new for me as I often saw  people in India carrying a wide range   of things on their bikes, which  may not necessarily belong there.

All this demand is making the German cycling  market expand rapidly, and new kinds of bikes,   especially e-bikes, are quite popular. In 2022, 2.2 million e-bikes were sold in Germany. Woah, that’s a lot of e-bikes! But why do Germans love bicycles so much?

I get it, Germans really love their bikes!  But the German state, on the other hand,   has been reducing its cycling  budget over the past few years. That’s why the German cyclists’ association  still sees a lot of room for improvement. So, why did I learn cycling? Not only  is biking cheap, fast and ecofriendly,  

To me it also offers a sense  of equality and control. Here in my neighborhood in Germany, I  always see women of all ages cycling,   no matter what time of the day or night it is,  or how far they are traveling. I see them be  

Confident. Feel secure. Ride unbothered.  And I also wanted to experience that. So,   this is how I faced my fears  and finally learned to cycle… Am I feeling confident after this? Not  a 100% right now, but I am hopeful. My bike story in Germany has  just begun, but how about you?

How is it to cycle in your country? I cannot wait to hear your stories.  Share them in the comments below!