I try my best, but my biking skills still don’t measure up to those of the graceful, talented Germans. Here’s why!
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49 Comments
LOL! I laughed for a minute straight about your dress bike riding adventure. 🙂
Well, I live in the Netherlands xD So I'm pretty used to biking, but I don't think I'm graceful at all… I do bike with a skirt, but I always wear a legging, so it doesn't matter if it rides up a little bit.. 🙂
When you get Oilstains your Chain needs 1. A protection frame and 2. use a diffirent kind of Oil.
i once needed to cross the sidewalk to get to cross the street and i fell off and under my bike because of that death trap that is the raised sidewalk
you are so funny, know exactly what you mean. also live in Munich. I'm annoyed by those Bike Racers. compared to them I am pretty slow but absolutely don't care. Never have a Problem with my skirts or dresses though 😉
Well maybe ride on a ladies bike, those upright ones…it's way easier…
ohh, I can so relate to the "blackened lower part of my leg" part … but nevertheless I love to ride my bike! I'm even choosing my clothes after "wearable on bike" or not … so I naturally don't wear skirts or dresses very often 😉 but if you want to wear a wide skirt, just tuck part of it together with a clothespin between your legs and you should be fine. also, don't forget to roll up the right leg of your pants – it's easier to clean your leg than your clothes 🙂 and there are even hold-together-pins and ribbons made especially for bikers, so their pants' legs don't get into the chain. happy cycling!
You should come to the netherlands. Nobody wears helmets and in my university town international students are adviced to avoid peak hours because the constant steams of high speed dutch bikers tends to be intimidating and if you don't know how the system works you might be tempted to commit the cardinal sin of bike lanes. Stopping, ever, especially on the bike lane themselfs.
And then there is the issue of tram lanes.
wear short-skirts
what amazes me is when you see good looking women in the summer with tight jeans riding her bikes. i am a dude and start sweating just looking at a bike in summer.
its odd that they dont melt right away.
The trick to riding a skirt is quite simple, even I know it and I'm a man! The secret to biking with a skirt is this:
– Either you have a fairly taut skirt, in which case you keep your knees extra close together to prevent men from seeing your underwear.
-Or you have a loose skirt, in which case you take take the loose part and secure it between your ass and the saddle between your legs. You may have to experiment with this one for a little while, but you'll get the hang of it. Only downside is: you get some wrinkles in the skirt.
-Or you have a REALLY large skirt(say up to the ankle), which makes riding a LOT harder, but you can always take the excess fabric and tie a knot in it to prevent the skirt from getting caught in the chain.
Try it some time!
And the trick to not breaking a sweat in the suit: some people just don't have that much of a problem. Others, like myself, either have an extra shirt at the office, let the sweat dry the first hour of the day or like a lot of people: get an e-bike!
No chance I could bike in a suit. I sweat way too much. I would need to be in my riding gear and have access to a shower at work to ride to work. At least if it was more than 2-3 miles. If you want to see all sorts of people in different outfits riding bikes to who knows where, including women in skirts and hose, visit Amsterdam. You'll see more bikes in that city than you'll ever see anywhere else.
Im a guy living in the north of Germany.
I havent owned a bike in years but I rode my trusty bike to school every day. I had a stretch that went downhill and then took a left turn with the bike section being on the side of the road. I eventually managed to do that one without my hands on the handlebar, but it sure took a lot of effort to appear half-assed and effortless. 😀
Dutch bikers are a lot better at appearing graceful but they are a lot more extreme too.
If you walk on their bike lane you better cross it as soon as you can. They tend to keep up with cars and they take no prisoners.
Dutch cyclists are a force of nature and from the times I have been there people know better than to draw the ire of a person with a bicycle, locals and tourists alike.
Plss make a video of you biking. You made me wanna see! 😀
Is it illegal in the US like it is in Germany to ride somebody else (except for a baby) with a bike? It is completely normal in Vietnam to do that. I miss all the fun of riding a friend behind with a bike living here in Germany.
It's very funny to watch your videos as a german.
have you tried hem weights for the skirt thing?
Riding a Bike without sweating is not natural 😀
OMG the same thing happens to me. It's just sad that I don't have that skill or grace 🙁 and much worst is the fact that 4 year olds can already ride bikes like bosses and me… well I'm just clumsy.
How to ride a bike gracefully with a billowing dress or skirt:
You need a bike that allows you to put your food onto the ground without leaving the seat. Otherwise my method doesn't work.
You sit on you bike with your dress or skirt, one foot on the ground. You put up your behind und pull the fabrik form the middle of your behind up. Then you sit down again. Now your skirt moves up in a half circle to the seat and is tucked under there. If you're still in training one sometimes pulls up to much and the fabric is so tight that you cannot move your legs properly to even ride your bike. 🙁
Nothing flutters and no fabric is in danger of getting into the spokes.
If you watch women elegantly riding a bike with a skirt or dress they normally do not move up there behind when they're waiting at a red ligt. They put down their food. And you now know why.
I hope, I could help!
Don't you have a "Damenrad"? Those have a different frame, so a skirt wouldn't as easily be flapping around when you're driving.
I have just been on a holiday in germany (Actually Englschalking, Munich!) and we were walking down a pavement, which had a cycle lane. My mum was walking in the cycle lane (and we did jay-walk later that day for good measure… oops) and the cyclist didn't ring the bell, he WHISTLED really loudly, and it was then we realised that the extra curb-type-line was a cycle lane! But that really surprised us and we've never heard anyone whistle to get us out of the way before!
You never biked in Austria i say only Mountains
Very few people cycle where I live. It's difficult without proper bike lanes, and it's hard to find a place to lock your bike, even near stores. I ride my bike sometimes. I am in America.
In germany children always have to make a 'biking licence' at elementary school. We all learn the rules in traffic and how to write a bike in general with a written and practical test.
This is why I bought a hollandrad (upright bike) when I lived in Münster. The low cross bar enabled me to wear a skirt, whilst the guard on the gears protected me from the grease stains 🙂
You have to tuck a small part of your skirt in between your thigh and the saddle. It works best if you tuck in the part there's a little to the right or left from the middle of the skirt (the part in front of your vagina). Then the skirt won't flap around, and it will not be super obvious to anyone else
I could never bike any significant distance to work. I would need a change of clothes and a shower before I would be fit to work even many blue-collar jobs. Even being in shape and in mild weather sweat and BO would be too much of a problem for me (and others around me).
i'm not a graceful biker too. that's because i don't like biking to much!
living in STUTTGART(or rather BAD CANNSTATT!!!) "der stadt zwischen wald und reben"(the city between forest and vinyards…) there are only flat ways near the NECKAR river and in down town stuttgart, everywhere else are steep hills and most of the streets are very narrow.
i'm used rather to go by foot…and besides you don't have to bother where to park your bike…
I'm dutch, I currently do 20kms a day. (that's 2*10, to and from work)
and yeah we just hop of the bikes and go straight to work.
We have more bikes than people in The Netherlands. It's the best country for biking. Bike lanes everywhere, entire world looks at how the Dutch do bike lanes and such. Also we don't wear helmets on bike.
Very few bike lanes, I ride a tandem bike in the street with the flow of traffic.
If you get grease stains from your bike there's something wrong with it. Like, don't you have one of these handy plastic barrier things preventing your pants from touching the chain?
I love to bike, but here in Belgium the roads are mostly in a bad condition. We have bike lanes but those are often very narrow. When the bike langer is situated next to the sidewalk, pedestrians often walk on the bike lane, and that really annoys me. They have no reason to do so, because the sidewalks are wider than bike lanes.
This summer a Canadian cycling family on vacation in the Netherlands took a great picture of a pregnant woman, wearing a miniskirt and flipflops, carrying a handbag and a bunch of flowers, cycling without a care in the world in an Amsterdam street. (I'll try to post a link below). She might also have a solution to your skirt problem: just wear a stretchy miniskirt. If you dare (I wouldn't). 😀
https://twitter.com/Diamondback1949/status/815062394556837888
You probably will get trampled biking in Puerto Rico. Bike lanes are rare and they barely enforce the security measures bikers and cars here.
I was riding a two Wheeler since I was 4 and my 13th bday is on Tuesday
grace has an allergy to me. I do NOTHING in life with grace. I don't do much biking. occasionally I go mountain biking, in which I literally hugged a tree to stop myself once because I freaked out when the path got really really narrow and had a giant rock in it.
our secret is beer magic B)
the more beer we drink, the more magical power do we have. some of us have a natural magician skill, like me but thats very rare :/
talking bout you driving bikes.. vlog requested:)
Admittedly, my previous biking experiences dated back to before 1970 in the USA. This Mai (2017) in Germany I saw some biking tech that just blew my mind.
The best bike to ride is the omabike/fiets!
I like "as if they were born with a pair of wheels between their legs." 🙂 Actually, I learned riding a bike as a three-year-old. That's quite close to that, ain't it?
BUT: I am sure, it's only about exercise and experience… And after some ten thousands of kilometers, you'll probably be as graceful as "they" are. 😀
just try an e-bike 🙂 we have a lot of hills in our area so i couldn't really go outside the village with a normal bike,
but recently we bought EMTBs, and for me, that's where the grace beginns, it feels totally amazing,
and with some additional cover-parts that city-bikes (or whatever they are called) usually have by default the riding experience just prommisses to be perfect 🙂
I am also new in DE and learning to cycle properly. My home country discouraged cyclists, so I only had elementary skills sufficient to cycle in a park with no barriers. But here I am trying hard to cycle on the bike lanes and sometimes on the roads. I am no expert, but I think you flipped over the sidewalk because you braked too hard with the left hand, hence stopping the front wheel too quickly, thus causing inertia to throw you over. Braking first with the right hand might solve this problem.
Penny in the hem…
Chain case…
If you use it every day for transportation and use the gears (if you have them) to maintain pedaling cadence, your riding becomes second nature.
I had a roll once … I was driving too fast and someones dog jumped in front of my bike from nowhere. Since then I never drive fast in city