Thread by @AllenCowgill

A thread for a cold winter’s night... #ThrowbackThursday to our 2015 summer trip to Europe. It was eye opening to see how amazing cities can be for people that bike and walk. It started on one of the hottest days of summer in Copenhagen. Everyone was at the beach.

I mean seriously, I think the entire city of Copenhagen biked to the beach this warm summer day.

Copenhagen at the time had this amazing bike share system with electric bikes. The ebikes allowed us to bike 14 km along the coast out to the old hunting ground of the royal family that were now a massive park

And the park was completely bike friendly, you could go anywhere... Including right up to the not so shabby former hunting lodge of the King.

Biking back into Copenhagen you couldn’t help but notice how simple yet effective the bike infrastructure was. Just a curb and a wide raised lane for people to bike along with a nice sidewalk.

They also had Car2Go car sharing in Copenhagen at the time. I really miss these amazing Smart Cars, we also used to have them in Denver and they were great and the perfect when you needed them. I love the writing on this one... you don’t have to speak Danish to understand.

The urban parks in Copenhagen were AMAZING! From the landscape architecture to the care taken to maintain them, they were such great public spaces. I think this one was called the King’s Garden.

You know how we have these massive mall parking lots several football fields large here in the US? Check out the mall parking in upscale Fredericksberg. Cherry Creek Mall eat your heart out.

The efficiency of the bike parking in the middle of downtown and really all over Copenhagen just blew me away. You know how big of a garage you’d need to fit this many cars? And by the way, everyone just had simple frame locks. I never saw massive unlocks or chains on bikes.

We did a day trip to Malmo, Sweden- super easy to get to via train (public transport is so good we never got in a car the 10 days in Europe). Check out this cyclist airbag they were selling in a store. Very stylish.

Onto Amsterdam where we caught the evening rush hour of bikes coming off the river ferry. It struck me how many more women and families biked here. When the infrastructure is better it makes it inclusive for everyone.

Check out this outdoor bike storage unit in front of homes in Amsterdam. Talk about an amazing way to store sustainable transportation like bikes in an urban environment. Can fit 4 bikes into the space of half of one car parking spot.

And people would just bike up and leave their bikes right on their front porch. Check out the kid’s seat on the back of this gorgeous Dutch bike. When the infrastructure is good, people use bikes to move their kids around too.

In Amsterdam the parks were vibrant and incredible. I loved the restaurants throughout Vondlepark that brought people together. And they didn’t have any cars in the park or parking inside of them yet they thrived.

My favorite memory of the trip was biking through the massive park Amsterdamse Bos with my wife. It was so much fun exploring the forest with her on bikes.

We took the train down to Belgium and got to bike the Flanders countryside. Look how narrow the roads are here. It makes it so drivers simply can’t go fast. The way it should be. Lots of elders biking here too because it was comfortable for them to do so.

Even the little town squares in places like Damme, Belgium were full of people riding their bikes. I count about 20 bikes in the space of 3 parking spots here.

We spent the last night in Belgium in Brussels, where they closed down, not just one street, but an entire section of the city from cars so people could walk around.

And the businessess were thriving in downtown Brussels because tourists and locals alike flocked to the area where the streets were closed from cars for the summer because it was so pleasant.

So that was our trip to Europe. We visited cities where people of all ages & genders were biking without stress. They are cities designed to move people, not just cars. We can have more sustainable transportation here in the US too, we just need the willpower to make it happen.