Re: White's XLT vs DFX
You wouldn't believe the number of bicycles in Amsterdam. I think there are in excess of 200,000 registered in the city. They are chained EVERYWHERE to EVERYTHING. Something like 80,000 bikes are stolen each year. What happens is a professional bike thief cuts the BIG chains (you always have to double chain your bike) with either a diamond saw blade or a pneumatic carbide jaw cutter and takes the bike. Some they strip for the good parts and others they find they are not as good as they thought. Either way, they just throw them into the canal to get rid of them. Other bikes are taken by people leaving bars and are too drunk to walk. They hunt for a bike that isn't chained. They ride it home or as far as they can and then either ride it into the canal or throw it in the canal when they are done with it. It doesn't take long to get a pretty good layer of bikes on the bottom of the canals.
Drug addicts "fish" the canals with grappling hooks hoping to snare a bike good enough to sell. You can buy one from most any addict for about 20 Euros. A little muddy but still a good bike. There are so many stolen each year that they estimate that over half the used bikes sold in real bike shops have been stolen at least one time.
If your bike gets stolen and recovered (in or out of the water), the police take them to an impound lot where you go to claim it. At last count there were 215,000 bikes at the lot. Find your bike. Yeah, right. Worth looking. Yeah, right.
And people who ride bicycles ALWAYS have the right of way. This applies even if they run a red light, are not in the bike lane, or anything. If you hit a person on a bicycle, you are at fault. No discussion. So when you try and cross the street here, there is a bike lane for bicycle, motorscooters, motorbikes, and motorcycles. They can also get out of their own special lane and ride in the car lane. Or if they are in a real hurry, they can use the sidewalk. No rules and no speed limits. Some of the motorcycles use the bike lane and will hit 50-60 mph along the canal roads. There are also the cars to contend with and there are no stop signs and they have the right of way over pedestrians. Then there are the trams that run the middle of the road and I don't know who has the right of way but I've seen a tram hit a bicycle. You can get killed out there walking because everything has the right of way over you. It's tough.
Daryl
