58 Miles Per Gallon

That's right, I GET 58 MILES PER GALLON, consistently, in daily commuting, without fancy devices or expensive add-ons, and YOU CAN TOO!! I'll share the secret to my success with you, DEAR READER, not because I want your money, but because everyone deserves to benefit from such AMAZING FUEL ECONOMY!!

When I moved to Holland, I sold the two cars I owned in USA: a 1998 Acura Integra and a 2003 VW Jetta Wagon. The Acura averaged about 29 mpg, and the VW about 27. Not bad, compared to the average American's ride, but not stellar, either. Here, I bought a Volvo V40, same vintage as my previous VW -- however, with the exchange rate and the higher cost of cars here, the Volvo purchase depleted the sale value of both the previous cars! Bummer...

Luckily, the Volvo is a nice car. Comfy, quick, good for a growing family driving to Switzerland and such. When shopping for cars here, comfort and efficiency were of main importance, so I was immediately comparing tax costs and fuel economy. The tax (paid quarterly, more like a registration cost than a sales tax or such) on a car in the Netherlands is determined by its weight and fuel economy. The Volvo is middle of the road for both, but the fuel economy numbers were the interesting ones for me. How does 9.4 Liters/100 kilometers sound? Compared to what, you say? Inverting that figure and converting to English units, that means 25.5 miles per gallon (mpg). A little worse than our American cars. It is interesting to note that the average engine size in USA is 3.6 Liters. Here, it is 1.8 L: half! Ever the wiseguy, though, I'm countering these statistics. Both the VW and Acura in US were 1.8 L cars, and the Volvo here is a 2.0! The Volvo can roll with about 31 mpg on the motorway when driving long distances, but much of what we use it for is trafficky, low-speed driving in the local area, where it dips as low as 21. Surely, there is something better, right?

That's right. Now, I get 58 mpg.

The story of this amazing transformation begins with coffee, or koffie, as it's known here - sounds the same, though, except maybe a little more closed "o" sound for the first syllable, unlike the midwest/Rochester "flat-a" sound that you may be familiar with. Anyway, when I lived in America, I never drank coffee. Despite all the Starbucks, Dunkin Donuts, and McDonald's, despite growing up near Seattle, despite engineering all nighters, I never picked up a coffee habit. But, my first week working in Holland, I was hooked. At work, coffee is free, and it's dispensed by a wonderful, shiny, touchscreen automat that is always ready to please. Coffee is a social thing -- several times a day, someone pops into my office, "Wil je koffie?" or "Becky?" (Becky -- my spelling -- is a shortening of the word "beker," or "bekertje," which is a coffee cup, though the word reminds me of a chem lab beaker.)

Dutch coffees are tiny. Forget venti and grande, a Dutch coffee is smaller than short. It tops out at about 4 ounces, 118 mL, especially the Mokka I typically get from the office automat. So, when I tell you I now drink a couple, sometimes even four, coffees per day, I think I'm still consuming less than one Starbucks...

What does all this coffee have to do with miles per gallon? Simple. I put a cyclocomputer on my Gazelle commuting bike, reset to 0 kilometers on 21 September, 2009. I also started keeping track of my coffee consumption at work (which is why I know that, on average, I drink about 160 mL of coffee per workday). In two months, I have biked 304 km, mostly on my 8km daily commute, but also including some grocery runs and some rides through the woods with my fuzzy dog. In the same time, I have drunk a whopping 12.7 Liters of coffee! The result?
58.1 miles per gallon of coffee!


And, if you think that 12.7 Liters is a lot, consider that in the same period of time, I have consumed 106.5 L of water, just at work. At home, I regularly drink another liter or so per day. Oh, and also some tasty Belgian beer, but not every day... Mmmm, Trappist... topic for another day.

Wielersport na de Tour

As I may have mentioned, I like biking. I have never been a bike racer, but over the past few years I have dabbled a bit in Tour de France watching. I know, I know, with all the doping scandals, it's been a bit off-putting, but it's a fascinating, hierarchical, political, team sport in a multi-stage event. I watched a few stages of the 2009 Tour on TV, and I too was rooting for Lance Armstrong and wondering what would happen with him on the same team as Alberto Contador.

What's that you say, dear [American] reader? You don't know/give a hoot about the Tour de France? Yeah, yeah, I know it's not real popular in the USA, but on the Continent it's a huge deal. In France more so, I assume, but even here in NL there's quite a buzz about it. In fact, there's an interesting tradition of holding post-Tour criteriums in small villages in Holland and Belgium featuring Tour winners and superstars. Most of the Dutch racers from the Tour participate, to bring home the spirit of the Tour, and the big names come also, to bring home the bacon. I hear that Contador and the brothers Schleck make 50,000-75,000 Euro for each of these events -- not bad for a couple of hours of riding around in circles in a small Dutch town. Did I mention that a criterium is just that? It's a bike race consisting of many laps around a short course, usually made up of city streets and therefore including sharp turns and fast straightaways. It looks like this:

By the way, Rochester, NY had a criterium for a few years, which expanded to a multi-day event and almost became a stage race tour of upstate NY, but alas, it was cancelled.

So I decided to check out one of these Wielersport (cycling) events. I had three local choices: Daags Na De Tour (Days after the Tour) in Boxmeer, Bavaria Profronde (Bavaria being the local beer, and main sponsor, profronde meaning something like "professional lap/round") in Stiphout,
and Acht van Chaam (8 of Chaam) in Chaam. I went to the Bavaria Profronde, which was a 100km race on a 2km roughly-rectangular course (see below my attempt to embed a "live" Google map).


I was quite impressed. These guys are super fast! Standing along the rail, when the peloton of 30+ riders goes by, you get the same wind you would get from a subway entering a station. By the way, the dude in yellow is Alberto Contador (1st place, 2009 Tour de France), the guy ahead of him in white is Andy Schleck (2nd place), and Andy's brother Frank is in the pack somewhere as well (5th place). Some of the best cyclists in the world, right in my backyard!


The guy below was a local favorite, Bram Tankink. He didn't ride in the Tour de France, but he's on Team Rabobank (big Dutch bank) and grew up near here somewhere. He was all smiles and handtekenings (autographs) before the race.


Finally, a parting shot of Contador (who indeed won the criterium) as the darkness grows. I happened to catch the flash of another photographer as I was panning, which was a lucky break.


I think I shot 300 photos that night and yielded maybe 6 decent ones. Fast bikes in low light = lots of blurry photos!

Grocery Bike (& Friends)

The Dutch have bikes for every occasion. One of my favorites the moederfiets (mother bike) for on-the-go moms (or dads!). A bakfiets (carrier bike) takes the place of the American pickup truck. The standard omafiets (Grandma bike), preferably old and beaten-up, is the bike of choice for urban errands and parking outside the pub (so you don't have to worry about it!). There are cargo bikes and tandem bikes and even a backseat-driver tandem bike that lets your kid think he's in charge by riding up front, while you steer from behind! Folding bikes are for hybrid commuters who must take them on the train (bringing a real bike requires a ticket for the bike, but a foldy is free!). The fietscafe is a bike that's also a bar (yeah, yeah, it has four wheels, so "bike" isn't quite the right word, but it does have a pair of pedals for each of its 12 barstools -- luckily the bartender gets to steer!). I've seen one of these and they look really entertaining.

I once saw an entire brass band on a bike in front of city hall in Eindhoven:


These guys are rad; check out their website.

Sadly, I don't have all these special bikes (although I am "average" by Dutch standards as the owner of 2.5 bikes: my commuter bike, mountain bike, and my half of the tandem my wife and I used to ride before we had a baby!), but my trusty Gazelle does great work as a boodschappenfiets (grocery bike). I affixed the milk-crate with some old climbing webbing, and it works great. This particular outing, I packed the crate FULL of heavy stuff (note the stiff canvas bags, wonderful, thanks to my Ma), hung another bag off the handlebars, and I even was able to tuck the stems of some lilies into the crannies. Did I mention that flowers are cheap in the Netherlands? Each bunch was €3.


Hoera! Lekker fietsen!

Why Biking to Work is Better Than Driving

There are a whole pile of reasons why biking to work is better than driving. Here are some visual reminders of some of them...

Traffic sucks. Sitting in stop-and-go traffic makes me crazy. Having to drive to and from work during rush hour is like a punch in the mouth. However, passing cars in the wide-open bike lane makes me quite happy.


Gas is expensive. Below is the sign at the local BP. Don't shrug off the seemingly-low price for Euro 95 (standard unleaded) -- that's in Euros per liter. Today, a Euro is worth about $1.30, and there are 3.8 liters in a gallon. Factor those conversions in, and gas here costs just over $6 per gallon. No wonder this is the land of the Smart car. What's that 51-cent price, you ask, for "Autogas?" Autogas is LPG, liquified petroleum gas, some sort of mix of methane, propane, and similar stuff. Apparently many cars here have been retrofitted to burn LPG rather than gasoline (benzine, in Dutch). I looked into it when I bought my car, but I guess that while LPG is ubiquitous within the Netherlands, elsewhere in Europe it is tougher to find. But, luckily, I don't need any of this nonsense to bike to work!


Biking puts a smile on my face because it's simply pleasant! Check out the bike paths I get to use every day, which are way nicer than even the quaintest European roads:



Nice, eh? Of course, it's not always sunshine and roses... Sometimes other "traffic" in the bike lane leaves its mark:

Bike Stairs

It continues to amaze me how well bicycling fits into daily life here, thanks to numerous little details in infrastructure. For instance, above is an image of the stairs accessing a pedestrian bridge. How to ascend and descend stairs with your bike? With a little tire-groove ramp at the edge of the treads, of course! You just roll the bike up or down the ramp while you walk the stairs.

I've seen this little detail in a few places, including at the mall, where the stairs lead down to the free, underground bike parking lot. Way better than any American mall I've been to! They give you a little claim check when you drop off the bike, and someone's there to make sure nobody takes it while you shop.

Rolling, Rolling, Rolling

Here are some of the pavements I've biked over lately:

Cyclobrûlée

"Crunch, crunch."
The satisfying sound of cracking the freshly-torched sugar surface of a crème brûlée. I heard it this morning on my commute to work, not from a spoon, but from my bike. As I may have mentioned, I thoroughly enjoy my morning rides to work, taking a winding route through Genneper Parken, a park with varied forest and farm terrain. Part of this morning's path is traced below:


The map was made with GPS Visualizer using data from my little GPS logger that I tend to take with me most places I go.

Parts of the path through the park are unpaved, and this morning's frosty temperature induced an icy topping on each of the pothole puddles along the way. The first one I zipped over made the same "crunch, crunch" as a crème brûlée being broken with a spoon when my tires sequentially cracked its surface. Smiling, I broke as many more little frozen crème brûlée puddles as I could before I exited the park. What fun.

Ride Between the Raindrops

Tuesday morning was horribly rainy. Well, it was horribly rainy until after I biked to work, got soaked, and got to my desk. Right then, the clouds blew past, and a gorgeous blue sky opened up. Nice, eh? At least my office has a nice window...

While riding in the rain, which, by the way, is not as bad as it sounds thanks to really effective fenders on my bike, I was watching the other cyclists dealing with the weather. I believe there are three types of foul-weather cyclists. The largest group, like me, simply deals with the rain, although we're not happy about it. I have a nice rain jacket, and biked with my hood up, although some others didn't have or bother with a hood. Regardless of our garb, we simply grit our teeth, bow our heads to the wind, and go. We get wet, and we deal with it. The second group, a minority group maybe half the size of the teeth-gritters, is made up of ultra-prepared foul-weather cyclists, with things like fancy rain suits, waterproof shoe-covers, waterproof panniers, etc. These bikers laugh in the face of rain because they are simply impervious to it.

The final group, least in number but not in style, appears to blithely ride between the raindrops. These cyclists, mainly highschool-age girls, by their appearance, were completely unprepared for rain, wearing jeans, cotton jackets, and otherwise normal clothes, and with hair done and streaming behind them, smiling and laughing with their friends on the way to school as if totally unaware of the deluge I was fighting. They didn't appear to even be getting wet -- although I thought I saw one girl unconsciously brush a droplet off of her cheek. Amazing, I tell you. I truly wish I had a photograph, but I was too busy gritting my teeth and trying to ride faster than the water could saturate my pants. Actually, I think that a photo would not be effective, as it would minimize the appearance of the rain and just look like girls biking to school on a normal day. Maybe if I showed a photograph while dowsing the viewer with a glass of water, that would convey what I saw...

Foggy Bike Day

Tuesday was a foggy day. Fog in the morning; fog all day; fog in the evening. From my office window, I could sometimes not see the nearest buildings through the white haze.

In the morning, thanks to this fiasco, I rode the bus to work. As I waited at the bus stop, I took pictures of the happy cycling commuters rolling by. (Click the photos to embiggen)


Biking home in the foggy twilight, I shot a bunch of photos from the saddle. The air looks brighter in the pictures than it did in the drawing twilight, but I overexposed them a bit to show the white fog and to enhance the motion blur.


It was a gorgeous, still evening, and the silence in Genneper Parken was as thick as the misty air. The bike paths (fietspads) were empty.



Looking into the fields beside the path, the distant trees faded to vapor.


Leaving the park, finally, another cyclist appeared, her weak headlamp preceding her squeaking bike.


Back in the hustlebustle of the city streets, this garrulous pair was chatting and hand-waving for blocks. I took pictures instead of ringing my bell to pass.


There was no rain, yet I arrived home feeling wet, my wool coat covered with tiny spheres of water. I was in a cloud.

Not Im-Presta

I had an interesting bicycling adventure yesterday. Let's call it a tire pressure malfunction, otherwise known as a flat tire. Sadly, this particular flat tire wasn't caused by a stray thumbtack or a pinched tube or any other accidental mishap -- this one was pure operator error. I learned something, though!

It turns out there is a third type of tire valve in addition to the two I'm familiar with. American bikes generally have either Schrader valves, which are exactly the same as valves on car tires, with the little spring-loaded pin in the center, or Presta valves, which are a little more minimalistic, without the spring, and with a screw-lock to keep them closed. I Googled up this photo to show these two types (Presta on the left, Schrader on the right):



I've had bikes with both types, and while I have heard that there are major wars between proponents of each, much like Nikon vs. Canon or Ford vs. Chevy, I've never really cared too much one way or the other.

My commuter bike, which I bought used about a week ago, was feeling a little soft on the rear end. Before riding home from work last night, I decided to add a little air to the rear tire. Conveniently, in the wonderful locked, covered bike parking lot at work (!), there's a bike pump chained to the fence for all to use. I rolled my iron steed over to it, unscrewed the presumably-Presta valve, and BAM! the valve shot off and the tire went totally flat. Ack! It looked like this:


An open chimney from my tire tube to the atmosphere -- not a good way to hold in air. I was stuck. It was 6pm, it was dark, and the valve top was nowhere to be found. I searched and searched with my little LED flashlight my Grandma Jean gave me, but nothing. I'm pretty sure it launched right into orbit.

I guess it wasn't a Presta valve after all. Google now tells me (too late, of course) it's a Dunlop valve, aka Dutch valve...

After a bus ride home and a return this morning, I took my broken bike to the bike repair guy who works at the High Tech Campus (isn't that great?), and he replaced the part and pumped it up in about 3 minutes. He charged me nothing (isn't that amazing?). It now looks like this, and I'm back to biking happily:

Adventures in the Bus Lijn

Traffic in Eindhoven, be it car (auto), bicycle (fiets), or bus (bus!) is extraordinarily organized. There are bike lanes, bus lanes, and regular lanes; there are stop lights for each individual lane, no right-on-red, stop lights for the bike lanes, pedestrian crossing lights, and bus-specific signals as well. Very organized, yes, but also potentially confusing -- I've found myself driving into both in the bus lane as well as the bike lane!

The traffic flow at each intersection is carefully choreographed in a way that is still unintelligible to me. I recall simple American intersections where the only uncertainty a driver has is whether the left-turn arrow turns green before the straight-ahead traffic or after... Here, you wait and watch a lane from somewhere allowed to go, then some pedestrians allowed, then something else to happen, maybe a bus goes by, and suddenly you get to go. It's easy to get distracted while waiting, and nearly impossible to "jump the gun" and go before your light is green, because you really have no idea whose turn is next. No chance of the common-in-Rochester "New York left-turn," which is the quick-off-the-line left before the regular traffic gets going.

Anyway, I have been meaning to write about my adventure in the Bus Lijn for more than a week, mostly because I wanted a good illustration of an Eindhoven intersection to show all this confusion clearly. Behold exhibit A, conveniently viewed from our temporary apartment on the 7th floor:
In this photo, you'll notice many lanes going many directions. In the center are the bus lanes, indicated by the large white letters spelling BUS as well as the actual bus. On either side of the bus lanes, normal auto lanes, and further out, bike lanes, which tend to have pinkish pavement and crossings marked with big white squares. Beyond those, pedestrian sidewalks, with crossings marked with little white dashes. The opposing street has all of these except bus lanes.

So the other weekend, when we still had our rental car, I managed to drive in the bus lane (bus lijn, pronounced like bus line) as well as the bike lane (fietspad)... The bike path was just a quick oops, kind of like cutting the corner too close. Later, I hung a left, and before I knew it, I was driving over the words BUS LIJN, with grassy medians on either side, and I couldn't do anything about it. Strangely, there was another car further down the block, also in the bus lane. I guess it happens!

Now I'm Really Living Dutchly

I am more-or-less living in limbo: no apartment, no residence permit (it's pending, of course), no bank account (also pending), etc. I have health insurance, but the policy number is pending. I live in a hotel, which sounds posh and nice, but in reality is claustrophobic. I eat out for every meal, which also sounds great, but in reality is tiresome and heavy. All this feels like some kind of twisted vacation -- it's fun and interesting to be in a foreign country, but I'm spending all my time trying to remedy the aforementioned problems rather than enjoying the trip...

So, today I rented a bicycle from the hotel and rode it to work. That is the essence of living Dutchly! It was a gorgeous, chilly, sunny morning, and the bike paths were chockablock with scarfed Dutch commuters. I biked through the park; I biked by the big avenues without any worry about cars; I biked through intersections with the special bike-lane stoplights; I biked into the complex I work in and locked the bike in the ground floor of the parking garage. Very pleasant, a good way to get going in the morning, and much faster than the walk-bus-walk combination I've been doing until now. I'm sold!

Here are some action shots taken from the saddle. First, a typical Eindhoven intersection with the pink bike path, mini bike stoplights, pedestrian crosswalk to the right, and of course car lanes to the left. Very organized, and very safe for biking.

Next, the approach to the only hill on my commute, the little bridge over the Dommel River.


And finally, approaching the High Tech Campus (on the right, across the road).

As I mentioned, it was chilly this morning. Not cold by upstate New York standards, but cool enough that I wore gloves. I noticed that I was in the minority with regard to manual insulation. I saw quite a few cyclists with one hand on the handlebar and the other in their pocket! Makes sense, I guess -- warm one up for a few minutes, then switch! I was the only one with one hand on the handlebar and the other taking photos, though, for sure!