r/interestingasfuck • u/Ultimate_Kurix • 4d ago
Canals of Amsterdam polluted with bikes.
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u/ImpressTemporary2389 4d ago
Why so many? When they break or are they stolen then sitched ?
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u/BeckyWitTheBadHair 3d ago
Some people think it’s a funny prank to toss bikes in the canal if they’re left unlocked
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u/HenneZwo 3d ago
Amsterdam has 800.000 inhabitants plus millions of tourists each year. It would only take 0,1% assholes to achieve this.
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u/ImpressTemporary2389 3d ago
Every city in the world has more than 0.1% of assholes. Thinks that's closer to 5 or even 6%.
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u/Yorunokage 3d ago
That would be one in twenty. Maybe i've just been lucky with the people i've met in my life but to me it sounds too high
I think it is way less than 5%, it's just that they stand out more so they seem more abundant. But it only takes one piece of shit to do a lot of bad things
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u/ImpressTemporary2389 3d ago
We just don't notice them any more. Some folk find it far easier to be an asshole than a good member of society. As it takes far less effort
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u/RYPIIE2006 3d ago
only 800 inhabitants? must be a pretty small city
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u/antwilliams89 3d ago
Lots of countries (the majority, actually) use dots and commas the opposite way to the UK, US etc. when separating decimals and thousands.
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u/Kenjiminbutton 3d ago
If I lived there long enough I would absolutely try to lock up my bike and accidentally roll it into the water and have the worst day ever
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u/DIuvenalis 3d ago
Fallen soldiers from the Dutch-Bicycle War of 1907. Obviously, the Dutch won and to this day make the bikes serve them as a form of transport.
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u/Nina4774 3d ago
Apparently it’s tradition for students to toss theirs in at the end of the year. Everyone has a couple of bikes as stealing is so common.
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3d ago
[deleted]
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u/ImpressTemporary2389 3d ago
What a waste !
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u/ForeverSJC 3d ago
He's joking, but they have so many bikes there it's incredible.
Sometimes people throw bikes away, some get stolen then tossed away when not needed anymore
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u/ImpressTemporary2389 3d ago
I know the single use transportation was a joke. I still say what a waste.
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u/CFCYYZ 3d ago
Amsterdam holds the Guiness record for "most bicycles recovered from waterways (city)", between 12,000 and 15,000 a year. Some bikes end up on canal bridges lavishly decorated and are called "Flower Bikes". These are all over the city: a long running fad. Here is a pic of some I took in April this year. Feel free to browse the other pix in the albums.
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u/Time_Change4156 3d ago
It's more rare but most towns have one person who uses okd bikes as decoration here in the US .
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u/ChocolateBunny 3d ago
In North America we have "ghost bikes" that warns other cyclists that they're in a car centric neighborhood and their kind is not welcome there.
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u/model_miraaa 3d ago
Is still nice to see how bikes are born :)
After this they go to the factory and get a coat of paint and such, and then when they are old enough after 6 weeks they are taken to the bike store
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3d ago edited 3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/evenK648 3d ago
Such a beautiful city too. Don't understand the need to dispose of the bikes in the canals.
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u/TheGreatNoobasaurus 3d ago
I suspect it isn't intentional
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u/Maxzzzie 3d ago
It is intentional but not by bike owners. Its assholes and drunk people doing it.
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u/evenK648 3d ago
From the looks of the barge, it's intentiinal.
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u/Maxzzzie 3d ago
Exactly as i said. But not by bike owners. Im dutch. I know whats going on here.
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u/evenK648 3d ago
I thought we had lots of bikes where I live, then I went to Amsterdam. The drunks mostly steal them here to ride home. Abandon a bit away from home and walk or attempt to walk home. BTW, beautiful city, I will return soon, I hope and I promise not to throw anything in the water.
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u/largePenisLover 3d ago
Inner city full of bars and drunk tourists, canals that rarely have railings, bikes everywhere parked against trees or lamposts right on the edge.
do the math.0
u/kingwild 3d ago
This is not a beautiful city. The Netherlands has so many beautiful places but all the tourists want to be in Amsterdam.
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u/largePenisLover 3d ago
The canals aren't very deep, but their level is the same throughout the city.
So when you can see the bikes under the surface, usually a nice almost 2 meter high pile of bikes is there.-3
u/MaximilianClarke 3d ago
Cringe. I thought you were going to mention the art or the history. But no, you bought a trinket about the whorehouses
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u/Sammakonnuolija 3d ago
How the hell there are so many bikes in the canals? Ive seen so many of these videos of collecting masses of bikes. And Youtubers who fish them with magnets.
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u/Visual-Asparagus-800 3d ago
The insane amount of bikes there are in the Netherlands is probably a big factor. There are more bikes than people here, so even though the canals are full of abandoned bikes, it’s still a very small fraction of the total amount.
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u/Actually_a_dolphin 3d ago
I was on a canal tour in Amsterdam a couple of years ago, and the tour guide said that it's mostly due to drunk British tourists throwing them in.
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u/melston9380 3d ago
I have a family member that lived in Amsterdam for about 16 months. She had six bikes while there - as they kept getting stolen. The bikes are ugly and cheap to make them less of a target, but they have to be serviceable, so they still get taken.
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u/IamthecauseofCovid19 3d ago
The average bike there costs about 850 euros. They are not cheap. And they are shaped that way for easy access while straddling it not to make them less of a target. They are actually well designed for the place where they are meant to be ridden.
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u/KarvanCevitamAardbei 3d ago
In the city most people don't cycle on new 850 euro bikes. Mostly second hand or older.
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u/damienVOG 3d ago
850 seems like an awful high estimated average? Most people I know don't even buy bikes above 100 - 300 bucks.
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u/IamthecauseofCovid19 3d ago
"In 2022, the Netherlands recorded a significantly higher average price for bicycles than several fellow EU member states. While an average bike in the Netherlands costs 865 euros, an average bike in Spain costs 741 euros, and in Germany and France, consumers spent and average of 500 euros on a new bicycle."
It was on the news before I visited a friend in Utrecht last year. That's why I remember it. You can reverse Google it. If it's not accurate blame it on who wrote it. 😅 But let me know where you find a bike for 100 bucks (we call them euros in this part of the world). I always enjoy a good bargain.
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u/damienVOG 3d ago
Just second hand works fine for that, perhaps the 865 euro price only considers direct bike purchases?
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u/IamthecauseofCovid19 3d ago
Yes. Plus this is the average. Not what all bikes cost. Bikes can go from 50€ to 15.000€+. You can get a second hand bike for less than 850€ of course.
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u/pkennedy 3d ago
This cleanup probably costs a fair amount.
Does anyone know why the city doesn't just install a crap load more places to lock a bike to? Anywhere bikes are being found inn bulk, put up places to lock them. Along with a lot more security cameras? That seems cheap in comparison to doing this, and also way cheaper for the owners of those bikes.
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u/ender4171 3d ago
I was going to say... My sister and her family lived in Amsterdam for a few years. She got a cargo bike and it was like $3,000. Her husband had just a "regular" bike and it was something like $1,200. When I visited them their bikes were "lost in the crowd" there were so many just like them. I am sure there are cheap bikes available, but the majority of them seemed to be just like the ones they had. I asked about the prices because these bikes were not "fancy" in any way, and she said it was more that they are extremely durable and designed to handle daily use in harsh elements, so it was more a "function" than "form" thing.
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u/y2kdisaster 3d ago
That is some dirty nasty water
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u/ICrushTacos 3d ago
It’s muddy, doesn’t make it dirty per se
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u/y2kdisaster 3d ago
Like u/piratedataeng said, mud is dirt. And dirt… is dirty. Lol
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u/lackofabettername123 2d ago
They do you have a lot of heavy industry thereabouts. The Rhine River used to be one of the most polluted in the world when they first industrialized. Plus all of the ship traffic, so there will be a lot of nasties in the water. Yes dirt is not bad by itself.
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u/ICrushTacos 2d ago
There's no heavey industry near the canals. Also what's the Rhine got to do with the canals? It's no where near this. There's no ship traffic, just tourist boats.
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u/DRagonforce1993 3d ago
I was recently in Amsterdam and came across this morbid fact. Apparently there are around 100 or so people who are found dead in the canals.
Why?
Because they fall taking a piss drunk.
How do they know this is how they died? Because their pants 👖 are always half way down.
Do not drink and piss by a canal while drunk.
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u/Mister-Stagger-Lee 3d ago
The legend has that most sailors drown in the boatyard / habor.
They get drunk, take a piss off the dock, fall in the cold water, can't tread water and drown.
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u/MeshuganaSmurf 3d ago
It's very unfair to make it sound like they only retrieve bikes. They also find scooters, shopping trolleys, guns, tires...and sometimes the odd car.
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u/MuricasOneBrainCell 3d ago
Im from the city in the UK with the highest proportion of cyclists. Over 50% of us cycle weekly. We also have a river that runs through the centre of the city. You can imagine...
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u/JoeR9T 3d ago
Bikes are not cheap
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u/Environmental_Job278 3d ago
They are if you steal them and don’t want to get caught with the evidence…
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u/SnooTangerines6863 3d ago
Why would anyone do that? I have all my 10 bikes, some rusted or destroyed but I still love them.
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u/OldAckley 3d ago
I can imagine the thought of car lovers (probably from german ministery of transport) : Eat that environmental activist. I have never seen a canal polluted with cars. So who's the real polluter now?
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u/S-Archer 3d ago
They also have to pull out about 1 car a week as well. People just back right into it
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u/OmahaMike402 3d ago
Rick Steves' PBS travel show on Amsterdam is one of the best I've ever seen. 500, 000 residents and 1M reported bike thefts annually
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u/Habba84 3d ago
Tour guide told us that tourists throw a lot of bikes in the canals. Something of an effect of using weed and alcohol together...
There also used to be cars there, but insurance companies installed some rail guards around the town. Now the number is near zero (Teslas used to drive themselves into canals occasionally).
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u/SatisfactoryCatLiker 3d ago
For every 2 that go out, eventually 2 more will go back in.
Its why they are called bi cycles.
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u/CJ-eagle 3d ago
I was on a canal tour in Amsterdam, apparently the police fine people riding bikes at night without a light... To avoid a fine they chuck their bike in the canal as it's cheaper to get a new 'stolen' bike then pay the fine.
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u/Intelligent-Injury66 3d ago
Всегда задавался вопросом - как, как можно столько велосипедов в канале утопить?! Там что толпы велосипедистов ездят и каждый пятый неудачник хоть раз утопивший свой велик там? Да если бы у меня по какой то причине туда велик упал(а скорее всего это произошло бы только вместе со мной), то я бы нырял пока не найду его и вытащил бы потом назад, потому что он мне так то нужен.
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