Via Cycleliciousness, who we seem to be linking to a lot recently, come the following statistics:
The Netherlands – 1019 km
Denmark – 958 km
Belgium – 327 km
Germany – 300 km
Sweden – 300 km
Finland – 282 km
Ireland – 228 km
Italy – 168 km
Austria – 154 km
Greece – 91 km
France – 87 km
UK – 81 km
Luxembourg – 48 km
Portugal – 35 km
Spain – 24 km
Those are the average distances cycled by a person in the country, in a year.
To put the figures into perspective, I cycle from Springfield to just west of the town centre, and back, five days a week during term-time, with one extra trip a week to Hurworth on most of those weeks. A usual day is about five miles in total (8km), which takes me about 15 minutes each way.
In a year, this, plus some other short local trips, gets me about 1000 miles (1600km), about 60% more than the average Netherlander. In two weeks of commuting, I match the UK average. I did double the UK average in one day this year!
For someone with a “proper” job, who would work five days a week for 47 weeks of the year, less than a mile and a half each way for a cycle commute would get you Holland’s average.
Interesting statistics. Now I just work part-time, and in fact work from home or the workshop, which is just 250 metres from here. On a typical working day I’ll cycle back and forward about 6 times getting equipment, files, photos etc, and I’ll probably cycle into town and back to do a bit of shopping – another 500 metres. Once a week I’ll maybe do a freelance job or a bit of filming somewhere around the town, or cycle to the station to take a train to Newcastle for a meeting, so maybe another kilometre.
So I guess I cycle, as a part-time worker, 3 kilometres a day here in Darlington. When I’m in Germany I’m in a bigger city, and tend to cycle longer distances (eg it’s 2 kms each way to city centre), so I probably do 6 kilometres a day.
That averages out at maybe 20 to 25 kms a week, or pretty well the Dutch average. No wonder I felt so at home over there in the summer.
I think this also explains what Dutch (and Danish) cycling is really about – not total dedication, but just a normal, everyday, no-big-deal activity that everyone does a bit of sometimes.
Dutch motorways are still utterly congested, despite the amount of cycling!