Beer Bike: Good Times Or ‘Uncontrolled Projectile?’

by dutchamsterdam.nl via Flickr

Despite its long and harmonious history of bicycling and substance abuse,  Amsterdam is experiencing a conflict between the two.

The source of consternation is the beer bike, on which 10 or more people sit around a bar, drinking beer and pedaling to power a contraption steered by a designated driver. Despite the ostensible sobriety of the driver, the bikes have been involved in two recent accidents, Reuters reports, prompting a motorcyclist to call the one that hit him “an uncontrolled projectile.”

I am not against bicycles or crowds of drunks, but it does seem a little risky to combine the two. Amsterdam is already so bike-centric that a perfectly sober grandmother will run you down with her Schwinn if you step in her path. What a dozen British tourists with several pints in them might do is not something that bears contemplation.

While I would very much like to go on a beer bike tour, it may be one of those things that a principled traveler ought to foreswear for the public good. Rats.

Will Summer Travel Be Cheaper Than Fall Travel?

Travelocity is suggesting that it may be cheaper to travel this summer than to wait for fall, a reversal of the usual pattern.

“Those who want to take advantage of the abundance of travel deals should do so this summer,” the company says in a press release. It cites a 17 percent drop in domestic air fares from last summer, and 14 percent declines in international air fares and in hotel rates both international and domestic.

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