Berlin Bikes, Bits and Bike Culture

Not sure if this belongs in Bikes and Bits, General or Travel - it'll get moved if it needs to be I'm sure...

Travel to Berlin quite often, and always fascinated to by the bike culture there. Having said that I always stay at a friends flat in Kreuzberg, so this may be geographically limited. For the most part it seems to be a combo of Dutch bikes, cargo bikes and beaten up old Peugeots. There doesn't seem to be much of the Richmond Park mentality about i.e. middle aged men (such as me) on £9K bikes. However, the bikes that make you look tend to be fairly interesting. Some of my spots this holiday were what appeared to be a Bianchi with wolf ear lugs, a Puch with full C-Record groupset and panto'd stem etc, a 753 team Raleigh and a lovely (not beaten up) Peugeot. There were plenty more, a lovely steel Viner etc, but couldn't take photos of them all.

In addition to the bikes, I try to fit in a visit to some of the shops such as Devil's Child etc. On this occasion I missed out, but did visit a cafe A Horn, which has a bicycle shop attached to it, which you look into from the cafe. The owner had a Raleigh Record for sale (58/59cm, 531 and Shimano Arabesque) for 450 Euros - he's willing to ship if anyone was interested. Interestingly, he told me that secondhand bikes were hugely expensive in Berlin and (slight exaggeration on his part), something costing 50 Euros in another city would be 500 in Berlin. In part this appeared to be true, alongside the Raleigh he had a fairly mediocre secondhand steel Giant for sale at 690 Euros.

Anyway, if anyone goes to Berlin and wants to share anything Bike related...

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A few I saw when I was there...

some rather rubbish pictures from my last trip to Berlin...... it is one of my favorite cites. they get it spot on with bike culture and cycle infrastructure..... for that matter most aspects of life..... i feel we could lean a lot from Berlin. i hope we adopt some of their good ideas regarding bikes....

picture of me at Kopi bike squat. my friends tall bikes(cyclown circus). one of my loan bikes.....