her punishment was a 2500 SEK fine? They've just told the entire country that we can pay the equivalent of a new bicycle to block oil tankers, this is amazing.
Where the hell do you get a new bicycle for 2500 SEK? I paid 2 or 3 times that for a midrange bike (in Estonia, admittedly). 2500 SEK is good used bike territory.
Eh maybe if you only want to cycle slowly around town, sure. For me, a bicycle is more for exercise than transportation.
It's kinda the same as saying 8k EUR gets you a new car. I mean yeah, it's technically true, it gets you a Dacia Sandero, but most people will still go for something they can actually enjoy.
what? this is a standard bike that anyone here would consider a proper bicycle, perfectly usable.
Like, the netherlands (where almost everyone rides a bike on the regular) is known for largely consisting of this kind of bike, it's all you need and buying something more expensive just poses a risk of theft or damage.
Difference in cycling cultures I suppose. Around here this would be considered an old lady bike. It's great for slowly cruising around the city, but I just wouldn't feel comfortable at high speeds, or on trails, etc. I prefer to get everywhere fast like a bat out of hell (an ADHD trait, going anything but my full speed, full-on anaerobic on my commute even, feels wrong and tedious) and need a single bicycle to work on roads, streets and trails, so I got this low-mid range hybrid. This is the most common type of bike here (well actually now fatbikes are more common, but that's a stupid trend. And I suppose full-on mountain bikes are very popular too).
Well, you're right, this is a bike meant for transportation, not sports. Still counts as a bike though, so original comment is right too. Everybody in the Netherlands and Belgium has one of these (and if you wanna do cyclocross or bmx or fast road cycling, you have a second, third, ... bike)
I spy a disturbing lack of racks and baskets and places to attach packs to go grocery shopping on your hybrid though. ;) Many city people don't own a car (or only use it for taking their sports bike out of the city), so I guess they use their gas money for that. I wouldn't know, I'm a one (utility) bike only person as well.
That's what THAT bike is for. A good bike can be used to actually get to places in time. Hence why I didn't know people under 60 get those in other countries.
I'm just saying it's weird to call the bare minimum "the price of a new X" in a comparison.