Netherlands and Denmark have many more per capita and also much better infrastructure for cycling. I was in Germany this weekend and in some cities is quite a risk to ride a bike since there are definitely not enough bike lanes

Uhm yes, I (German) thought "How is it not the Netherlands?".

Going by the numbers presented in this article, it's actually Denmark. And our bike culture is mostly a feature of Copenhagen, so really Copenhagen is the global hub.

Cargo bikes were always quite popular in Copenhagen. The dominant brand for several decades was produced in Christiania (a hippie/anarchist commune), so just a few years ago they were all still known as "Christiania bikes" in Denmark. I think the more recent addition of electric assists made them explode in popularity and other brands became more popular.

Christiania is a quality product, one of the very few early aluminum cargo bikes, much easier to handle for a smaller person than the steel ones.

The dutch don't seem to be very into cargo bikes. They certainly do exist (bakfiets are pretty famous, and the reference), but the vast, vast majority of the parc seems to be more of the granny bike variety, possibly with panniers and child seats, rather than dedicated cargo.

E.g. in BicycleDutch's station area video, while it was not 4 uninterrupted minutes of bike traffic around utrecht's station I only noticed 3 cargo bikes.

> The dutch don't seem to be very into cargo bikes.

Go visit any gradeschool in the morning between 8 and 8:30. You'll see traffic jams of cargo bikes.

We have >> 10 different independent cargo bike manufacturers.

https://cargobikefestival.com/news/dutch-manufacturers-of-ca...

I don't understand this about the Dutch people. So many old, granny bikes, that are so heavy, with steel fenders, steel stands etc. So heavy, inefficient.

So many cyclists with their chains screeching loudly, as if they haven't seen oil in years. So many broken chains around the streets and bike paths. So many with terrible lighting, cheap flickering LEDs that are barely visible. Or many young people with no lighting at all.

In comparison, the Germans seem to invest a lot more in their bikes. A lot more expensive bikes, and generally a lot better maintained.

The bike theft arms race is a race to the bottom: if you want your bike to loyally wait for you where you left it you need to make sure that it looks worse than its peers. A nearly broken bike that is there when you need it has far more utility than a neatly maintained one that isn't.

> I don't understand this about the Dutch people. So many old, granny bikes, that are so heavy, with steel fenders, steel stands etc. So heavy, inefficient.

Cheap, reliable, low-maintenance, unattractive to thiefs. When you drop your bike at the train station you don't want it to stand out in a sea of other cheap bikes.

And with bikes generally getting priority, the weight is likely less of a concern.

Weight is much less of a concern for flatlanders like the Dutch.

I would suggest watching this video from Not Just Bikes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aESqrP3hfi8

They'll take my opafiets when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.

I (also German) didn't do the math and gave it the benefit of the doubt: "well, maybe in Copenhagen and Amsterdam the market is already so saturated that a momentary fashion wave of Germans catching up might nib sales slightly ahead for a short while". Apparently not!

Seems correct, so they became a hub by having 80 million citizens. Denmark have a population 14 times small, but the sales number for cargo bikes are only 4 times smaller and no subsidising.

The point of a subsidy is to encourage behavior that wouldn't otherwise happen. If the subsidy is used up within 30 minutes, then no behavior was changed. Demand was pulled forward by a few weeks or a few months, which is not a good use of public money.

> If the subsidy is used up within 30 minutes, then no behavior was changed. Demand was pulled forward by a few weeks or a few months, which is not a good use of public money.

That is not true.

Even if it only pulled demand forward by weeks, it would create a strong signal of desirability, which enables surrounding projects (e.g. infrastructure) by unambiguously demonstrating interest.

Furthermore subsidy can be the difference between ability and inability, it won't do anything if there's no interest, but it can very much jumpstart or create a market where there previously was not one because the investment was too steep.

I think it is clear that desirability was already there.

What they did was create a reward for jumping to the front of a line that you were already in. As everyone knows, the people most able to do this kind of thing are the people with the least concern over time and money.

I can go into work and put an appointment on my calendar that says I am busy. Nobody cares. I could even walk out of the office and say "I've got to go take care of something; be back in an hour". WFH makes all that even easier. If you work at a restaurant, drive a truck, etc? Not a chance. You have no flexibility at all.

Well yeah, but why focus on Germany and not Denmark or the Netherlands. Both have more cargo bikes than Germany per person? It’s more interesting how this happened with the goverment throwing money at it. Perhaps there’s something Germany could have done to get even better result, without a subsidy.

Exactly. Once you adjust for population size Germany is a (distant) third in Europe.

> cargo bikes are extremely common for transporting kids

Seems like a contradiction in terms?