American cycling culture is very different from Dutch cycling culture. To the point where me and many of my friends do not consider ourselves cyclists, despite:

- Owning bicycles - Using bicycles for recreation and practical uses - Repairing our own bicycles

Because we do not wear spandex or own racing/mountain bikes.

See Casually Explained's video about this: https://youtu.be/5EE8m8mmq1k

It’s unfortunate that English only has the one word meaning ‘cyclist’. It sounds like over here you would be an average fietser (as opposed to a wielrenner).

End up sharing a lane with a car that wants to go 48kph and you'll break a sweat on a city bike really fast.

Problem exists in road design, not in bicycle.

I can change my bicycle, I can't change the road design

Well, sure, but then it becomes more like a sociopolitical problem... I respect cycling in those conditions, but personally I would feel unsafe.

The US system for development is adversarial, which makes any change that even a small number of people don't want very hard to make. Recently my city was going to put in separated bike lanes, which would have involved removing some on-street parking. The residents of the area that would have lost parking threatened to sue the government (which would have delayed building for up to a decade), so the city council had to change their plans.

My understanding is that this could not have happened in Europe. The (ostensible) reason for the suits were on access for disabled people[1], which (if I understand correctly) is typically not solved through adversarial means in Europe.

1: Another favorite is for environmental reasons. The government's environmental review board can approve a project, but then a concerned citizen can sue claiming they didn't do it correctly. This can delay a construction project for years.