No More Beer Bikes In Amsterdam

Within the past week, I've read articles in The Atlantic and Vanity Fair about Tim Piazza, a Beta Theta Pi pledge at Penn State University.  Those articles confirmed what I have long suspected:  Even though the legal drinking age is 21 almost everywhere in the US, and even though national fraternity organizations (and, often, college and university administrations) claim that "hazing" is not allowed and that fraternity recruitment programs are "alcohol free", the booze flows freely and pledges are often treated terribly.

I can only imagine what would happen if those frats operated in Amsterdam--and, more specifically, had access to something that's been part of its landscape for some time.

I'm talking about the "beer bikes", so beloved by stag parties and other (mostly male) groups who do all manner of things in the Dutch capital (and in other places) they would never do at home.

The "bike" is really more like a cart with pedals.  Whatever one calls it, it's essentially a rolling bar, or at least a rolling beer garden.   Not surprisingly, users of the beer bikes, almost all of whom are tourists, often become rowdy and, to put it politely, have difficulty navigating those vehicles.

So it's also not a surprise that they have become almost as despised by residents of the city as they are beloved by revelers.  Last year, then-mayor Eberhard van der Laan, who died last month, heard the collective cries of "Genoeg is genoeg!" (All right, that's a Google translation.) and instituted a ban on the beer bikes.  

That ban was challenged by beer bike operators and struck down.  However, the other day, the Amsterdam District Court agreed with the ruling.  It took effect the other day.

It's been a long time since I've been in Amsterdam and, I admit, when I was there, I was probably was in an even more altered state of consciousness than most patrons of the beer bikes.  Still, I remember the narrow streets that run alongside, and are punctuated by, the canals.  As I recall, navigating some of those streets is difficult even for sober cyclists, pedestrians and drivers.  And if I had to get up and go to work every day in "The Venice of the North," I probably wouldn't be too happy about losing sleep to, and weaving around, loud drunks.  So, I think I can understand and sympathise with those who wanted the ban.

Now, whether it will curb some of the "undesirable" tourism some city leaders and other residents lament, I don't know.

Who Were They?

Yesterday I wrote about the tragedy in my hometown:  On a sunny, breezy autumn afternoon, a man drove a rented van onto the bike path that rims the Hudson River and mowed down eight cyclists.

Authorities are saying it was a terrorist incident.  That it is, whether or not Sayfullo Saipov, the driver said he committed the act in the name of Isis or some other group, or simply out of his own private rage or torment.  Terror is something that strikes, as Albert Camus wrote in The Plague, la mort est descendue du ciel clair--like death out of the clear blue sky.  Who goes for a ride on a beautiful fall afternoon--whether as part of a tour or a way to unwind after work--and expects to meet his or her destiny at the hands of someone whose face he or she will not see?

In yesterday's post, I mentioned six of the eight victims.  Six came from Argentina, another from Belgium.  I had no information about the other two victims, or the names of the six I mentioned.  Today I will provide those details, for they deserve to live on, even if it's in the confines of a bike blog and through my own limited talents.

Anyway, I learned that the other two victims were, as I somehow suspected, local residents.  In fact, one of them lived almost his entire life literally just a few wheel revolutions from where he was run down.

Nicholas Cleves

That benighted young man was Nicholas Cleves, a 23-year-old software developer who had recently graduated from Skidmore Colllege, less than a four-hour drive from the city.  Before going to Skidmore, he'd spent his whole life in downtown Manhattan where, according to friends and family, he grew up "biking everywhere."  

Darren Drake

The other local victim came from across the river, in New Jersey, where he served on the local board of education in his hometown of New Milford.  Darren Drake would have been 33 years old in two weeks and worked as a project manager in Moody's Analytics, just steps away from the bike path.  

Ann-Laure Decadt

Ann-Laure Decadt, a year younger than Drake, was riding with her mother and two sisters.  They were going to return to Staden, their hometown in the West Flanders province on Belgium, on Friday.  Now they and her husband are waiting for the US authorities to release her remains and no doubt thinking of when and how to tell her two sons--one three years old, the other three months--about her.

 (L to R) Hernan Ferrucci, Alejandro Pagnucco, Ariel Erlij, Hernan Mendoza and Diego Angelini

The other five victims, as I mentioned in the previous post, came from Argentina. They were celebrating the 30th anniversary of their graduation from a high school in Rosario, a town about 350 kilometers northwest of Buenos Aires.  

Hernan Ferrucci, Alejandro Pagnucco, Ariel Erlij, Hernan Mendoza and Diego Angelini were childhood friends.  Their lives since graduation had taken them to far-flung corners of the world but they met again, in a faraway city, as middle-aged men. I would not be surprised to find out that they talked about reuniting again, perhaps five, ten or twenty years from now--or for some occasion or another.

Except, I don't think any of them envisioned being joined in fate with three strangers who were much younger but whose lives, like theirs, were cut short--for reasons neither they, nor anyone besides the driver who mowed them down, can understand.

I Could Have Been...

It could have been me.

I could not get that phrase out of my mind as I rode to work this morning.

It could have been me.

Today dawned bright and clear for me, as it did for them--yesterday.  A beautiful mid-autumn day, sunny, a little chilly but not unpleasantly so, with strong breezes shaking leaves turned red and yellow from their branches and rippling reflections of the sky, glass, steel and concrete at the mouth of the Hudson.  

In other words, the sort of day people picture in their fantasies about bike-riding in New York.

It could have been me.

And so they went for a ride, for fun.  I was riding, too, in an entirely different part of town, from my job back to my apartment.   Though they weren't going to work, many others who followed their path, on bike or on foot, no doubt were.  I myself have ridden along that path, to work and for the same pleasures they were enjoying.

I could have been one of them.

Five came from Argentina--old friends celebrating the 30th anniversary of their graduation from their high school.  Another came from Belgium, with her mother and sister.  They survived because they weren't with her.

I could have been her.

So could any of the kids who were leaving Stuyvesant High School at that very moment.  No doubt some of them sauntered along, or pushed or shoved each other (as high school kids are wont to do) into or along the path.  They would hang out with other kids.  Or they would go to practices in sports they play, languages they are learning, plays in which they are performing or skills for tests they will take and essays they will write in the hopes of getting into the colleges they or their parents choose.  One assumes that one day, at least some of them will be part of some 30th anniversary celebration, wherever in the world they may be.



They could have been among them.

Still others walked dogs, pushed strollers and held hands as they strolled along the nearby piers.  Or they sluiced through crowds on skates and skateboards.  They were all mere blocks away from the 9/11 Memorial and even closer to--though, as fate would have it, a world apart from--the Argentinian and Belgian tourists on bicycles.

I could have been with them.

For a time in my life, I was riding daily along the stretch of the Manhattan Greenway known officially as the Hudson River Greenway-- or more commonly as the West Side Highway Bike Path-- along the stretch that separates Greenwich Village, SoHo and Tribeca from the river.  At that time, it was part of my route to work.  Before and since then, I have ridden there for pleasure--sometimes as part of a city jaunt, as the tourists did yesterday; other times en route to a ferry or bridge that would take me to another part of my ride.  More often than not, I rode alone, but sometimes I'd accompany whomever I happened to meet--along the way to my job or wherever else I happened to go.

They could have been with me.

Every time I pedaled along that path, I was home within a few hours.  Today I will be home about 40 minutes after I leave work and get on my bike.  They, I am sure, thought they were going home, too--today, tomorrow, next week or the week after.  

I could have gone with them.

But they are not going home.  They probably never even imagined that they wouldn't:  They could not have foreseen the way their rides, their vacations, their journeys, would end.

It could have ended that way--for me, for anybody.

The Argentinians, the Belgian, never suspected that under a clear autumn sky in New York, death would descend upon them.  They certainly never expected it to come in the form of a van jumping the barrier that kept all of the other West Street traffic away from them, or for said van to be driven by someone who knew nothing about them except that they were riding bicycles peacefully.  On their bikes, they never expected to meet the fate of the folks sipping drinks at Le Carillon or listening to music at the Bataclan.  Or the ones enjoying a fireworks display on Bastille Day or shopping in a Christmas marketplace.  Or simply out on a summer day.

No one expects it to end that way.

Of those five Argentinians and the Belgian who went for a bike ride--and two others who went for a walk--on the West Side Bike Path, all that remain are mangled bicycles and shards of clothing and other personal items.  They went for a stroll, they went for a ride, and each of them is gone, gone, gone.

It could have been me.


I can only be grateful that it wasn't.  My thoughts are with the victims.