Viernheim her cyclists

Viernheim is basically flat and there is little ice and snow in winter, so it is a good place to cycle. The old town is criss-crossed by narrow streets and there is almost only on street parking. The newer suburbs have a blanket 30 kph speed limit. These features coupled with a number of cycleways means it is safe to cycle here. Both young and old cycle extensively. A bicycle is the quickest way of getting about within the town. Old people carry on cycling well past the age when in other parts of the world they would have hung up their bicycle clips. This does mean, however that there are many elderly cyclists about.
The standard Viernheim bike for the elderly is a ladies’ sit-up-and-beg model. Three speed gears are fairly common, though a goodly minority, normally the older bikes, have one speed only. Ninety-nine percent have a square wire basket on the rear carrier and a goodly number have a clip to carry a crutch or a walking stick. The bike owners have difficulty walking, but they have no trouble riding a bike. The wire basket is often used to carry a watering can. Grave gardening is a major big time sport in Viernheim and it is felt necessary to water every day in summer. (The soil is 99% river sand, so I am afraid that the majority of the water just runs straight through and ends up in the groundwater a couples of metre or so below the surface.)
The bikes are much used for shopping when the wire basket is loaded with two full carrier bags or with 12 litres of mineral water and two more carrier bags are hung on the handlebars. If it is raining then the sensible Viernheimer cycles with an umbrella up in the air and quite often with a dog on a lead attached to the other wrist. How one then controls a bike is a mystery to us. This could be the reason for the crutches, but also for a couple of idiosyncrasies that can often be seen on the streets of Viernheim, especially carried out by the female members of society. We call them the Viernheim Stop and the Viernheim Turn. The Viernheim Stop: The cyclists approach a problem zone and pedal ever slowly until they jump off the pedals and land with both feet on the floor straddling the bike. The Viernheim Turn: The cyclists perform a Viernheim Stop and then without looking round push their bikes left across the line of the oncoming traffic. Once in the position across the road they mount their bicycle again and cycle on. Somehow it would appear that elderly Viernheimers have only learned to cycle in a straight line.
Shortly after my wife arrived in Viernheim she was crossing the town centre pedestrian zone on foot when somebody behind her called out “Hello!”. As she knew very few people in Viernheim at the time, she assumed that the person behind her was calling to somebody else and carried on walking. She was amazed when she was almost run over by a lady cyclist. She remonstrated with the lady and asked why she had not used her bell. “…because it’s too aggressive”, came the reply. So Viernheim cyclists are prepared to run the risk of running someone over, rather than being thought aggressive.