The cycles I've seen in Germany are pretty similar to the same style as the rest of the western world: typically flat bars or drop bars with somewhere between 3 and 15 gears. So a huge variety, everything from commuter to cruisers to speed to hybrids.
In the Netherlands, it's rare to find speed or even higher end street bikes parked in any of the massive bike stands. They're all mostly old-school cruisers (what some people might call scooners). They don't go very fast and it's not uncommon to see a 2nd person just sitting on the back cargo mount.
Also, I find it interesting Germans have the same word for drive and ride. That's one of those common language mistakes you'll hear Germans make when they say, "I drove the bus."
I had no idea the NL cycling culture was like that. The only cycling dutchman I know is a speed deamon -- but he lived in England then.
Also, yes the word fahren is a bit strange to my English-trained years. But if it lumps "drive" and "ride" together, it also make a distinction that isn't available in English: it is to travel on a vehicle (be it just a pair of roller skates), but not on your own power or on the back of an animal.
That might sound like a weird distinction to make, until you realise that fahren is the absolute favourite activity of the German race. That's why
they are so keen on trains and bikes and why they invented motor cars, jet engines, freeways and (I suspect) the parent-powered sleigh.
In the Netherlands, it's rare to find speed or even higher end street bikes parked in any of the massive bike stands. They're all mostly old-school cruisers (what some people might call scooners). They don't go very fast and it's not uncommon to see a 2nd person just sitting on the back cargo mount.
Also, I find it interesting Germans have the same word for drive and ride. That's one of those common language mistakes you'll hear Germans make when they say, "I drove the bus."