The ZuidWestHoek College in Ossendrecht has had a special bicycle shed built for fat bikes. But now that bicycles with fat tires are becoming increasingly popular, and more than half of the students ride them, even that brand new storage facility had to be expanded immediately.
The special fat bike shed has grown so much that it is almost as large as the shed for ‘normal’ bicycles. It is clear that the fat bike is on the rise in the region: almost 120 students now ride such a steel horse with oversized wheels.
Last year the need for a separate shed for trendy bicycles became clear. Director Carin Veringa then saw that more and more students were coming to school with a fat bike. “We first converted part of the normal bicycle shed into a fat bike shed,” she says SouthWest. But that soon turned out not to be enough.
‘Children cycled over’
That is why the school decided to expand the parking facility and install fences to prevent speeding two-wheelers in the schoolyard. “If you cycle over the normal terrain, children might have been knocked over,” the director explains.
The brand new parking facility is therefore not just there for the sake of it fat biking to serve the needs of young people, but also for the safety of other students. The noise made by the bicycles has also previously caused a nuisance. Now that the bicycles are in the new shed further away from the school, that problem has also been solved.
Fat bike ban
Although the popular bicycles are selling like hot cakes in the region around Ossendrecht, sentiment against the lightning-fast two-wheelers is also growing elsewhere in the province.
For example, the municipality of Eindhoven previously wanted to ban fat bikes from the cycle path. “The cycle path must be a safe place for all cyclists, not just for the largest and strongest,” said a letter to the House of Representatives, which was also signed by cities such as Amsterdam, The Hague and Utrecht.
They are also sick of fast bicycles in Waalwijk. This was stated in the municipality’s new coalition agreement, following the example of the ban in Enschedea fat bike ban is being considered. It is still unclear where this ban should apply and when it will be introduced.
‘Keep safe’
Yet Veringa sees no point in a complete ban. According to her, that only has the opposite effect. “You just have to go along with it. It is something that is the same here in the area and everywhere, but you have to see what you can do with it to keep it safe.”
High school student Mason is thrilled with the new storage for his fat bike. “I actually like it. Then it doesn’t stand there and you just have a separate row.”