The Gym of Life
Not Just Bikes4 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2022-2026
1.3M views · 4 years ago · explainer · evergreen
Not Just Bikes argues that people in walkable, bikeable Dutch cities stay healthy because exercise is built into daily life, which he calls the gym of life. It contrasts this with car-dependent cities that require deliberate workouts.
HN recommends it whenever fitness, aging or cycling comes up, as the clearest statement that city design is the best public health investment.
5:21The Best Kind of Dutch Cycling Infrastructure
Not Just Bikes
355K views • 6 years ago
13:08Dutch Cities are Better for the Environment (and my sanity)
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5:12Traffic Calming is Everywhere in the Netherlands
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404K views • 6 years ago
25:05The Best-Designed Town in the Netherlands (and therefore, the world)
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1.2M views • 1 year ago
15:43Business Parks Suck (but they don't have to)
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1.6M views • 4 years ago
18:20Even Small Towns are Great Here (5 Years in the Netherlands)
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1.8M views • 3 years ago
15:48The Best Country in the World for Drivers
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2.2M views • 4 years ago
23:01Safe Cycling Showdown - Good vs. Bad City Design - Plus 1 Minus 2
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1.1M views • 5 years ago
7:19The Lively & Liveable Neighbourhoods that are Illegal in Most of North America
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2M views • 6 years ago
6:04Car-free Streets are Amazing (and we need more of them)
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484K views • 6 years ago
31:25Crossing the Street Shouldn't Be Deadly (but it is)
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1.9M views • 4 years ago
10:37Why Dutch Bikes are Better (and why you should want one)
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7.2M views • 5 years ago
13:11Utrecht: Planning for People & Bikes, Not for Cars
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13:00How to (Quickly) Build a Cycling City - Paris
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1.4M views • 4 years ago
17:03Why This Channel Exists (and why I hate Houston)
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7.2M views • 5 years ago
1:05:18What can Seattle learn from Dutch street design?
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328K views • 13 years ago
6:30How the Dutch got their cycle paths
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1.2M views • 15 years ago
4:01Who else benefits from the Dutch cycling infrastructure
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88K views • 13 years ago
3:45The Dutch Solution for Safer Sidewalks - Continuous Sidewalks
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452K views • 6 years ago
12:14Why We Won't Raise Our Kids in Suburbia
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5.2M views • 4 years ago
10 comments from Hacker News
Exercise is good, everyone knows. The problem is advising people to exercise doesn't work and doesn't scale. Gyms are for people who have plenty of intrinsic motivation and money and time. To improve physical activity at the population scale and over a lifetime, it literally has to be built into the design of the cities, so people get enough exercise while walking to work or grabbing groceries. link ▶ this video
Advising people to exercise doesn't work and doesn't scale. Gyms are for people who have plenty of intrinsic motivation and money and time. To improve physical activity at the population scale and over a lifetime, it literally has to be built into the design of the cities, so people get enough exercise while walking to work or grabbing groceries. ▶ this video link
Cars were/are inevitable. But they did massive damage to human fitness, which we still haven't recovered from. I intentionally don't own one, and at least some places in the world are starting to wake up and restrict them and build walkable cities. ▶ this video
Because walking is good for you and good for the environment. Additionally, if everyone walked/biked when possible the roads would be more pleasant for you to drive on. ▶ this video
> Daily exercise This can simply be walking a lot, especially if you're in a more urban area, where you don't have to drive everywhere (either figuratively or literally). See "The Gym of Life": * ▶ this video
If not sugar, then other causes should be taxed if the evidence supports that such taxes would have an impact. I'm not a policy expert myself. The best public investment to promote physical activity is designing cities to enable "the gym of life"! ▶ this video
Because you see no other way to grocery shop than what you're doing right now. ▶ this video In my case I didn't go by bike, I walked to the local grocery store 500m or so from home. You'd just pop in on your way home from work or from whatever you'd be doing in town. 5 minutes in a small grocery store, back home with a bag weighting max 10kg, usually 2-5. This is close to impossible in many places. Big business killed small living.
Live somewhere you can bike and/or walk to work and for your daily needs. Admittedly this can be weather-dependent, so it might not suit your requirement (though even living in Ireland I find rain only rarely causes an issue). I lost about 100 pounds this way. Moving to a new country would be one of the more extreme options but this video describes the idea of "The Gym of Life" well ▶ this video
Yes, I did consider that. That's exactly my point. He stated he hates (A) and likes (B). I suggested that hating (A) is a poor POV. It would be better to like both (A) and (B) even if you prefer (B). Let's put it another way. If someone says the France sucks, Germany rules. And someone replies "The France doesn't suck, here's a few reasons why". Why do you feel the need to jump in and defend the POV that "France sucks"? I also listed spending time with people as a plus to the city. It's interesting that you left that out. I'd guess if the author had a job they loved with people they loved their attitude about everything else would change. The fact they're in a job they hate arguably taints everything else about their life. Commuting of course sucks if it's to a place you don't want to go in the first place. To me, commuting by public transport rocks because I got, on average, 50+ minutes of walking (25 each way) for free (added to the 20 minutes of standing on the train) ▶ this video
I can heartily recommend anyone who thinks they dislike cycling to watch Not Just Bikes on youtube[0]. Most of the problem is the city you live in, not the concept of cycling. [0] ▶ this video