Germans Don’t Need Cars, and Here’s Why (Bikes!)

German’s don’t need cars, and here’s why. Yes, Germans are known for BMW, Mercedes, Audi, but in most cities in Germany people prefer bikes! Germans love to cycle and don’t do it just for fun – they use bicycles to do EVERYTHING, including carrying…wood. Berlin has bike highways, free bike repair stations throughout the city and the Germans use their bikes many times as you would a car in the USA.

#germany #berlin #bikes #cycling #expatlife #moveabroad

00:00 Intro
01:14 Berlin’s Infrastructure
02:11 “Bicycle Street”
03:05 Bike Repair Stations
05:02 My Expat Taxes
06:02 Biking in the USA
08:00 Safety in the USA
08:49 Your Bike Can Carry A LOT
09:52 Parking
10:35 Germans Love Cars, Don’t Need Them
11:40 Villages Too
12:50 Cycling Dangers
14:09 Bike Highway!
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Geoff and Alex – Two Americans living abroad in Berlin, Germany!

We both moved abroad separately to Germany over 10 years ago. After years of learning German, planting roots in our new home and navigating culture shock, we met through happenstance. Our videos highlight the differences between daily life in Germany and the USA, give advice to those who are hoping to make the move abroad and share plenty of funny stories and weird knowledge about being an expat. Along the way, we drink a new bottle of whiskey in each video because…why not?

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bikes or better [Music] we all know Germanyy’s known for its cars what if I told you in many cities most people prefer this here in Germany 40% of people ride their bike every week and unlike the United States where it’s just for kids or for exercise here in Berlin we ride our bikes every day to go pretty much everywhere it’s basically our car but unlike a car and even public transit it’s free berlin has over 600 km of bike lanes which is around 400 miles which also around a distance from LA all the way to San Francisco if you can believe that and to show you Berlin properly we’re going to take you all the way from the district of Prince Lawberg down to Kitsburg to show you a special place that only a real Berliner would know super special really cool in Berlin and a bunch of other cities here in Germany biking isn’t just you know an activity that you do for fun it’s actually part of your everyday life if it’s it’s a tool to get places hi hi Jeff yo there’s a beer gun right here um should we This is all right could be worse especially compared to the US Blit has really fantastic bicycle infrastructure bike lanes have multiple lanes where you know turn left turn right plus the lights red yellow green the whole shebang that shows up with the car you know yeah yeah it’s a much safer situation because the lights are timed specifically for you as a bicyclist to go when it is safest and as you can see back here is that most of the bike lanes are actually on the sidewalk which again is safe cuz you’re away from the cars these crazy people back here you’re off on the sidewalk but as a pedestrian if you don’t know the situation especially if you’re coming from the US when you’re not used to this at all you could end up veering onto a bike path and not even knowing it and you know you see red that’s probably a bike lane just watch out cuz you’re going to hear the bell a lot of bells coming out and you don’t want to be that tourist who hears that but I’ve had so many times tourists you know taking photos and they just veer in and I go by them and they’re like “What?” I’m like “Bike lane.” That hurts when you run into someone but the best one is the Farad Strasa the Farad Strasa baby the the bicycle street which are streets that are made only for bicycles and what’s cool is the only cars allowed on these streets are if you only live there or you know delivery trucks things like that but besides that there’s no uh through traffic absolutely it’s the reverse of the normal situation on a far on a cycle street the bicycle has the right of way the cars are only guests the cars have to go the speed of the bicycles the cars cannot whip around and pass the bicycles so you basically just have to wait and as a bicyclist you can have you can be with your you know your wife or your boyfriend on the right side by side hold hands together and no one can you know rush us out of the way and it’s beautiful and a great side effect is that the streets are way quieter there’s less pollution it’s actually like a beautiful and just more peaceful area to be around just look out for the big blue circle on the ground and you’re good to go good to go [Music] and ladies and gentlemen this is a far repur Stacion that it is also known as a bicycle repair station now the past year or two right they’ve added about 20 or so of these throughout Berlin this is a free place for you to pump up your bike you got a you got a screw loose you know actually here Alex like show them how to put this up pretty much take it you put it up here and then boom town you’re good to go dynamite yeah now you can work you got a little loose uh hex bolt whatever so let’s go ahead and open this bad boy up and show them what’s going on yeah take the stand for a moment now Alex is not the smartest he does not have a bike stand which could be beautiful in a situation like this i don’t but I am going to lean there’s a bike stand right here as you’ll see we got every tool on the planet we got a couple of wrenches we got some Allen keys probably imperial and metric i don’t know perfect for if you have a flat if you have something going on now you have a free station to check these out there’s one in Alexander Plats they’re now all over the city and they’re continually adding more and I think these are pretty freaking cool i think what’s really cool too is that it’s free so I put 50 cents in it’s basically a deposit right it’s the same system that they have for uh grocery store carts now I send you say your tire’s a little flat maybe we should uh demonstration a little flat yeah pump this bad boy out i don’t really need one of these because my bike pack always has a tool kit a first aid kit all that stuff and a little mini bike pump not to brag but just not all of us are like Jeff and don’t know anything about anything but for for those of you who are unprepared this is pretty cool it’s pretty cool a a good thing is a lot of bike stores do have a free pump outside just kind of hanging out there you can use so if if these aren’t around your in your neighborhood or your area it’s fine and now I’m pumped up please back call it a day look at him go baby [Music] i think the sentiment in the United States is that biking is like for kids and not really what adults do to get from place to place right it’s something kids do for fun or if you are an adult it’s you know you’re going to like work on your thighs it’s for exercise but it’s an exercise machine not really a mode of transportation or something you put your biking gear on you go off for 2 hours and you come back home yeah yeah and then you change and now you’re on the rest of the day right you know what I mean i I have family uh back in the US who are big into cycling you know they do 200 300k um they love going up like you know grades that basically are vertical they’re doing that on the weekends but they’re not using their bike to actually to go to work to go buy groceries because you know the infrastructure isn’t really there you know what I mean cuz you know as a kid I especially before you turn 16 I don’t know about you but me and my friends every day it was like “Dude let’s meet up.” We’d get on our bikes we called it towning it you know to go into the town oh yeah just do our circle you know just go for a drive turning 16 as every American knows is like the birthday and unfortunately in the US you get your bike like you don’t think about your bike ever again really you know what I mean it goes into your backyard it gets it’s covered in the cobwebs you know what I mean maybe give it to your to your niece or nephew in the future or something like that but it’s definitely not uh something you cherish another great thing there’s an awesome dog over there with a giant stick okay another great thing about having a bike actually is literally just like the cost and when you really think about it lack of it I guess lack of it when you have a car you health car insurance gas petrol whatever you want to call it every month you’re getting that oil change you know getting the air filters uh winter tires all that like I’ve I’ve been using the same bike for 12 years now it’s not the best of condition but it gets you point A to point B gets the job done and yeah in Berlin you could easily get a bike for 50 bucks but it’s most likely stolen so uh yeah I’m trying to get surprised if the owner comes looking for knock on your door asking for it back try to get your bikes you know a fairly reputable source if you can here people are used to being around bikes because usually even the people who do drive cars they are also cyclists unless you’re a taxi driver they hate bikers yeah so it’s something that they’re thinking about but in the US if you’re going straight almost anybody’s turn right they’re not thinking about looking in their mirror for a cycle for a bicycle coming down the road like they do here you know what I mean so like you’re more likely to get hurt it happens you know very rarely have a bike lane usually you’re just on the right side of the road right and there’s no there’s no line you know I mean you know by law you can ride where the cars do ride too share the road but people in the US and I see so many videos of this they just some for some reason hate cyclists you know like they’re back there they’re honking they don’t want to share the road with cyclist they kind of view them as like an annoyance annoyances i think just driving a car all the time naturally makes people a little more angry at things intense cuz you know road rage traffic all these things that like I don’t know when you’re in a car and you’re driving it’s stressful and a lot of car owners are like “Yeah it’s all well and good but you know can’t go to the hardware store you know with your bike you can’t go grocery shopping with your bike what are you going to do when you have kids?” All that kind of stuff now uh you absolutely can do all those things with the bike should we show you we’ll show you let’s show you you ready to go shopping i don’t really want super soft what’s just like average soft cuddle but hole i want to feel something young Guda gauda guda don’t know how you going to take all of this home well let me show you cuz you’re thinking there’s no way all of this can fit but that’s the beauty of the bike bag now the whole key is let the bike carry it for you don’t have something on your back get all sweaty what are you going to do with this see this bad boy there it is there it is and this right here look is only about half of what me and my wife normally buy when we do a weekly shop so I can carry a lot more i’ve carried actual 2x4s on this bike now if you’re worried about where you want to park your bike as you can see there are parking spots freaking everywhere around the city especially at a popular place like the Project Beer Garden you’ll definitely find a place to park your bike there’s actually a bike demo going on right now [Applause] [Music] oh and a really important thing of course is to lock your bike because I think one of the biggest crimes in Berlin is getting your bike stolen so investing in a really good lock is expensive but it’s worth it some you might be locking a 60-y old bike with a 100 lock and even with a good lock chances are it might get stolen anyways if you’re smart you can hide it behind something [Music] germany is of course a very very big car country where cars make a big part of the economy and they do love their cars you know Mercedes BMWs Audi’s all that stuff they love it uh but in a big city like Berlin people don’t really need a car and in Germany there are over 80 million bikes so basically there’s one bike for every German of of course you know some people have two or three and there are some people who are crazy enough don’t have a single one Germans especially German children to be very independent they don’t need their mom their dad to drive them to go meet old Timmy over on the other side of town you hop on your bike and they go you know what I mean they can ride like like an adult would so it’s really nice as you’re a child you have a lot more freedom and independence and also if you’re new to the city it’s a great way to learn the city you can take the Ubans and espons all you want also a great way to get around but we don’t want to trash the public transit of course not public about pat trash the public transit just a little bit but when you’re underground you can’t see the city around you so station to station which is kind of like me so it took me longer to learn a city cuz I didn’t ride my bike when I first got here right and now I ride more i kind of know where to go now and it’s kind of a cool feeling to understand your city more yeah this is probably great in Berlin and Hamorg and and Munich etc but cycling is also big in the villages we’ve actually found that most of the time the cycling paths in the villages are even nicest better quality than in the city they’re also not being ridden as much as the ones in a city so it’s really nice they look very fresh uh like last weekend for example I was in a small little uh called Kenstat it’s like a small city dolph not really a dolphin okay a little bit bigger than a dwarf yeah okay like a smaller city 20,000 people so to say there it was very hilly city i was like “Oh not great to bike.” What I saw everywhere was ebikes and I guess ebikes are a great way especially if you’re old they’re a great way to get around stay fit and even if you are younger you don’t want to take hills all the time and get to work and sweat yeah because you’re in the small villages and you do see 70 80 year olds people still cycling and when they physically can’t do it anymore they have an ebike you know what I mean and so when they run out of gas they literally give it some gas you know what I’m saying and of course if you do get tired you don’t want to ride your bike anymore there are special wagons on every Espan and Ubon where put your bike safely and you know have a seat what’s it going to cost you 250 jeff what would you like a little cafe or an apparel spritz so yeah we didn’t want to bother the cafe people so uh no coffee no spritz but anyways perfect time to talk about safety now we talk about all the positives of riding a bike in Berlin and in Germany but we should mention that it can be dangerous yeah of course i mean even as a pedestrian it could be dangerous you know because a lot of the bike lanes are on the sidewalk or on the street so just watch out don’t get hit by a bike that actually happened to me a few years ago uh a tourist who wasn’t watching just stepped right onto a bike path with his AirPods in and I hit him and it broke my arm and it still hurts to this day so be careful cuz you can change people’s lives if you’re not paying attention yeah totally and also like we said before you know they have the lights for the bike lanes the red yellow and green you’re not a pedestrian you are on a vehicle technically so don’t be a dick and one last thing I should mention which probably a lot of you have seen by looking at our heads is that we have not been wearing helmets now all I can say is I’m a pretty practical safety conscious kind of kind of guy but I would say not wearing helmets is probably one of the stupidest things I do can’t really give you much more than that it’s just it’s a stupid thing i do not recommend it wear a helmet wear a helmet just be smart wear a helmet we’re not smart don’t be idiots like us yeah we’re getting excited we’re at this very special place in about what 20 minutes we’re finally going to see it so where we are right now is underneath the U1 line right here in Berlin in Croitzburg which is a subway but above ground and as you can see behind us is a long path a 9 km stretch and this is eventually the plan to make a bike highway you can quickly get from one side of Ktsburg to another where there’s going to be place for people to chill and sit there’ll be lights up above there’s beike repair kits around the area cuz this is a very underutilized space you know this is an elevated subway line and it’s being used for nothing it’s technically a walking path but nobody uses it cuz you have big sidewalks on either side of the street and you’ll see as we’re filming right now there’s no one walking in front of us there’s nobody behind us it’s just here so why not make into like a super highway for bikes yeah so that’ll be super exciting the super planning stages but uh it’s pretty cool planning super planning super duper planning planning to shoot out of these things i was actually really cool so I hope you know eventually Berlin can kind of be more of an Amsterdam type the future of Berlin is looking pretty pretty cool we’ll see i think I hope all right so we are finally here at the place i’m super excited to show you yeah really pumped to see what it’s going to be and it should be I It’s gone pretty sure it’s closed whiskey yeah and everyone again thanks so much for watching really appreciate all of you if you want to learn what it’s like to pee in Berlin click right over there or watch one of our other videos and please subscribe it helps us out and everyone of course please stay safe stay healthy and stay thirsty that’s it [Music]