Bikes

I had a thought today and I think I actually followed it through to the conclusion.

If everyone rides bikes here so much why aren't their calves ridiculous?

So I used a little reasoning and add a pinch of personal experience with my bike I got here and came up with what I think is the answer: Gear ratios.

Gear ratios here are crazy low. So you're basically just spinning continuously. It makes sense that they use such low gearing for a lot of reasons. Most bikes are used to transport all sorts of stuff. There are all kinds of child seats, baskets, bags, etc and when you're carrying all that extra weight, you want a lower gearing so that you can actually pedal.

A corollary of this low gearing is less resistance while pedaling. This is what keeps you from developing Jan Ulrich legs. It's also better for your knees to pedal at higher RPMs and lower resistance.

I saw some fixed gears in a store this weekend and man were they expensive. The store also sold all the parts you would need for a conversion. All you would need to do is find a bike with horizontal drop outs and you'd be set. If I had been coming for a longer time, I most definitely would have brought at least one of my bikes with me. Probably just one, because I would probably want to keep it in my room and not leave it outside all the time.