In Bruges

I've just come back from a weekend in Bruges, it's a pretty amazingly beautiful town which has mostly preserved it's medieval heritage and thrives on tourism.  I stayed at a place just out of the old city walls and cycled in about 3km or so which was a piece of cake.  Cycling is in the blood of Belgians, one of the first glimpses I had in Bruges was an elderly man watching cyclocross in his loungeroom.  All across the town there are plenty of people riding doing everyday errands, even in mild rain people just kept on going around doing their normal things.  Here are some pics:

Gazelle town bikes are a common sight

Derailleur bikes were reasonably common too

Your typical Bruges street with the cycle path in red 

Cool bike with a porteur rack

The bike racks had this fishmouth to hold your bike,
worked quite well as long as you had a seattube.  Mind you
most people just put their bikes in these racks with only
the wheel lock, theft obviously isn't a problem in Bruges.

Panniers seem to be the most popular luggage style

People typically have steel loops on their front wall
to lock their bikes to.

Cool french bike with a nice vintage chainguard

The bike lanes from the B&B I stayed at

Most streets are two way for bikes and mopeds

Some kind of registration?

One of the hire bikes, an English 3 speed
with Sturmey Archer gearing.  

Cool Belgian bicycle tax disc.  This would make for a cool accessory

The canal path provides a nice route towards the city centre

It almost felt like how I imagined the Netherlands to be, maybe because this was the Flemish part of Belgium but also because of the prevalence of city bikes and people doing day to day things on them, from old ladies to young boys.  I wish I had more time, there is a whole network of canals and paths outside of the main touristy area to cycle around.  That's all for now, thanks for reading.