If you had the opportunity to visit a German city over the past decade and a half, I bet you’d have noticed it, too: The thickets of bicycles leaning, standing, interweaving in front of schools and places of business.

You’d have to look hard for a bright racing bike, or the Hummer-like overkill of the mountain bikes my boys like to ride. Most are “Holland bikes”… boring, black, unadorned tubular donkeys with wire baskets to carry a half gallon of milk, three yoghurts and some frou-frou vegetables from the supermarket to an immaculate 2-bedroom apartment with balkony overlooking the pedestrian zone and a purgatory of multi-colored garbage cans to sort wheat from chaff, paper from plastic, glass from household waste… and…