Berliners and Their Bikes: A Love Story (With Occasional Rage)
April 10, 2025 Atelier ManganelIt usually starts with a bell. Not the polite kind. The kind that says “move or perish.” That’s how I learned the unspoken rules of Berlin’s bike paths—one near-death experience at a time.
Riding a bike in Berlin isn’t just about getting from A to B. It’s a full-contact relationship. Equal parts freedom, flirtation, fury. There’s beauty in it: the long, smooth stretches along the Landwehrkanal at golden hour. The satisfaction of overtaking a car on Karl-Marx-Allee. The silent nod exchanged with another cyclist when a tourist accidentally steps onto the bike lane and is swiftly educated.
But let’s be honest: there’s also rage. The kind that brews when someone blocks the bike path with a delivery van. Or worse, walks their dog right in the middle of it like it's a park. In those moments, your bell becomes your voice, your brakes become your therapist, and your face becomes a passive-aggressive poem.
Still, we ride.
We ride through Kreuzberg protests and Prenzlauer Berg playgrounds. Past Spätis, markets, construction zones that reroute us into traffic with no explanation. Some of us wear helmets. Most of us don’t. All of us have had at least one moment where we thought, “I could’ve died just now.” And we still didn’t stop riding.
There are hierarchies, too. Fixed-gear riders glide past like Berlin’s unofficial cool police. Cargo bike parents look exhausted but smug. E-bike folks pretend they’re doing the work. And then there’s the old guy in sandals who somehow goes faster than everyone else.
And the bike lanes? They’re a lawless democracy. Lines on the street mean nothing unless you make them mean something with eye contact, hand gestures, or sheer nerve. That’s the thing about biking here—it’s a game of attention, and if you lose it, you lose a tooth.
But on a good day, when the weather’s right and the wind’s behind you, there’s no better feeling. Berlin opens up. The city breathes with you. Your pedals sync with the rhythm of the street, and for a few brief minutes, you’re not dodging potholes or yelling “Achtung!”—you’re just…moving. Fast, free, and a little bit smug.
Berliners and their bikes—it’s love. But the kind where you might ghost each other in winter and come crawling back every spring, slightly rusted but still ready.
