ticket would have embedded within the cost, a secure place to leave their own bike, plus free use of a bike-share when they hit the big smoke. The Dutch have been leaders in the integration of bikes with trains. Instead of running longer trains, with whole carriages set aside only for bikes, they allow folding bikes on board their trains for no extra charge, and expect people with regular bikes will use different ones at either end of their journeys. I bought my own Bromton in Amsterdam, from the shop I presume is responsible for the half dozen Brommies you see on every train platform at Centraal Station. Most of the other passengers would have just left their bike at the cheap secure parking bay, or else chained an old one to rack, and would have other bikes of some kind waiting for them at their destination. The system is explained at 2mins30 in the video above, from the Dutch Cycling Embassy: Tom Hatton's vision for a secure bike parking facility here in our city, borrows the faceted glass look of Jean Nouvel's 100 11th Ave apartments in New York, that he has used to sex up an inverted "eco-cycle" bike parking system, as used in Japan. It seems fitting in countries where cycling is perceived as low class, that infrastructure built for it, be especially prestigious in style: The old spur line that takes passenger trains to the old city centre, has long been earmarked for removal. As someone