There are a few misconceptions here. The photo was taken in England, hence the helmets. You only very rarely see kids wearing helmets on bikes here. The same goes for adults unless they're racing.
The bikes in the picture look more like the ones made by http://www.bakfiets.nl than the fietfabriek model (there are quite a lot of manufacturers in competition for this market). They handle well and are very stable to ride.
Kids do cycle and walk to school. It looks like this: http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=2n_znwWroGM
As for temperate... It was -6 C ( 21 F ) for several days last winter and no-one stopped riding, and it hit 35 C ( 95 F ) in the summer this year, and that just meant that the bikes were ridden to the beach. And hills ? Having ridden in hilly places and here, I can assure you that the mighty headwinds that you get in a flat country are much worse than hills. You don't get to go back down the other side of a headwind. Note also that levels of cycling in Switzerland are significantly higher than the US or UK. Switzerland is anything but flat.
And how much are bikes ridden here ? Well, in this city the average person makes 1.2 cycle journeys per day.
The bikes in the picture look more like the ones made by http://www.bakfiets.nl than the fietfabriek model (there are quite a lot of manufacturers in competition for this market). They handle well and are very stable to ride.
Kids do cycle and walk to school. It looks like this: http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=2n_znwWroGM
As for temperate... It was -6 C ( 21 F ) for several days last winter and no-one stopped riding, and it hit 35 C ( 95 F ) in the summer this year, and that just meant that the bikes were ridden to the beach. And hills ? Having ridden in hilly places and here, I can assure you that the mighty headwinds that you get in a flat country are much worse than hills. You don't get to go back down the other side of a headwind. Note also that levels of cycling in Switzerland are significantly higher than the US or UK. Switzerland is anything but flat.
And how much are bikes ridden here ? Well, in this city the average person makes 1.2 cycle journeys per day.