It is almost impossible to buy a second hand child’s bike in Groningen these days, because they are all being bought by Chinese students, the Volkskrant reported this weekend.

Some 450 Chinese students and graduate students are in the city. ‘They come in big groups. I think we sold 70 bikes in the autumn,’ says bike shop owner Gerard Noorda.
Children’s bikes are popular with the Chinese because they ‘are often quite short and sometimes need to learn to cycle,’ Noorda says.
The fact that children’s bikes are often painted in all sorts of crazy colours is not a problem either.
Ning Ding of the local Chinese students’ association says members first have to get used to the hectic traffic. ‘Dutch people cycle much faster than us, so we advise newcomers not to try to compete with them,’ she says.
Furthermore, in China it is considered hip to cycle on a small bike.