[JoeAltmaier]

So that's the difference. Anybody commuting in America is going as fast as practicable, and owns a road bike. Cruising is more like 32km/h(20mph). Since the average distance from home to work can be many miles, speed is paramount.

Also, any terrain in the US is 'such terrain'. There's little or no accommodation for bikes, and the roads (for cars) consider cracks of 1 inch or so as negligible. Also gratings by curbs (where bikes are expected to ride) often have slots of that size. There's a public-education effort to get gratings turned at right angles to traffic, but most traffic departments are disdainful of bikes.

[edejong]

Bit of a late reply. I find this difference so difficult to grasp. We use our bikes as a utility first and recreation second. Here the bicycles are generally sturdy, heavy, robust. They can take rain, wind, sand, dust for years with minimal maintenance. We don't go fast, but we arrive at our destination without gasping for a breath. Road bikes are seen as unpractical: the chains require weekly maintenance, sitting forward is more dangerous and gives you a bad overview of the road, they don't take rain well (rust) and they wear down relatively fast. Why use them for your commute? It doesn't make sense! It's like taking a sports-car to work every single day. It's fun the first day, but it gets boring, expensive and impractical rather quickly.

Examples: https://www.batavus.nl/stadsfietsen

[JoeAltmaier]

...because you're going 20 miles, and can't take 2 hours to get to work?