Treadly and Me

Bike + baby = fast transport

“Cycling with a baby on board is the fastest way for parents to get around the city, a Herald Sun experiment has found” via Melbourne Cyclist

“Sir Rod doesn’t want to face up to any inconvenient truths.”

Enhancements in car engine efficiency have had no real effect on fuel consumption, according to Dr Paul Mees, which kind of undermines Eddington’s arguments that reduction in greenhouse gases will come from technological advances in engine design.

Diversification

Flight Centre has gone into the bike importation business. Their previous diversification acquisitions have recorded healthy growth, so I guess they know what they’re doing—tuning in to the fact that the bike boom still has room to grow, perhaps?

[via Sydney Cyclist and e.CAN 161]

Bike tales

Where are all the bicycle novels?

As the most energy-efficient means of transport available to us, bringing a newly renewed promise of freedom with its low-cost, zero-emissions economy, the bicycle is surely ripe for some literary reinvigoration too. But where to look?

[via BV Forums]

Skills training

CycloSportif Victoria is running a CycleSkill Program, starting on 1 June:

The aim of the four week SkillCycle Program is to teach cyclists a range of cycling skills ranging from basic safety through to correct riding techniques. The course is hands-on with a riding coach, designed to teach good cycling habits, enhancing knowledge, skills and ability.

Meanwhile, across the ditch Land Transport NZ has developed A guide for the set-up and delivery of cyclist training in New Zealand. [via e.CAN 161]

Car registration pays for [a bit of] the roads

I love it when Surly Dave gets mad—it makes him that much more eloquent.

Ride of Silence

The Melbourne Ride of Silence is starting at Fed Square on 24 May. Ride of Silence events are being held in several locations across Australia.

bikeblog.au

Its not the Destanation its the Journey

Marx Garage

[Image: Bici a Lucca by Perrimoon at Flickr]

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Although there is plenty I could say, I have very little to add to what I’ve already said on the topic of the hit-and-run maniac in Sydney.

1800-JASON

But I’d just like to add my few cents worth on the laughable explanation “Jason” offered on talkback radio last week:

1. If his engine misfired/stalled as he claims, he would have been in the middle lane, as he accelerated “to kick it back a gear”. When you have engine trouble, your first instinct is not to veer into another lane or to brake heavily—how much more dangerous is it for you if you become stranded across two lanes? No, when your engine fails you coast as far as you can and pull in safely.

2. He claims to have been stationary for “a good 20 seconds” before the first bike hit him. If that’s the case, there is absolutely no way that he had just overtaken the group as he described. Measure it for yourself: 20 seconds is a long time. The cyclists claim to have been travelling at 60 km/h, not unreasonable for an elite pack but let’s be conservative and say they were doing 40 km/h: in 20 seconds they would have travelled well in excess of 200 metres—that just does not fit with Jason’s claim that he was accelerating to get past the cyclists when his car stalled. Even if he had been several car lengths in front, the whole pack would have still be well past him in 20 seconds.

3. It might be possible to argue that being in genuine fear of your personal safety may be legitimate grounds for leaving the scene of a collision, but being distrustful or intimidated by the police is nonsense. Why didn’t he call the police? And for that matter, why didn’t he call an ambulance?

4. At no point does Jason express any concern or remorse over the injuries to the other road users, but we hear several times that there is no significant damage to his car. Such nice priorities aside, this lack of concern doesn’t reasonably fit with someone who has innocently and accidentally caused injury. I’d suggest that it does, however, fit with someone who has deliberately tried to maim other people and is doing a bad job of covering his tracks.

5. The statement that the driver in front was “more interested in what was going on around him than doing the speed limit” speaks volumes. Every driver should be more interested in what’s going on around them than doggedly doing the speed limit—if conditions dictate slowing down then so be it. If Jason was able to be concerned about travelling at or near the speed limit, how does that jell with claims made elsewhere (e.g. by NSW Roads Minister Roozendaal) that the pack was out riding in heavy peak hour traffic? Clearly they were not.

OK, that’s all pretty speculative but then I understand that civil actions are settled on the balance of probabilities not beyond a reasonable doubt. Better get a lawyer, Jason. And if your brief thought it was a good idea for you to go on radio, start looking for a good lawyer.

Blog commentary

Many of the responses to this crazy incident in the newspaper trollfests and from various talking heads have been unintentionally comic (and therefore rather tragic), but I’ll leave discussion of that topic to other bloggers who sum it up better than I could; among them (in no particular order):

• pedaller, and again, and again
• giant chimney
• cfsmtb
• Surly Dave
• Cycling the Yellow Brick Road
• Dave Moulton

Laugh

Oh yeah, and I fell off my chair laughing when I saw that Alan Odds had been quoted by The Age. Keep up the good work, that man.

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Due to respiratory complications, I’ve spent the last few weeks not riding. And I’ve not been able to supplement my days with much other exercise. I’m on the down escalator to detraining.

The boffins say that detraining is:

the partial or complete loss of training-induced anatomical, physiological and performance adaptations, as a consequence of training reduction or cessation.

Training cessation implies a temporary discontinuation or complete abandonment of a systematic programme of physical conditioning.

We’re talking discontinuation here, not reduced exercise or tapering. I hardly think of my daily ride as “training” and certainly not “a systematic programme”, but I guess that’s what it amounts to.

It’s interesting to note that they don’t talk about levels of “fitness”. As they say over at Peak Performance,

‘fitness’ is a difficult term to define because we often find ourselves asking ‘fit for what?’

This rings true for me: I’ve been unwell but I don’t feel “unfit”. But I have noted before that even a few days off the bike takes a bit of an edge off my usual capacity. So what can I expect now that it’s been several weeks without a ride?

There a whole stack of things that happen when you detrain, a few of which I actually understand. (more…)

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After his earlier request for nominations, Andy Bowers has found America’s stupidest bike lane in Maryland:

Unsurprisingly, he’s also discovered that the British do it so much better. (But I was hoping he’d catalogue a few more of the nominations in a similar way.)

And it’s worth pondering Bowers’ parting remark.

[via Cyclelicious]

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Thanks People’s Poet

As part of its sponsorship of Moving Galleries, Connex posts haiku on posters in trains, some of which are rather good—but I was rather taken by this extra offering, penned by “fare evader of no fixed address”.

Hmm, I’m taking photos of the inside of trains—I’ve really got to be back on the bike…

Brrrr!

Uncle Mark’s prescription for a better cold weather cycling experience:

If you look at the Bureau of Meteorology website, the historical data proves that significant rainfall is only experienced on average on 32 days (including weekends) in the year between the hours of 7am and 9am, and 4 to 7pm. So less than 10% of our potential commuter riding is done in rain.

So we should just stop our whining :)

Along with that reality check, there’s some really good advice here on gearing yourself up and maintaining your bike for the dark, wet and cold.

The world’s simplest cycling log

velog looks a lot like twitter, but also keeps basic cycling stats.
[via Where the bike takes me]

Cyclists live longer

According to the numbers crunched by Dave Moulton.

Eastlink Cyclovia, anyone?

Noting the pre-opening Eastlink user in the photo illustrating this article, Hielke asked over on Melbourne Cyclist about the possibility of a cyclovia occuring on Eastlink before it opens to motorised traffic. Sounds like it’s on the cards, date yet to be determined.

On the topic of the article itself, Hielke is sceptical about President Sarkozy’s motives:

Honestly, I think France just doesn’t have the money. These highways are $$$ suckers and EU rules mandate a budget deficit of at most 3%. I think France is already nudging that, but I may be wrong.

Still, you can’t fault the key argument: more roads mean more cars, so these new road projects just become more linear car parks. How much fun will people have being stuck in traffic underground in Sir Rod’s east-west link tunnel?

Tax free bikes for work…

…in the UK at Cyclescheme.

Hmm, methinks we’ve discussed something kinda similar here before.

Stick it to ‘em

I parked in a bike lane stickers. Heh!

Commuter challenge—is this still news?

Bike comes out ahead in morning commute challenge

In the U.S., 40% of all trips are two miles or less. In Portland, and other cities where its relatively comfortable to go by bike, more and more people are realizing that bikes aren’t only cheaper and healthier, they’re also faster.

[via RocBike]

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My way or the freeway

You know, cycling on the freeway doesn’t look too bad when it’s just a gridlocked linear carpark… [via Banned Bicycles]

Part of the problem

Speaking of congestion, recently car company executives were caught in a Beijing traffic jam. One word: “Pfffffthahahahaha!” [via Lockies]

How about that dude whose 5km commute has gone from 15 minutes to an hour? And he doesn’t seem to see himself as part of the problem? (Blimey, I’d have been on the bike when commute time was 15 minutes—I’d do it in half the time.)

But as Adrian rightly points out, it’s a bit harsh to bring a

hypocritical and privileged western mindset [to] judge who can have what and what’s right and wrong in this new economy.

That said, the car seems to be as much a status symbol in China as anywhere else.

Fumbling it

Recumbent rider gets a letter printed in the paper, but totally fumbles the opportunity. What a blockhead.

The road is a bike path

On the other hand, Amy Schramm of the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety in Queensland got herself an opinion piece in the Courier Mail on the right of cyclists to use the road, and she certainly didn’t fumble it:

However, whether two or 200 cyclists use our roads each day, it is important that drivers and cyclists alike consider the safety and needs of all legitimate road users rather than their perceived “right” to be on the road.

By the way, I think it’s interesting that the invitation to participate in the usual trollfest has been worded as “Do cyclists need more protection on the road?”

Mini-review: Nokia’s Sports Tracker

Tom was recently in touch, saying:

I have a Nokia N95 and it has an inbuild GPS. I just downloaded this free program from Nokia called Sports Tracker. It tracks your progress during your ride (live updates to a website if you like) and it can compare it against previous rides, gives you overviews of your lap times (if you are doing laps) and lets you take photos that will get linked to the location where you took them.

It just blew my mind.

DIY bike clothes

Sew Your Own Cycling Jerseys and Shorts

DIY Bike Computer

Simple Bike Computer

Looking back

Mentioned in RBR Newsletter last week was the ViewPoint rear view mirror, a tiny little thingy that sticks inside your sunglasses (you do always wear glasses when you ride, don’t you?)

It looks like a gimmick, but my guess is that in the right kind of glasses it’s actually quite useful. Jim Langley’s review is certainly full of praise.

Straight out of B.C.

The Magic Wheel was clearly inspired by the wheel-riding character in Johnny Hart’s B.C. comic strip. Is it a bike, is it a scooter, or is it (as Gizmag reckons) the Pennyfarthing of skateboards?

Getting into the Bike Biz

Advice for anyone thinking of buying a bike shop (hint: you probably won’t do much riding yourself…)

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There will be some fairly major detours on the Gardiners Creek Trail due to the widening of the tollway coming up in the next few months. Also a few changes:

Apparently they have decided not to replace the York Rd footbridge due to the cost. As a sweetener to the locals—they were the only ones notified—it has been suggested that some of the nearby paths could be upgraded. Here’s the planners map, their new sections of path are shown in blue. I have added the Gardiners Creek Trail in mauve for reference:

[Click for full size]

As you can see the new paths do nothing for the Gardiners Creek Trail except at Brixton Rise, the small road section by the council depot. The road will remain but just be narrowed. It was also suggested the paths may just use crushed granite for their surface. In summary there’s nothing sweet for cyclists in this deal. Once again Stonnington has done little for cyclists (more…)

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Tokyo-style

There are so many ways that this thing could go wrong, but I’m sure that the Japanese inventors have it all worked out. And with secure storage for 9400 bikes and a retrieval time of 23 seconds, you can’t really knock it. [Thanks Tom, and via spacing.ca and TreeHugger]

Melbourne-style

As the state of my health demands that I temporarily return to the loving embrace of the Dementors Connex, I am also temporarily exposed to the journalistic joys of the MX “newspaper”.

But for once I saw something of interest (to me, at least):

World-first bike park-and-shower pods will be in Bourke St within months, with Flinders St station to follow…The council-funded pods provide a shower and change room in buildings where there are no facilities for cyclists.

It looks like they have a bit of a scoop here—can’t find it on any online news source, and although Bicycle Victoria mentioned it a year ago, they didn’t name specific locations, tipped by MX to include the NAB building, Fed Square, City Square, and Docklands Stadium.

New York-style

A competition has been opened to design the new bike racks for New York City, intended to

develop functional, well-designed sidewalk racks and to generate new concepts for bicycle parking inside commercial and residential buildings.

‘Twill be interesting to see what comes of that.

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Yes, the book has been thrown at this bloody idiot, and quite right too:

Victoria’s fastest recorded speeding driver has been jailed for at least three months after clocking 255 km/h in his high performance car as he led police on an interstate pursuit.

Twenty-year-old P-plater Justin Pickering was first spotted by police on August 2 last year in his new Subaru Impreza WRX STI sedan in Gundagai in NSW, but slipped away at 200 km/h when officers tried to stop him in nearby Holbrook.

At this point, one wonders what the hell a P-plater is doing in a car capable of travelling at that speed.

Over the next 350 kilometres, he was clocked at 185km/h outside Albury and, after crossing the border, reached Victorian police’s fastest illegal recorded speed of 255 km/h on the Hume Highway at Seymour.

That’s 70 metres per second (more…)

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I’ve had ‘a bit of a cough’ for over a week now. Actually, it’s a real rip-roaring, window-rattling hacking cough that would do a ten-pack-a-day smoker proud. It’s more of an annoyance (mostly to my fellow cave-dwellers) than an ailment, with the hoarse voice being a pretty cool side-effect and the associated sore throat mercifully brief. But the cough lingers. It hasn’t stopped me riding, in fact I find the cool moist air (especially in the evenings) tends to soothe the throat and clear the chest (although I do have a good ol’ splutter when I get home). All-in-all, it hasn’t really put me to much inconvenience, and I’m certainly not going to give up the bike to go by train on account of it.

I can’t seem to find out why, but air quality in Melbourne has been a bit low in the last few days. Rumour has it that it’s a big burn-off. Well, something big must be burning somewhere (or a lot of somethings small) because the air is fairly smoky/hazy (although lacking the “apparent atmospheric aroma” that London has recently been enjoying). Normally this wouldn’t put me to much inconvenience either, and despite the unpleasantness/unhealthiness of the smog I wouldn’t consider it necessary to do without my bike ride because of it.

However this morning the combination of impaired breathing, poor air quality, and (not particularly vigorous) exercise triggered an episode of ‘respiratory distress’, leaving me wheezing and coughing up a lung by the side of the Yarra Trail. While I wasn’t overly alarmed—I knew that the short-term solution was simply to rest and catch my breath—I was quite surprised by how quickly it happened. The progress from “Hmm, am I getting a bit wheezy?” to “Sh•t I can’t breathe!” was rapid, lasting maybe half a minute or so.

It was quite embarrassing to pull-up and gasp for breath as the people I’d just overtaken glided by. Interestingly, no other cyclists seemed to think it necessary to inquire after my health, despite my being sprawled out extravagantly. The only person who showed any concern was a pedestrian, who kindly asked if I was OK—I assured her I wasn’t having a heart attack and that I’d soon be fine.

When I say that we have poor air quality, I guess it’s a relative thing. Compared to [picking a city at random] Beijing, I’m sure Melbourne at it’s smokiest comes up relatively clean. And speaking of Beijing, woowoowoo mentioned to me that Australian athletes are being tested for asthma in advance of the Olympic Games, with some previously undiagnosed cases emerging. In my own small way, I think I’ve got a new insight into what the Smoggy Games may have in store for its participants—and I must say I’m not keen to experience it again.

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I must admit that I used to look down (just a tiny, tiny, little bit) on people who chose to ride power-assisted bikes. And that’s not surprising when you find yourself caught behind a noisy and smoky two-stroke engine on an otherwise quiet bike trail—the chap who rattles along Gardiners Creek and Yarra trails of a morning springs to mind here.

But happily my disdain is firmly in the past, at least when it comes to electric motors, for I’ve seen what a difference something like this can make in a person. Yes, I can feel an anecdote coming on, so make yourself comfortable (more…)

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Bike accessories give insights

Studio Forbes uses differences in headlights, seats and other bike accessories to gain “insights about local design, history, technology, [and] use of materials”. Recommended reading.

The right answer

Yehuda Moon explains how to shave some weight off your frame.

Abbotsford is biggering

I dropped in at Abbotsford Cycles recently and found that they’re getting bigger. They’ve taken over the shop next door (previously a graffitti supplies store) and are busily expanding into the extra space. Hopefully this means they’ll be able to hold and display more stock. I like the friendly clutter of their shop, but Peter recently sheepishly admitted to me that not even he knows where everything is in the shop. So the extra space has got to be a good thing.

Hot-or-not?

Rate My Bicycle looks an awful lot like the Hot-or-Not of bike porn. And if you want to get hands-on about it, try the Your Bike is Hot spoke cards.

Cycling is better than jogging

Well, we already knew this:

It seems to me that cycling is the best bet for anyone trying to burn calories and loose [sic] weight. There is far less stress on knee and hip joints, and the harder you push yourself the greater the reward in calories burned.

But I don’t really care about that. For someone whose attention span is as short as mine, it’s important that the scenery changes fairly quickly—so cycling wins.

DIY bike videos

How to make your own bike videos. Hmm, those cameras look both precarious and preposterous, but if it works who am I to question it?

DIY bike stand

PVC pipe is handy stuff.

DIY everything

Fettling—the online resource for people who like tinkering with bicycles (and who doesn’t?)

To bike lane or not bike lane

Bill Chidley of movingtargetzine.com offers the latest comment in the never-ending discussion about the wisdom or otherwise of bike lanes.

Compare ‘bent and upright

Seems like a pretty fair comparison table of upright vs recumbent bikes.

Not waving, riding

cfsmtb says, Smile you miserable bastards. Is cycling really that serious?

Specialized gets a wrist-slap from Jakob

I find it a little hard to reconcile the slightly podgy web usability “guru” Jakob Nielsen with hardcore off-road cycling, nevertheless in his recent Alertbox he’s given Specialized a big thumbs down for the Suspension Sciences section of its web site. (He’s right—usability-wise, it sucks.)

Personally I’m puzzled as to why you’d use a museum metaphor (complete with glass cases = dusty old relics) to present your cutting-edge technology…

Stop hitting me!

“Dear drivers…” [via It’s about the bike]

[Photo credit: Love the Bicycle Anarchy by Peter Chen on Flickr. ]

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Who needs bike registration?

Queensland cops booked 9000 cyclists last year for traffic infringements:

Almost 59,000 Queensland cyclists have been fined for breaking road rules since 2003, but a Queensland Transport spokesman said a licensing system would be too costly and would not stop injuries or rule-breaking. “This would impose very significant additional costs on the community and government, and the benefits would be negligible,” he said.

Bikes will solve congestion?

Cyclists seek better routes: more bikes means fewer cars, fewer cars means less congestion.

The argument is well supported by the fact that a pathetically thin strip of bike lane on Princes Bridge outperformed the general traffic lanes on Super Tuesday. [via Lockies]

Dangerous vehicle at 15km/h. How?

How can a car become dangerous when its motor is removed? Brakes and steering worked fine, by they still got a ticket for operating an “unsafe vehicle”. I didn’t think their video was particularly interesting (although it is funny when a bunch of bike-mounted cops ride past during the proceedings), but the legal and logical point is a good one:

“The problem for the court will be to argue that the Shared Propulsion Car can be dangerous while we all know the danger remains in the use of petrol cars.”

 

[Thanks Peter]

Ride a f•cking bike, punk.

Helter Smelter [via Sydney Body Art Ride]

Cuff it

Obviously I’m not a regular reader of boingboing because they mentioned these “bicycle handcuffs” a month ago. Anyway, it looks OK but I wouldn’t use it as my only bike lock (then again, I wouldn’t use any bike lock on is own).

Buying a used bike?

Michael Bluejay offers advice on how to buy a used bike “for basic commuting or transportation”.

DIY

Build your own bike trailer or sidecar—kids just don’t have good, honest, dangerous fun like this anymore.

More advice for Connex and V/Line

Integration of Bicycles and Transit. It is being done—shocking, but true.

Biofuel: beans, cheese and sour cream

50 miles per buritto

Bike-friendly

The Age (among other Fairfax papers) has nominated Europe’s most bike-friendly towns: Groningen, Munster, Trondheim, Ferrara, and Odense.

blog.au

Time to check my feed reader again:

Well, why not?—random babblings and insane ramblings

Bottles and Chains—Velo Sans Frontieres

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