I suppose I should say something about Ride to Work Day.
To someone who commutes by bike already Ride to Work Day doesn't really have much significance, but let's discuss it because RTWD is about getting people to switch to bike commuting, which I think is a good thing.
I must admit to mixed feelings about Ride to Work Day. On the one hand it's great to see more people trying bike commuting, but I can't help being a bit bemused that what I do every day should be made a "special event" once a year. Yet I do see the point of it, with Bicycle Victoria's follow-up surveys suggesting that we can expect about 25% of people who tried bike commuting today to stick with it—at least until March next year.
Numbers
By luck and good management I've managed to miss Ride to Work Day for the last few years, so the first thing I noticed today was the sheer number of riders out there. Yesterday Bicycle Victoria was expecting about nine thousand registered riders, with an estimated thirty thousand actually putting rubber to the road. They ended up with nearly ten thousand registered riders and an estimated 33,000 across Victoria (from Warrnambool to Castlemaine).
Without a doubt the weather certainly helped because conditions this morning were about as good as you can get in bloody spring—blue skies and mild temperatures with relatively light wind. OK, it's set to get to 30°C and windy this afternoon (so that could be a problem for people making the homeward journey) but for this morning it was a pleasant day for riding.
Mixed
My mixed feelings arise because I wonder about the wisdom of encouraging thousands of inexperienced commuters onto the roads and trails all on the one day. Of course it wouldn't be an "Event" if it wasn't done that way, and BV does a great job of getting word out into the media (although it appears that the News Ltd papers all but ignored it completely) and motorists who listen to the radio couldn't fail to have been forewarned about it.
I've no objection to sharing "my" bike trails (yes, they are mine-all mine!) but this sudden influx of new commuters made me…well, nervous. You see, regular commuters are pretty predictable: they keep to the left, tend to stay on line, and ride pretty fast. Inexperienced riders are not so reliable: they veer around a bit, hug the gutter (on the road) or the centre line (on the trails), and are generally slower. That isn't blaming people for their inexperience, just saying how things are.
But when you multiply all of that inexperience by thousands, the result is that riding on Ride to Work Day is more like a Sunday trundle than a quick thrash to work. (So it's small wonder that I saw very few of the "regulars" on my route today!)
If past trends hold, Victoria will be home to another 2000-odd regular bike commuters after today (even if all of them don't immediately bounce back tomorrow morning) and before long I'm sure they'll all be indistinguishable from folks who have been pedalling to work for ages.
Meanwhile, in Sydney
This morning I left the following comment for pedaller. It's interesting to see the sharp contrast in how Bicycle NSW promoted Ride To Work Day:
Newsflash for Bicycle NSW: these things don't get into the newspaper on their own.
Compare home pages at http://www.bicyclensw.org.au/ and http://www.bv.com.au/: not one mention of Ride to Work Day on the former, very prominent news item on the latter (with a link to a pretty comprehensive information page).
You can find mention of Ride to Work Day at Bicycle NSW (in the news section) but what happened to the information page at http://www.bicyclensw.org.au/ridetowork.htm? It's almost as if they don't want anyone to notice that it's on—
Future expansion?
Bicycle Victoria doesn't run the "Great Melbourne Bike Ride" any longer. I think the last one was in 2004, and I suspect this initiative was shelved because 14,000 riders in the streets of Melbourne was too big to manage and no fun to ride.
I wonder if a similar increase in numbers could see Ride to Work Day eventually become a victim of its own success? And if that ever happens, would we still need an event like this?
Comments
A fascinating take on Ride to Work Day. I hadn't thought through what would happen if commuting by bike ever became popular. My guess is that if you get to that point then the event loses its significance in that you no longer to promote cycling as a transport option.
As for masses of inexperienced riders…bike buses can be a great way to introduce and "train" people in the skills of commuting by bike. We had a few newbies on our bike bus this morning, sure it slows you down a bit, but it is also encouraging to see people express some interest in cycling. I just hope to see them on the next bike bus ride.
Yes, I saw several groups of what were effectively bike buses—probably workplace groups organised and led by experienced riders and regular commuters. In fact the sheer number of these groups gave me a bit of an insight into what it must be like to ride "against the flow" on the Yarra Trail on a normal commuting day—I don't think I've ever faced so much oncoming bike traffic, at least not during commuting hours.
Ride to work is a nice initiative to get people active and thinking about riding to work- good thing.
Saw a few Wally's yesterday going in on the Yarra trail. One old bugger on a mountain bike wearing full motocross style body armour for a start- pretty funny. The poor guy was probably frightened about all the media stories about cyclists being killed at the moment.
I saw that guy in the body armour too! And didn't he look a trifle warm?
Maybe he was trying to make a point about how safe cyclists are in traffic?
Yeah- I was sort of wondering whether it was a political statement- or if he was just really really scared!
Well that guy certainly wasn't the only one who was overdressed on RTWD. I hope first-timers who were giving it a try on Wednesday weren't put-off regular bike commuting just because their clothing was uncomfortable!
There was a lot of lycra when I was walking around Fed Square but just as many baggy shorts and stuff. My impression was that there were enough smiles and enough examples of reasonable stuff to wear to encourage people lots. There's been lots of good press and the cost of petrol will be a big motivator, I think.
Not that I'll be riding the 70 odd k from Melton to Melbourne Uni any time soon, although it might be time to throw the old treadly (no offence) on the train for a bit of a suss out.
By anyone's measure, a 70km commute would be something of an achievement! So your solution might be the multi-modal option: maybe train to somewhere like Sunshine or Footscray and ride from there? Of course, the western suburbs train lines are usually pretty crowded in the afternoon, so you'd have to be pretty confident that you and the treadly will be able to get back on again on the outward bound journey.
Parking your bike at Melbourne Uni is like leaving it at bike theft central, so it wouldn't hurt to take some precautions.
But yeah, do it!