The Bike Blog

Transport is something that Cambridge has got pretty right; cycles and punts. The city has one of the best universities in the world, and I think that this proves a direct correlation between intelligence and choosing to commute by bike.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Cambridge and Amsterdam, so moving to London was a bit of a shock. Cycling to work in London is a life threatening practice, unlike Cambridge and Amsterdam, where it’s so common and so relaxing.

I hope that Ken achieves in making London the bike capital of the world, and I hope he does it before I get run over by a bendy bus.

The Revopower is a petrol-engined hub that fits onto your existing bike wheel. It allows you to travel at up to 17Mph, and will cost $499 -$599.

The petrol tank slips into your water-bottle holder, and a throttle is fitted to the handlebar. RevoPower is expected to launch sometime in 2007.

Personally I think that if you don’t like pedalling, then you should get a moped.

We posted recently about 25 year old Jane Gauntlett, who was knocked from her bike and mugged.

The BBC is reporting that one 17 year old was arrested yesterday, and that four other people are being questioned. Jane still remains in a critical condition.

Bikely is a website that lets you create and share cycling routes. I’ve created my morning route to work here.

It can be quite tricky traversing a car dominated city by bicycle, particularly when you need to travel an unknown route to a new destination.

But the chances are, someone has cycled that way before you. Bikely makes it easy for him or her to show you the best way.

A 25 year old female cyclist was attacked by two men on mopeds in Paddington Green, West London.

The attackers stole her bag and knocked her to the ground where she hit her head. The woman is yet to be identified by the police, but they are appealing for any witnesses to come forward.

Anyone with information can call Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.

It seems that the idea that the wheels act like gyroscopes isn’t true, and to prove it a Cambridge University professor rode about on a three wheeled bike. Why didn’t I become a physics professor?

Here I am riding an ordinary bike, but with an extra wheel attached to the front axle. The tyre has been removed to give a little clearance from the road and some copper cable (earthing cable with green insulation) wound around the rim in its place to replace the moment of inertia due to the tyre.

The science can be found here, and some more chatter here.

Velorution has an article that claims the Paris free bike scheme has been the target of underhand tactics.

Free bike schemes leave bikes in cities for public use. You’re supposed to take one, ride where you need to go, and leave it for another person to use.

Although, that’s not the way that everyone uses the bikes of course.

I can’t read the original source, but if anyone has better French than me, feel free to elaborate in a comment.

Decaux was the low bidder, with ClearChannel offering a more extensive service and greater revenue to the municipality. But JC, the semi-retired patron unleashed his usual weapons: a legal challenge on a technicality forced a new bidding sequence, then Decaux overbid to force ClearChannel to rule themselves out. The winning bid is unlikely to be honoured: 20 600 bicycles at 1 451 parking spaces is way too ambitious.

These schemes are a fantastic idea, but have been beset with problems, as this Guardian article explains.

Bikes from the Amsterdam scheme have been found as far away as Moscow and the US.

The problem seems to be that there aren’t enough of the bikes released. If Halfords release 10 bikes, then they will dissapear. If there were 10,000 bikes then it would be more likely that some would remain in circulation. I think that a certain ammount of thievery has to be assumed, unfortunately.

I’m not sure you could even catch someone for stealing one, as there is no ‘maximum borrow length’. Even if there was, then the person could claim to have picked the bike up recently.

One approach is to lock the bikes with a code that only registered users have, and to only leave the bikes in affluent areas. OYBike is such scheme in London, that takes the additional precaution of not having pick-up locations in South or East London, where paupers like me live.

Under ye olde government, people had to send petitions to the Prime Minister by post, or deliver them to Number 10 in person. But under New Labour you can now create and sign petitions on a fancy new website, from the comfort of your own home.

There are hundreds on the site already, and quite a few are about cycling issues. If you have any opinions on the following then head over and cast your vote.

Should London create a world leading cycle-lane infrastructure?

Should cyclists without lights be prosecuted?

Should the Government stop persecuting cyclists?

Should people be made to take a cycling proficiency test?

Should cyclists have to pay insurance?

I’ve had a hectic fortnight with a lot of traveling back and forth, so I hired a little car.

It was supposed to save me time and money and generally make my life easier. What it actually did was drive me mental and cost me a fortune.

This is why four wheels is two too many…

Firstly there is traffic. It seems that since the last time I drove, the number of cars on the road has doubled. Drivers have got considerably more idiotic as well, and it’s now apparently OK to pull out in front of people on the motorway, slow down and wobble from side to side.

I have spent longer in traffic jams than I would have on trains, and you can’t read or type whilst driving. I did manage to move some furniture, but what it cost me in petrol and parking tickets I could have just bought replacement stuff in London.

There’s also the issue of the constant surveillance that car drivers now have to endure. Speed cameras, traffic-light cameras, parking cameras and the Orwellian overlords of all this technology; over-zealous traffic wardens, blind to logic and reason.

I was given a £100 fine for parking with my wheel on a kerb. It wasn’t causing an obstruction, but it did help to fill the warden’s quota for the day.

There’s also the green aspect - my 900 miles contributed more carbon emissions than a whole lot of train journeys would have.

Possibly the only benefit was that I got a glimpse of city traffic from the other side of a car window.

Thank you to the man on a moped in Brixton (GP53 OLC), who smacked into my wing mirror, then stopped in front of me at a red light and desperately stared ahead, pretending that he hadn’t noticed.

The cycles and motorbikes that crowded me at every junction, swerving in front of me and narrowly missing my deposit-pending-paintwork showed me what a pain I must be when riding.

I’m not sympathetic though, anyone who chooses to drive rather than ride must be a masochist.

A news broadcast about recent biker fatalities shocked people who knew the victim being described - because he wasn’t dead.

There’s a plaque on Shore Road where bicyclist Ivan Morales was struck by an SUV nearly a year ago. After being hurled more than 30 feet in the air, his helmet split in half. So did his skull. The NYPD and news reports said he was dead.

It seems that he was in such a bad state, that everyone had assumed he had died. Amazingly though, he survived and went back to his life, unaware of the plaque.

This raises some important issues about whether or not bike injury statistics are being correctly reported. Surely there must be crashes that aren’t recorded?