Author Archives: jm

Urban Mobility Courses

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Have you imagined a platform full of free courses on mobility to have the opportunity to become an expert? It exists on Urban Mobility Courses (UMC) by EIT Urban Mobility and the European Union.

At the time of writing this post, it contained 36 online courses, from basic to intermediate level and two or more hours of duration. The access to the courses and materials is free. They use videos and articles in refeence media and if you want to obtain the certificate there is the need of paying less than 10 euros. This way you can show them off and use in your resumé.

Regarding urban cycling, there are six courses made by experts such as Georg Liu and Lior Steinberg.

The eight fields in which to specialize are:

  • A stronger, accessible, high-quality public transport system

  • Enhanced options for active mobility like walking and cycling

  • Better management of mobility flows through digital solutions

  • Multimodal stations and hubs that connect all modes of transport

  • Streamlined urban logistics, last-mile delivery, and consolidation centers

  • Zero-emission vehicles and high availability of recharging points

  • Efficient on-demand and shared mobility services

  • Effective local policies and measures discouraging individual car use

Bicycle song by Red Hot Chili Peppers

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Red Hot Chili Peppers is one of the most important, international rock band in Los Angeles. I am sure you have listen to many songs from it, but perhaps Bicycle song is new to you. It was included as a bonus track in the By the Way disc re-edition in 2006. It talks about pedaling is similar to fly, to transcend, to mutate, when Anthony Kledis sings How could I forget to mention the bicycle is a good invention?. The song deals with love and the idea of referring to the bicycle spirit is something that fits like a glove.

Bicycle Song lyrics:

Here she comes in a suit and tie
Shepard’s bush and a leopard’s pie
She marching to the funky beat of
James Brown and his dancing feet
Going to set your fish on fire
Pistol whipping of desire
So please do not resist your fate
I’ll pick you up, yes it’s a date

How could I forget to mention the bicycle is a good invention?
Sitting there in a silent movie
Beside the only girl who really ever knew me
Happy days, but sad I’m facing
Heaven knows that I’m on the case
How could I forget to mention the bicycle?

Somebody told the world
The beauty of your verse
My girl, I heard it first
The beauty of your verse

A sticky finger and a wicked taste
Got a lot of love and a lyrical case
Be sure to write it in your book
I promise not to look
Want to smell your sunny face
Funny place but it’s never a waste
I’d hop this fence to make amends
I hope this movie never ends

How could I forget to mention the bicycle is a good invention?
Make it up, making you my business
A funny buttercup but I lend her forgiveness
Happy days, but sad I’m facing
Heaven knows that I’m on the case
How could I forget to mention the bicycle?

Somebody told the world
The beauty of your verse
My girl, I heard it first
The beauty of your verse
Somebody told the world
The beauty of your verse
My girl, I heard it first
The beauty of your verse

Zrinski square

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About 30,000 people live in Koprivnica, Croatia. Its public institutions define it as “a space of tradition, environmental, cultural and economic values”, close to the Drava river and the Kalnik mountain.

The Zrinski square is surrounded by coffee shops and stores. “A place defined by people fluxes and movement”, according to the architecture study which created it as is nowadays. So, it was the challenge: To reinvent this privileged space in order to promote interaction, humanity and life.€2 million euros made it possible. They took advantage of the square perimeter and created a collage of micro-localizations on which develop several, concrete activities. Two bike lines in X cross the square on the north. Based on them, the square is divided in twelve areas related to the closest building. The 15,000 squared meters square is colored by area and completed with urban furniture, including bike parking, and different surfaces. The objective of this project was to ban cars from it and time has demonstrated that it is possible and necessary. Today, there are not any cars there, but people and bikes.

Not surprisingly, Koprivnica is considered as the Croatian biking capital and cyclist are welcomed here. Indeed, there are metallic sculptures in the Zrinski square with bicycle shapes as homage to this essential way of transport.

Senior citizen bikers

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21% percent of Europeans are more than 65 and similar high figures present developed countries. It is a non-deniable fact that they represent an important part to such societies. Thus, it is necessary to analyze how we adapt to an ageing society. A lot of times proposals which foment “dependency” instead of “independence” implement actions to take. So, we need to change our viewpoint as it comes to sustainable mobility and particularly bicycles. Against the misconception of disabled people should buy a car to be independent, the reality shows that it promotes dependency on fuels, less physical activity compared with bikes and the need to adapt it to their disability.

Ageing or some disabling disease or accident can diminish our abilities and maintaining independence is fundamental for instance to go to the doctor or to movies. Indeed, Karel Dolekens (accessibility technician at the Breda council) affirms that there are no disabled people, the surroundings make disabled people. Building segregated bike lines, bike parking and promote their physical maintenance help making bicycles for everybody. Even in some cases people on crutches can use a cargobike, a tricycle or an e-bike. In The Netherlands, people over 65 use bicycles in the 30% of their daily movements.

The tourists impact

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As more and more tourists visit interesting cities and places, more impacts cause on them such as environmental impacts, water consumption increment which can cause dryness and water wells depletion, a boom in the price of houses as many touristic cities are suffering or fights against local inhabitants when drunks. Some reasons for such increment in tourism are social nets and the low cost flights. Indeed, there is the word touristification to describe the negatives consequences that cause an excessive number of tourists.

On the other hand, bicycles can be part of the solution. Take for example the EuroVelo 8 which goes through Turkey, France, Monaco, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Spain and Cyprus, and 23 world heritage cities. As the ciclotourism becomes more popular, pollution is reduced similarly as traffic problems, and strenghen links with local communities. Reaching this target is basic for a sustainable tourism and planning should be made thoroughly. Public administration should plan bike-friendly paths in order to connect cities and interesting places in advance, whereas ciclotourists should think previously where they will want to pedal on and which resources they will need in their trips.

Going a step further

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Urban biking intends to make a better world for everybody. It promotes a way of living differently from the one in Western countries in the XX century: More bikes means less polluting vehicles on streets, less noise, better human physical health, better human psychological health, better environment, more surface for people, you name it.

Social movements like feminism and LGTBI+ share an equal ultimate point: Make a better world for everybody. Thus, it is not rare to cooperate between movements with similar, universal targets. If as Susan B. Anthony said (“I think [bicycling] has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world”), and there are of course LGTBI+ bikers, we as urban cyclists should support and even encourage them. Summing up allies to growth is key to advance.

Danish pavilion (Shanghai)

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Though more than a decade has passed since the Shanghai World Expo, it is worthwhile remembering the Danish pavilion in relation to biking. The concept of hedonist sustainability was applied in this singular project to reach the conjunction of social, economic and environmental concepts.

The Danish pavilion consisted in a double ellipses in 3,000 squared meters. The inner one was dedicated to pedestrians and connected to many rooms in which exhibitions and conferences were done. The outer ellipsis was ridden by thousands because Bjarke Ingels, its designer, imagined that bikers must get the top of the pavilion, stop their bikes and walk through the inner ellipsis to access the activities within the building. And it worked.

Tour de Pharmacy

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Tour de Pharmacy is a made-of-television mockumentary (a fake documentary) sports film directed by Jake Szymanski and written by Murray Miller. Additional characters are Nathan Fielder, Dolph Lungdren, Joe Buck, Julia Ormond, Maya Rudolph, Jeff Goldblum and Kevin Bacon. This 2017 film has a lot of humor and is starring Andy Samberg, Orlando Bloom, Freddie Highmore, Daveed Digs and John Cena. It makes a critic about doping in cyclist in just 38 minutes and it is hard not to laugh when watching it. This film shows a made-up Tour de France back in 1982 in which only five bikers participate due to the fact that all the other competitors have been disqualified as a result of doping. Lance Armstrong and Marco Pantani are represented in Tour de Pharmacy.

Seriously, this mockumentary was born as a way to denounce doping in a sport which had created more headlines by it rather than the pedaling itself. Doping cases in the Tour started in 1924 when Henri and Francis Pelissier admitted the use of cocaine, chloroform and many more illegal substances to face physical efforts better. However, doping in the Tour de France has continued in cases such as Bjarne Riis, Jan Ulrich, Alberto Contador (who lost one tour) or Floyd Landis (who also lost one tour).

A good bicycle parking

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A good bicycle parking is one of the most important infrastructures to improve bike use. It is so upset looking for your bicycle and realizing that somebody has stolen it that bikers tend not to let it sleep on the street without proper padlocks. An improvement to traditional bicycle parking is a closed one as you can see in the picture bellow. In this case bikes are protected from thefts thanks to the strong, transparent, plastic cover which is accessed through a proper digit code on a console. This gadget is feed with the electricity that the solar panel provides. Other models allow users to access their bicycles by using a card with a chip. The fact of the plastic cover being transparent makes bike owners to check their bicycles without opening the bicycle parking, while bike thefts regret the existence of this infrastructure.

Bicycles and movies

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Movies are one form of culture which can show bicycles under a story. Similarly as I wrote about songs and bikes here, here you have a list about movies and such inspirational vehicles:

  • 6 day bike rider (1934, comedy)
  • Bicycle thieves (1948, drama)
  • Cinq tulipe rouges (Five red tulips, 1949, murder mystery)
  • Skid kids (1953, drama)
  • Onna keirin-o (1956)
  • For a yellow jersey (1965, short)
  • A Sunday in hell (1977, documentary)
  • Breaking away (1979, comedy-drama)
  • BMX bandits (1983, adventure)
  • American flyers (1985, drama)
  • Rad (1986)
  • Quicksilver (1986)
  • The cyclist (1987, drama)
  • Jo jeeta wohi sikandar (1992. drama)
  • Il grande Fausto (1995)
  • El amateur (1999)
  • Road to Paris (1991, documentary)
  • Cyclomania (2001)
  • Le Vélo de Gishlain Lambert (2001, comedy)
  • Nasu: Summer in Andalusia (2003, anime)
  • Triplets of Beleville (2003, animated)
  • Cycling chronicles: Landscape the boy saw (2004)
  • Hell on wheels (2005, documentary)
  • Overcoming (2005, documentary)
  • The flying scotsman (2006, drama)
  • Island Etude (2006, drama)
  • Klunkerz: A film about mountain bikes (2006)
  • Clorophilla (2006)
  • The cycling genius is coming (2008)
  • Bicycle dreams (2009, documentary)
  • The birth of big air (2010, documentary)
  • Ride the divide (2010, documentary)
  • The last kilometer (2012, documentary)
  • Premium rush (2012, action film)
  • Pantani: The accidental death of a cyclist (2013, documentary)
  • The Armstrong lie (2013, documentary)
  • La grande boucle (2013, comedy)
  • Bicycle (2014, documentary)
  • Slaying the badger (2014, documentary)
  • Yowamushi Pedal Re:RIDE (2014, animated)
  • To the fore (2015, drama)
  • Yowamushi Pedal Re:ROAD (2015, animated)
  • Yowamushi Pedal Re: The movie (2015, animated)
  • The program (2015, drama)
  • Le ride (2016, documentary)
  • Blood road (2017, documentary)
  • Tour de pharmacy (2017, comedy)
  • The climb (2019, comedy)
  • LANCE (2020, documentary)
  • Tour de France: Unchained (2022, documentary)