Author Archives: jm

Tall bike

A tall bike is a special type of bicycle which is part of the commonly known as monster bikes. In a few words, it consists in two bicycles one above the other. Just pick up one bike without seat, pedals and handlebar, so with only wheels and frame, and weld it on another bike without wheels. As a result we have a double bike as you can see in the photo bellow. Of course, the chain length must increase since the distance between sprockets and crankset has increased. And as you can imagine, this simple concept has evolved to more incredible monster bikes.

From the biker perspective, riding a tall bike changes the way you ride a normal bike. You need an extra push to climb the tall bike. Once you reach the seat, you have a better vision since the higher you ride, the less obstacles impede your sight. Moreover, your visibility goes up as your shape is higher even towering over vans. Furthermore, you can carry more bicycle bags. This last point has had important considerations in long routes such as the Quico one. Finally, people amazes when seeing one tall bike.

Traffic violence

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Every day hundred of thousands ride the bike. Some of them use bike lines and / or roads together with cars and motorcycles. This last fact makes possible to discover the real violence on the streets. Yes, you have read violence. And I am not talking about the undesirable, possibly common bike accidents. I am referring to a subtle, invisible force with capital letters. It is easiest to discover if you live in a city in which urbanism have been developed under bad, people-damaging, car-oriented premises, meaning with wide and straight avenues, long distances between zebra crossings, and few speed radars if any. Perhaps you have get used to it without realizing how harmful and noxious it is. Paying a little bit of attention of the car drivers stuck in traffic jam behavior helps to discover it. Moreover, if you were able to determine each and every speed car in those avenues, you will astonish as most of them do not fulfill the traffic regulations. Furthermore, cars do not often respect the security distance when they overtake a bicycle. The use of turn signals to indicate others what they want to make is not frequently use.

So, are public institutions calming the traffic? Yes and no. Yes because every day actions are taken in this direction around the world. But also no since urban traffic is still too violent to be considered as calmed.

The solution to traffic jams

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Every day millions of cars enter to cities creating traffic jams around the world. The negative effects of such habit encompass psychological problems like stress and drivers bad mood as well as pollution. Apart from the clear excess in the number of cars we suffer, another key point is the real source of that. The more distance between where one lives and where one works, buys or studies, the more traffic jams. The bad behavior of driving dozens of kilometers every day converts people in a kind of simple-minded persons. If they sum up all the money they waste in gas plus the personal cost of all the hours they spend stuck and the drugs they need to overcome the psychological problems it causes, they probably realize how to overcome them. What about living nearer to the work place? Or moving to a closer area? Or using public transport? Or riding a bike? Or sharing the car (as figures show the mean occupation by car is 1.2 people)? But not. Most of them prefer poisoning everybody, including themselves, instead of changing how and where they live. Reducing distances and using green ways of transport is both beneficial for their pockets and the environment.

Time Square

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The USA is possibly the most pro-car country since distances from A to B points are impressive and some of the more important car firms set up there. Moreover, car marketing is astonishing (similarly to every developed country in the world) and car industry has hundred of thousands of employees, hence this had some magnificent cities like Detroit in the past. Millions of cars are driven every day and thus it is huge when urban mobility is increased without taking into account car needs.

The case of Time Square (New York) is a good example. The pride it causes makes a lot of cities wanting something like it. In other words, giving more space to pedestrians and green vehicles such as bicycles is a worldwide tendency.

Just compare both images to see what happens when pedestrians can securely walk without the noise and pollution cars cause. It is like magic. Suddenly, people show up from all over and enjoy the area. If you consider the fact that Time Square is one of the top world areas with the highest stores per squared mile, you determine sales increased as a result of it. There are no two ways about it and figures confirm it. Pedestrians can walk and thus spend more time in the pedestrian area. Thus, they spend more time in going shopping, seeing stuff, comparing prices, putting on clothes, etcetera. Sellers welcome such a decision though the initial reticence.

Car-oriented vs multimodal street

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Streets development has followed a traditional, urban model in which car has been almost considered the only way of transport for the most part of the XX and the XXI centuries. Fortunately, this perspective is changing as time goes by. But what exactly is the car-oriented street?

A car-oriented street is one which puts on the top the car mobility. Cars are the kings on the streets and specifically those which are occupied by just one person. Space for pedestrians is sacrifice in order to give it to cars, both the parked and the driving ones. As a result, people who live or pass often through such streets suffer from noise, psychical problems and breath the pollution cars and motorbikes expel. Think on the negative impacts this urban model has on people who live in avenues with, let’s say, four, five or even more car lines.

In comparison to the above old-fashion model, a different, more humane perspective is emerging to give the street back to people. The recipe is easy and set in motion in a lot of cities whereas implemented in some others: take surface from cars to give it to people. It is a piece of cake if economical and political interests do not disturb. Quite on the contrary and due to climate change, more and more people have realized that we should change the transport model if we want to face it and avoid its negative effects. There are a variety of actions to reduce noise and pollution, and all go to reduce car (and other ways of pollutant transport) and bid on low- or even zero-impact ones. Riding a bike and walking fulfill this target.

Now look at this picture:

In the car oriented street (left-hand side), there are two parked-car lines plus three car lines plus two narrow sidewalks. The realistic estimation shows a total capacity of 12,300 people/h by summing every moving people. On the other hand, the multimodal street offers a different view. Based on the same surface, we have two width sidewalks plus a bidirectional bike line plus a bus line plus a car line. In this case figure shows that the total capacity is 30,100 people/h, more than double. In addition, trees and benches make the street friendlier. Thus, the selection of the best model is like falling off a log.

Bicycle-sharing system

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Intelligent mayors are introducing bicycle-sharing systems to improve the use of this ecological way of transport all around the world. Allowing citizens to use them at cheap cost increases the number of bikers on streets who adopt better habits in turn. As a result, cities and villages are benefiting from it as the air inhabitants breath is more convenient from a health perspective and the noise is reduced.

Although bike-share began in Europe in 1965, it was not until the 2000s that a viable format appeared thanks to information technology. Nowadays the public systems include technological advantages about which I will talk in the future. The bikes in the bike-share services varied as bicycles themselves do. There are normal and electrical bicycles, those which works with a card or a mobile app, with solid wheels or full of compressed air, etc. All these differences have impacts on the service. For example, the solid wheels minimize their maintenance since they do not poke, but it is easier to have an accident when raining.

One key element is the anchor system. If two pieces form the anchor, it is more complicated to put the bike on the station. On the other hand, if it only has one, metallic piece the action is facilitated. The bicycles weight is also another point to have in mind. Too heavier bikes discourage people to use them, whereas light ones are better specially if they move on a hilly city. Interconnection is also important mostly when close cities and villages have their own bike-sharing services. There is nothing more inconvenient that the obligation of changing the bike, and hence having for instance two bike cards, the moment you pass from one location to another.

To sum up, bike-sharing is a good way to improve the number of bikes, but before launching it, some issues should be taken into account.

Bungee cords

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When transporting goods in a bike, one can put them in a basket or in a bicycle bag. There is a third option which consists in tying them to the luggage carrier with one or two metal bungee cords. Bungee cords are composed of one or several strands forming a core covered in a woven cotton or polypropylene sheath.

They are ideal for such a purpose as they are elastic, thus allowing to use extra length and making more pressure at the same time. Indeed, they end in hooks at their extremes in order to ease their anchorage. It is quite recommendable not to anchor the moorings directly into the luggage carrier, rather it is better to give a spin to the cord extreme you want to anchor to the luggage carrier and then put the hooks into practice. This is because you do not want the bungee cord extreme to be released in the middle of a ride and this way the anchor is secured. If you are thinking in buying bungee cords, I recommend to invert money in good, high quality ones since they will last much more time.

Ciemmona

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The Critical Mass started in San Francisco (USA) in 1992 and since then it has disseminated for more than 300 cities around the world. It is impressive how this monthly event has spread up to the five continents (https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Masa_Crítica_por_país, in Spanish). Bikers meet and ride the city in a good mood demonstrating that a different way of transport is possible even in the most extreme circumstances. Kampala celebrated the first Critical Mass in Uganda at the beginning of this year. Good for them! The desire of pacifying traffic, claiming for space, infrastructures and respect for bicycles, giving visibility to bikes, protecting the environment or making relationships are some of the targets it follows. Hence it is opened to everybody who loves these principles. Furthermore, it has a political point in favor of the issues I have indicated and above all the use of bikes. Conflicts between bikers and cochistas took place specially at the beginnings. Thus, the more bikes on the roads, the more respect we have.

On the other hand, there are countries which celebrate a national, annual Critical Mass. Well, in reality the national adjective here means one big Critical Mass in a country, although riders from other countries are welcomed. I talked about the Criticona. Today I am going to expose what the Ciemmona is. Basically, it is similar to the Criticona since both events offer routes, workshops, meeting places, accommodation, etc., but in Italy. 1,500 bikers joined the last Ciemmona. The 2018 edition consisted in the Firenze (monthly) Critical Mass on the 18^th of May; workshops on the morning, the Ciemmona on the afternoon and a street party in the evening of the Saturday 19^th of May; and a beautiful route on the Sunday morning.

If you want more information, you can check the Ciemmona official blog (mainly in Italian).

Electric bicycle

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Continuing with bike adaptations to specific problems people have, suppose you live in a hilly city and you want to climb a street up. One can use a electric bicycle (or e-bike) to ease pedaling. This type of bike is even more important for those who have heart problems and/or senior citizens. But what exactly is a e-bike?

An electric bike is a bicycle with an integrated electric motor which can be used for propulsion purpose. Although there are a variety of e-bikes, all of them allow pedaling without using the electric motor. Its starting in the late of the 19^th century was rather discrete, but its popularity has been growing in recent years and is used in private and public bike sharing systems, i.e. in bike tourist tours.

E-bikes are classified as:

With pedal-assist: the electric motor is regulated by pedaling. Hence, the effort of the biker is increased in this electric bike with pedal-assist (or pedelec). This effect is counteracted in smooth streets in which one pay extra effort to save it in hill streets. This bikes have a sensor to detect the pedaling speed, the pedaling force or both.
With power-on-demand: the motor is activated by a throttle in the handlebar. Sometimes this e-bikes have more power than the ones with pedal-assist. In turn, this kind of system presents three possible uses:
- Riding with pedal power alone (only human effort)
- Riding by only the electric motor
- Combining both together at the same time

Tricycles can also have an electric motor.

Tricycle

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Since the bicycle ancestors were created, bikes have evolved to make people life easier and funnier. Its adaptation capacity to the a priori problems most people have faced for ages has converted it into an extremely adaptable machine. Today I will talk about the tricycle.

A tricycle is a bicycle with three wheels. It has evolved in parallel with bicycles. It seems two French inventors developed a three-wheels vehicle powered by pedals and named it a tricycle back in 1789.

The third wheel is usually put in parallel to the rear wheel, although it also appears next to the front wheel in some tricycles . Why was it made up? To overcome the mobility problem some disabled people have had. Thanks to the extra wheel, one does not need to walk perfectly or have an absent vertigo. This fact makes even broader the importance of bike as a vehicle for everybody, the democratization of bikes. Moreover, the increment in stability in comparison to bicycles is favored by children and senior citizens. Furthermore, a tricycle is useful to carry weighted goods. The third point allows to better distribute the weight so that heavier merchandise can be carried. In addition, if a basket is incorporated to the bike, its power is multiplied.

On the other hand, tricycles are divided between cycle rickshaws (for passenger transport) and freight tricycles (for goods issues). Riders should pay special attention when cornering to avoid tipping the tricycle over as its lateral stability is not as good as it can look like.