Author Archives: jm

Bikebus

It is said that bikebuses started in Brussels, Belgium, in 1998. But what is a bikebus? It is a secure and organized way to go to school by bicycle. It travels the neighborhood and makes stops in previously determined spots in order to allow bikers to sum to the bikebus, similarly as buses do. At the start there are only a few bikers, but the more pedaling and stops, the more riders. Thus, a pack of cyclists arrives at school. Participants share experiences, learn existence, increase their social skills and improve road safety knowledge while pedaling. Additionally, they start the day with extra energy. As it comes to the city, it is more quiet, secure and clean. Regarding children, a bikebus contributes to make independent, healthy and caring adults.

In Spain, bikebuses started more than a decade ago, but the boom was in Vic in 2020 when the teacher and mother Helena Villardel plus the associations Canvis en Cadena and Osona amb Bici agreed to create one. It was replicated in Barcelona almost instantly where they recorded a 11 seconds video and uploaded to Twitter. It was shared around the world and soon TV channels showed it. As a result, eleven bikebuses ran on Barcelona with more than 700 people every Friday in 2022.

Today, you can find bikebuses in Vienna, London, Melbourne, Washington, San Francisco, Mexico, Vancouver, Brooklyn, Bombay, Portland, Glasgow, Philadelphia, Santiago de Chile and Galway to name a few. To create a bikebus is needed to have five or six families who support a new one, determine the route and start pedaling. At the beginning, it will be a small bikebus, but the more children see it, the bigger bikebus. Parents will join it when their children want it. This is very important if the route crosses avenues and your city is dominated by cars. Adults block perpendicular streets as in the Critical Mass and police may help to do this task.

As Francesco Tonucci wrote in his book The city of children: If there are children playing in streets, it means the city is healthy. If not, it is ill”

Importance of lights

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Bicycle lights are essential components when riding at night and under low-visibility conditions. They are compulsory in most cities. It sounds logical, but there are still bikers who do not use them nowadays. This is an unnecessary endangered situation in order to avoid crashes not only with cars, but also with pedestrians, pets and street furniture.

Some people say that there are two types of lights: To see, and others to see you. The first kind usually produces low light and other actors in street detects you when you are close. Moreover, it is difficult to identify bumps on the street. On the other hand, the second type of lights is able to illuminate the street and people spot you sometimes from distances above one hundred meters.

Public institutions carry on specific campaigns to promote the use of lights when riding a bike from time to time. Surprisingly, you can find street dispensers in which you can buy bicycle lights in Amsterdam. In another Netherlander city, the Hague, a parade with illuminated bikes is organized every year. Since you can imagine, it is a party at the beginning of November. Take into account that the dusk is at about 4 pm there. The organizers of De Haagse Fietslichtjesparade proposed it say hello to Winter and gathered 150 bikers from 4 to 88 years. The ride takes place on rich and poor neighborhoods and includes a special stop in order to drink hot chocolate to fight against cold.

Preparing a great trip

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When one decides to start a great bike trip, it is always a good idea to think in advanced about what objects to take. Here you have a proposed list:

A bicycle: Obviously a bike is needed, but consider incorporate a rear rack and a front rack to carry all the necessary. Do not discard additional racks. As it comes to the bicycle frame, it is a good idea to choose a steel bicycle frame.
Mobile phone: Even if one of the targets of practicing cycle tourism, a mobile phone is helpful in a critical situation. Turn it off in order to save battery and focus on your path.
Cash: It is possible that you can not find cash machines or use cards in your great trip. Having cash at hand, without having too much, can open some doors.
Water: Hydration is basic when pedaling long distances. Approximately determine your daily stages to calculate whether or not you will be able to replenish your bicycle jerrycans.
Gloves: They protect from cold and humidity. Even good gloves can protect you from a fall.
Rain jacket: Select the lightweight one which do not take up too much space so as to avoid downpours.
Saddlebags: If you are thinking in a great trip, it is recommended to carry a triple saddlebag on the back carrier: one on each side and the third on the back carrier. Additionally, some rider use a smaller, double saddlebag on the front carrier.
Helmet: It uses to be compulsory outside cities. Select a helmet with good ventilation and better if it incorporates lights.
Powerbank: If you carry gadgets, you need a powerbank. Remember charging it when you have the possibility.
Lights: Front and rear lights are compulsory in most traffic regulations. If they are charged through USB, you can use the powerbank.
GPS (if your mobile phone does not include it): To check what is your next path. Or you can also bring paper maps.
Sleeping bag: There are several types of sleeping bags in the market and choose the most appropriate one depending on the climate and temperatures of the planned dates.
Multitool: A multitool can save your day when you have a mechanical problem in your bike. A multitool with a chain cutter is always a good idea.
Tire levers: When you are riding and suffer from a wheel puncture, tire levers help you to strip the inner tube of the wheel. It is better carry plastic tire levers rather than metallic ones since you will save weight.
Patches: Essential objects to solve a wheel puncture.
Two new inner tubes: This way you solving a puncture will take you less time. Moreover, if you change your inner tubes because of punctures, do not forget to solve the problems.
Rainproof trousers: Pedaling when raining is an experience, but too much rain can cause you problems. With rainproof trousers you can avoid them. Another option is to look for a cover place and wait until rain stops.
Glasses: Even if you do not use it normally, pedaling with glasses is a good idea to protect your eyes from sun and avoid mosquitoes entering your eyes.
Bike pump: A small one. When you solve punctures or put a new inner tube, you need to blow up it with a bike pump.
A basic first-aid kit: Bandage, hydrogen peroxide, plaster, gauze and anti-inflammatories.
Underwear: Three as much. You can wash them when you stop.

And remember, the most weight in your saddle bags, the most effort you make in your great trip.

How not to make a bike line

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One of the strategies to improve the use of bicycles is to build bike infrastructures like buildings, bike lines, bike parks and so on. Bike lines should flow on roads and avoid sidewalks. It is better to put barriers between bike lines and car lines like bollards, bushes or cement or plastic objects. In some cases, only paint is used giving pictures such as the bellow photograph as a result. Interestingly as you can see, the bike line goes opposite way the car line which is also a one-way bike road. As a result, bicycles can ride the two sides. The problem that I see is that allowing cars to park so close to the bike line could provoke a clash between a distracted car driver and a biker (take into account that this picture was taken in Spain in which left-hand driving is official). Moreover, I feel there is little room in the street and some bad car drivers, like the one of the red car, take advantage of it by invading the car line. It would be better to transform the left parallel parking into a segregated bike line. This way the potential crashes would not take place.

Urban Freestyle

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Urban Freestyle is considered as a way of living. BMX, Street Trial, Dirt Bike or Fixie are examples of such a concept which goes beyond making tricks with a bike. It also comprehends specific garment, how you speak and living based on concrete music and images.

The Freestyle comes from BMX which popularized in the seventies. Then, riders competed in races on earth and some of them started doing some tricks after competitions end. Regarding Street Trial, it comes from trial when some riders used street furniture as a playground. As it comes to the Wheelie Boys, it was born in New York (USA) when riders improved wheelies to the next level.

Inside the BMX style, we have Flatland in which riders use light and small bikes to allow complete maneuvers around the bicycle. On the other hand, in Street BMX, street furniture is used as playground and no matter whether it is handrail or curb, all is accepted. In this case bikes are a heavier, so bikers use to be strong. Finally BMX Park is an Olympic discipline in which riders jump in spectacular, innovative ways on their bikes, made mainly from titanium and carbon.

Street Trial combines street furniture with height and was created by Danny Macaskill. So, Street Trial is the most multipurpose discipline in the Urban Freestyle. Light bikes with carbon bicycle frame are used.

Wheelie Boys is a New York discipline in which riders make wheelies in artistic ways. No matter which bicycle they use, all bikes are appropriate to practice this sport.

Annie Londonderry

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Annie Londonderry was the first woman to bicycle around the world. In reality, her name was Annie Cohen Kopchovsky, but the Londonderry surname came from her first sponsor The Londonderry Lithia Spring Water Company of Nashua, New Hampshire. The New York World declared her trip from 1894 to 1985 as “the most extraordinary journey ever undertaken by a woman”. And she did it as a mother of three children under the age of six. This fact turned every Victorian motion of female property of its ear and was controversial.

She came to the United States of America at the age of five with her parents and two older siblings from what is now Latvia and settled in Boston old West End.

She started her journey on June 25, 1894, when she stood before a crowd of about 500 friends, family, suffragists and curious onlookers at the Massachusetts State House. Going a step further, the trip was set not only to circle the Earth, but also earn $5,000 in route. If she reached these two targets, she would win a $10,000 prize. Imagine the incredible money sum in the 1890s. Thanks to her physical endurance and mental attitude, she rode the planned trip on a man’s bicycle attired in a man’s riding suit. She earned the $5,000 by selling photographs of herself, appearing as an attraction in stores and showing her body and bicycle to advertisers. You can see some of her photographs here. Her trip was so outstanding that the SPIN musical opened in Toronto, Canada, in March 2011 to critical acclaim. In August 2022 another musical inspired by Annie took place at London’s Charing Cross Theater also to critical acclaim.

As Susan B. Anthony claimed, “Bicycling has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world”.

Internet of things

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Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software, and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other communications networks, according to Wikipedia. Engineers and technologists have developed IoT over the last years and its future is promising. Bicycles could not fall behind.

Some common targets of IoT in bikes (smartbikes) consider security, satisfaction and user fidelity to transform mobility towards a more sustainable paradigm. E-bikes are equipped with geolocation, instant statistics of rides, remote alarms and anti_theft, messages advising that a mechanical check is needed and online maintenance of some bike parts. Hardware and software cooperate to offer new functionalities and experiences. But not all IoT in bikes is offered to the final user, some companies sell it to manufacturing firms that do not have such proper, specific engineers.

Where is this hardware installed? It depends on the manufacturer. In some cases it is located inside the handlebar whereas in some others in the bicycle frame or even in the rear rack.

On the other hand, more and more data is collected from these devices which allow companies to optimize marketing, among others, to offer bikers what they desire.

Yolanda Muñoz

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Yolanda Muñoz is one of the women who does not fear traveling alone. This bike-lover did an impressive trip mostly under the modality of bike + train. She started pedaling from Vitoria, Spain, and arrived to exotic countries thanks to its strength, courage and perseverance.

Her initial idea was to cross Europe and Asia and this primary teacher planned everything until the X day came: July the 16^th 2015. Unfortunately, she had an accident with a bee in Poland and she modified her plan. She took the Tran-Siberian railway from Moscow to Mongolia, and an additional train to reach Peking. From this point, she rode her bike to Tibet. Her great journey, about 19,000 km, made her to verify how neoliberalism creates inequalities around the world.

Yolanda is feminism and this fact made her to choose pedaling alone even though her family. She crossed France, Germany, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, China, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar, India, Nepal, India again, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Iran (it was a cold January), Turkey and Greece. Here, she helped refugees who were running away from the Syrian war.

She encountered good and bad days. In a hostel in Bangkok, she was talking with a man a he suddenly made a joke by calling her Indurain (by Miguel Indurain, a famous Spanish cyclist) and she immediately refused it by answering that she preferred Anna (by Annie Londonderry, the first woman to travel around the world). Sadly, only Yolanda knew about Annie.

Her passion for bikes started when she was 25 and used one to go to university and work in Vitoria. According to her words, she recommends planning and feeling like doing your great trip. Intuition is an important ally to avoid dangers, trust on your instinct and do not become frightened by potential aggressors.

Such experiences make you improve your autonomy, independence and wisdom.

Next trip: Africa.

The Fahrrad Station Süd

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As it comes to bike infrastructures, sometimes they are completely new and some other are built based on previous infrastructures such us car garages. The Fahrrad Station Süd in the Karlsruhe station, Germany, is a clear example of the last point.

At the beginning, it was an obscure parking for 38 cars which was transformed into a building for 680 bicycles. Thus, less cars and more bikes, a direct example of how urban mobility is changing. Originally, the prestigious architect Rem Kolhaas was proposed to build a facility for the Zentrums für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Center for Art and Technology Media) next to the train station. After some disagreements, Rem rejected the project and finally the building was constructed in a different neighbor. So, the building continued being a parking for cars. In 2017, Karlsruhe proposed the target of reaching a 30 percent of total modal split by bikes and a new project started which concluded in nine months. As a result, the old car parking was transformed into an impressive 1,300 squared meters for bikes. It accepts not only urban and conventional bicycles, but also cargobikes, bike tows and electric bikes. Moreover, the station offers a modern locker room, drinking fountains and even a workshop with professional tools. In addition, it has five zones identified with different colors and symbols on floors and walls. Such was the impact when opened that the building received the German Cycling Award in 2020.

Furthermore, it opens 24-7 and the electricity that consumes comes completely from renewable energy sources. From the user economy, using it to lock your bike costs 1 euro per day and there are tickets for a month (8.50 euros), a semester (35 euros) and a year (75 euros).

A possible path for the biking movement

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We, as bikers, know all the benefits that riding a bike produces like human health improvement, environment protection, more free surface for people in cities, less dangerous crashes, you name it (or at least we should know them). Making efforts to promote it is an encouraging task which gives back pride in return. The problem is that sometimes we focus too much in people who are already cyclists or concern about the benefits of using bicycles.

I consider there are three types of persons in this regard: Those who are already convinced of the advantages of pedaling, those who are in the path of arriving to the previous group, and those cochistas who will never allow themselves to see positive points in bikes. I reckon the bike movement should focus more on convincing the group two of people, as indicated before. Most of them see bikes daily, have some concern in human and environment, check bad mood in car drivers, see cars and car infrastructure occupying too much surface in the neighbors stealing it from people, among others. They just need a little push to become riders and we, as experimented bikers, should constitute an example for them, transmit our good mood, explaining how it feels when riding a bicycle, all the benefits it has. This way more and more bicyclers will be seen on the streets which will encourage more people to pedal, politicians to build bike infrastructures and diminish car lines. In the end, all the people will benefit including those in the group three, though they will probably continue opposing bikes. Do not worry, their sons or grandsons will appreciate bikes.