Author Archives: jm

Stolen childhood

The New York photographer Lewis Hine took photos from child messengers at the beginning of the XX century. He showed how widespread child labor was at that time as well as some other habits like child smoking that we consider disturbing today. These children were used as couriers to deliver goods from newspapers to medicines from small and big businesses. They worked as small ants coming and going which preoccupied the most progressive sectors in the American society.

In 1908 the National Committee for Child Labor hired the photographer and sociologist Lewis Hine in order to document the labor conditions of such small people. He traveled the USA for nine years with a humble equip consisting in a 13 x 8 cm camera, an unstable tripod and a magnesium flash. Such effort was the start of considering Hine a pioneer of social photography.

What Hine found was worse than he had imagined. Children suffered from leonine working conditions, starting working at the age of nine, they often pedaled until dawn and slept under a bridge. The luckiest ones combine school with long hours of pedaling. Some times they entered the worse neighborhoods in which arms dealers, drug addicts and pimps operated. Some others worked for unscrupulously bosses. Hine wrote a sentence in their photos which summarized what was behind every picture. This fact allowed people understanding the real feeling they passed on them.

The situations that Lewis Hine shot were extensible to both large cities such as San Francisco, Boston, Houston or New York to small localities, and no matter how big a firm was i.e. giants like Western Union as well as small courier business were involved.

After taking the photos, Hine presented them to the Committee which used them as arguments in order to reach the dreaming Keatings-Owen Law in 1916. This established restrictions as it comes to legal working age and work shifts. However the Supreme Court repealed it, the spirit of the original Law influenced the New Deal which did not allow for child labor in the 1930’s.

The history of Hine continued by being part of the Red Cross in the First World War which allowed him traveling in Europe and taking lots of photos. Nevertheless, he ended his days in the same poverty that had been denounced in his pictures. He left 5,000 photos which were donated to the Photo League by his son. The Photo League was dismantled in 1951 and the Museum of Modern Art of New York considered them as irrelevant and refused them even though the enormous social value they had. So discouraging. Finally, they were donated to the International Museum of Photography George Eastman House in Rochester where you can see some of them.

Vision Zero project

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The Vision Zero project aims at reducing, even avoiding, all the victims in road accidents. This massive utopia was considered so in the end of the last century. Some saw it as an impossible target, but sometimes the apparently impossible ideas are the brightest ones. Crashes in streets cause thousands of injured and killed cyclers and pedestrians around the world and brave politicians have wanted to change things.

Take for example the case of Oslo (Norway). They started talking about the Vision Zero project back in 1997 and although politicians supported an awareness campaign, the message which started so was thought reminiscently. As time went by, even the most skeptical believed in such a powerful idea. As a result, Oslo experienced the impressive figure of zero deaths of bikers and pedestrians in crashes in 2019. Only one car driver died in the streets at that year. Just for comparisons, 41 people died in crashes in Oslo in 1975. While most of cities around the world have been increasing died cyclers and pedestrians in the last decades, Oslo as well as Pontevedra have diminished until zero such figures.

How has it been possible? The key point in the Vision Zero project constitutes urban planning to which political will is needed above all. The axiom is clear: the essential responsibility of crashes is due to the system general design. No matter which political party govern Oslo, strategic actions towards the Vision Zero project have been constantly produced. Gradual reduction of cars speeds, thousands of parking spots removal, sidewalks widen, public transport support and lots of bike lines constitute clear examples of steps in the right direction which Oslo has implemented. However, the most shocking measure was car banning, even electric cars, in downtown. As conscientious politicians claim, such initiatives looked for citizens benefit and specially bikers, pedestrian and local business.

To sum up, the Vision Zero project wants to diminish and eradicate deaths of bikers and pedestrians in crashes by taking off space to cars and giving it to people.

Emergency-bike

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Most of people think about bicycles as the traditional vehicle in which one person rides in order to move herself from point A to point B. But a bike can be utilized for a myriad of uses from cargo bikes to emergency-bike. As time goes by, cities are becoming more a more bike and pedestrian friendly. However, in some cases when an emergency vehicle is needed, it can found it difficult to move in labyrinthine areas like downtown. In such cases, bicycles are ideal to move fast on them since the small space it needs as well as its versatility make it an ideal way of transport.

Paris is a beautiful city which has been opting for promoting the bike use among its citizens and tourists. They faced the problem of health emergencies with the innovative idea of the emergency-bike. It consists in a modified cargo bike with the essential equipment for doctors to save lives. Moreover, the project took place with the involvement of the Parisian emergency service, thus they gave engineers the medical perspective. As a result, this bike counts on a 150 capacity liters special storage compartment in which to carry medical supplies, a 140 dB horn, a high intensity, blue LED light, anti-flat tires, a GPS unit and one USB port. What is more, an electrical motor makes it easy and fast moving with the emergency-bike. Indeed, saving a life is a matter of time as every minute a patient does not get care by a doctor, the life expectancy is reduced by a 10%. As a result, the two 500 Wh batteries of the emergency-bike fulfills this need.

On the other hand, the implication of health professionals is essential. At the beginning, engineers made lots of prototypes with the advice of medical staff. Going step by step, they finally created the emergency-bike. Precisely the health workers involvement allowed the emergency-bike to be used from day one because it comply with their needs. Furthermore, studies have been made on the emergency-bike use concluding that doctors take care of patients twice as fast as cars and they attend the double of daily medical interventions thank to this bicycle.

Ciclosferia

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It seems quite odd the fact that there has not been celebrated an offline exhibition on urban biking in Spain so far. It is not so strange the fact that the chosen city to host it is Valencia because of the promotion of this urban movement as it comes to the development of cyclist infrastructures and local laws among others in the last years. The jointed effort of Ciclosfera and the Valencia council, as well as bike stores, brands and workshops, will make it possible. As a result, the Ciclosferia will take place in Valencia, Spain, from 13^th to 15^th of May 2022.

The shed number 2 in the Valencian La Marina has more than 4,500 squared meters. All this surface will be covered by bike brand stands and everybody will be able to test dozens of bicycles from e-bikes and traditional bicycles to hybrid ones and cargobikes. Besides, circuits, activities for children, raffles, food trucks and concerts guarantee amazing days for bike users next to the Mediterranean see. I almost forget it: It is totally free. A perfect scenario to discover the present and future mobility. A feast in order to spend the day, eat and pedal, enjoy confidently that everything, mobility, health, entertainment and efficiency, goes through bikes.

Thomas Stevens

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Thomas Stevens (1854 – 1935) is known for being the first documented person in riding a round-the-world-tour. He started this amazing trip with some socks, a spare shirt, a raincoat, a sleeping bag and a revolver as baggage on the 22^nd April 1884.

His family migrated from Berkhamsted, UK, to the USA when he was a child. So early, he came into contact with a bicycle in San Francisco. The very first year of his fabulous trip, he bought a black, nickel wheels, 50 inches Columbia Standard bike on which he left Sacramento to the East of the USA. However, he encountered serious difficulties such as lack of roads which made him to walk for more than one third of the 6,000 kilometers until he arrived in Boston on the 4^th of August. For these four months after the first riding, he enjoyed large parts of the country which he did not know at all as well as interesting persons, particularly the native Americans.

But he did not stop here. He spent Winter in New York and then embarked to Liverpool in the Spring of 1885. On 4^th of May, hundreds of people said goodbye to him in the Edge Hill church. Then, he crossed the English Channel in order to pedal on France, Austria, Hungary, the Balkans and Turkey. He rested in Istanbul and continued to Anatolia, Armenia, Kurdistan, Iran and Iraq. Even if the Thomas Stevens adventure was covered in newspapers, he still faced problems. He was denied a permission to travel on Siberia, was expelled from Afghanistan which obliged him to detour to cross the Red Sea and had troubles of having to explain himself in China. As a result of this last point, he was almost lynched since Chinese people confounded him with a French man (at that time France was in war).

Finally, he crossed the Japan Sea and took a ship to California where he was received as a hero. Yet, his impressive life continued as he formed part of the Henry Morton Stanley team to explore the East Africa and became the manager of the Garrick theater in London.

World Bicycle day

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The World Bicycle day was on 19^th of April from 1985 to 2018. In April 2018, the United Nations changed the day to 3^rd of June thanks to the support of 57 countries. Leszek Sibilski directed the international campaign and associations such as the World Cycling Alliance and the European Cyclist Federation which encouraged it. But why did the World Bicycle day was initially declared on 19^th April?

Albert Hofmann, the Swiss chemical, was the origin of it. He was the first person who synthesized, ingested and experimented the effects of LSD in 1943. At first, he ingested it in a casual way. Next, he carried out an aware LSD ingestion three days after. As a result, he experienced a more powerful trip than the easy return journey home by bike. He simply went crazy!

Going a step further, bicycles have improved the gender equality. For instance, it allowed women to travel by themselves without the need of any man. According to the suffragette Elizabeth Cady Staton, bicycle is a tool that motivates women to gain strength and assume an increasing role in society. Moreover, the suffragette Susan B. Anthony believed bikes as the most important to emancipate women in the world. However, it is not now just plain sailing.

When women started pedaling, it was said that bikes produced a rare illness called ”bicycle face”. The stupid diagnosis was invented by several doctors in a mixture of ignorance and machismo at that time. Indeed, they feared pedaling would cause women fertility lost, female tuberculosis or even an increment in women libido (this was dangerous in single women, what a nonsense).

Fortunately, these ideas disappeared and we enjoy biking no matter your gender nowadays.

Soldiers and bicycles

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If a person thinks about the Overlord operation in the Second World War, he probably imagines soldiers, ships, tanks, guns and so on. Very rarely would he come across bikes on battlefields, and they were indeed because armies have been using the most advanced technologies close at hand in modern wars.

Britain paratroopers landed with folding bikes beyond Germany lines in the D day. They weighted about ten and a half kilograms plus guns, military uniforms and additional equipment. Imagine how strong they were. The Airborne Folding Paratrooper Bicycle was the chosen bike model to produce sixty thousand of these bikes between 1942 and 1945. They participated at least in the D day and in the Arnhem battles, and were used by British and Canadian soldiers.

Why did they used bicycles in such important days? Bikes are ideal vehicles to cover large distances without being identified. Thus, they contributed to win these battles. In some occasions, bicycles were abandoned in the middle of nowhere when soldiers considered them nuisances. Once paratroopers landed, special bike supports allowed guns to be attached and even fired in seconds.

The Canadian 9^th Brigade Infantry landed directly riding bikes. Canadian soldiers had successfully used them in the Sicily invasion in 1943. Indeed, British and Canadian soldiers were not the only armies that used bikes in the Second World War. Japanese servicemen advanced long distances in Malaysia with heavy loads thank to bicycles in 1942. German soldiers used them in Poland back in 1939. However, nazi soldiers bound bikes with ropes to motor vehicles in order to tow them without making effort.

All in all, the Normandy invasion was the operation in which bicycles were used in a massive scale. A lot of these bikes were abandoned in battlefields in France and Norway, and you can find them in museums and private collections.

Bike bells

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Bike bells were originally thought to prevent crashes with other actors in streets or roads. Moreover, you can heard the sound it produces when a biker says hello to a friend or relative without opening her mouth, or just when she wants to attract attention on whatever subject. In most cases, bikers use the traditional bike bell which consists on clinking a piece of metal or plastic and produces sound on an additional piece of metal.

A different version of bells is done when the biker pushes a small lever that activates the internal mechanism to produce the same target, but an easily appreciated, distinct, prolonged sound.

The above mentioned models have been used for ages and there is at least one more bike bell type. It consists in using the power of compressed air as a source to produce a more powerful sound. Some models overcome the impressive figure of 100 dB. Such compressed air can be provided by specific compressed air bottles or some models even allow you to produce it by using your bicycle pump. What is more, a biker can refill the compressed air bottle and thus protecting the environment. This last type of bike bells are quite more expensive than the traditional ones, but on the long run it can save money. Furthermore, the louder sound that it produces can be used to take advantage on other issues such as taking your noisy neighbor to task or alerting somebody, for instance whose bicycle is being stolen.

Rail trail

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In previous centuries, rails were used as a way to democratize transport of most people to long distances. This is specially true in the rural Spain. As a result, long infrastructures crossing forests and mountains were built. This intelligent idea lasted for decades, but ultimately the bad economic situation provoked a massive migration from villages to cities. Some stretches of railroad stopped being use and lack of support made the rest. Alternatively, the rise of alternative ways of transport, mainly the car, reduced the use of rails.

Under so dismal situation and thanks to open-minded people, these infrastructures which are the backbone of large rural areas have became a good boost to promote cycle tourism. Some EuroVelo are indeed rail trails. Of course, they set up them since some were deteriorated as time went by. There is an additional point which makes it possible: only bicycles and pedestrians are allowed to enjoy them, giving them extra safety. Moreover, the spectacular landscapes, the suitability of curves plotting, the environment, forests, mountains or even cheering, happy people you meet in rail trails constitute all points in favor.

At the time I am writing this post, you can find the sections Where to go, What to do, Plan your trip, Calendar of events and Travel safe with a lot of information in the Green Paths webpage.

There are also rail trails at least in Bermuda, Canada, US, Germany, UK, Ireland, Belgium, Finland, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. Thousands of kilometers are waiting for you and your bike.

Conbici

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Conbici (https://conbici.org, in Spanish) is the Spanish coordinator in defense of bicycles. It gathers 65 Spanish associations and groups, and promotes the use of bikes in a day-to-day basis, no matter how the biker genre or age is. Moreover, Conbici works in order to promote positive legislation to protect everybody, including bikers and pedestrians, who are the weakest actors in streets. Local groups focus on their cities as it comes to urban biking and it has work groups in legislation, mobility, training, health and cycle tourism.

Conbici was born in 1990 and has contributed to the bike movement. It organizes the Iberian Congress “Bicycle and city” together with Portugal since 1996 and promotes the Cycle tourism and urban bikers meetings in Spain or Portugal every two years. Furthermore, it is a member of the Technician Scientific Committee in the European Mobility Week, participates in the Higher Traffic and Circulation Council, work group 44, representing the bikers collective, sits on the European Cyclists’ Federation, became a founder member of the National Bicycle Table and writes and spreads national and international summaries about politics examples which foster bike use as well as sustainability. In addition, Conbici promotes the intermodality of bike plus public transport. What is more, in the Conbici webpage you can read recommendations about how to move on bikes at both, cities and cycle tourism.

One of the key points Conbici has is the wide profile of collaborators. Indeed, it counts with professional people in fields such as urban planning, infrastructures, economy, tourism, legislation, health, education, you name it. This fact makes it possible that Conbici contributes with ideas on a variety of subjects, just like this blog.

As it comes to internal affairs, the General Assembly of Conbici meets to decide the necessary decisions on the addressed issues by consensus twice a year. The General Coordination Council and the Permanent Office are in charge of management.