Author Archives: jm

Target: Garda

The Garda lake is located in the north of Italy. It connects the regions of Lombardy, Veneto and Trentino. Thousands of Italians enjoy it plus Germans, Swiss and Austrian thanks to its 368 squared kilometers every year. Why does it attract so many people every year? This marvelous lake is surrounded by perfect mountains to practice MTB, impressive landscapes and valleys with vineyards which go deep in history.

In the last years, a bike cycle path is being built by following more or less the Garda lake shore. However, the fact of contacting and coordinating three local administrations has made it difficult. Their promoters explain than it would be perfect if it was finished by 2025, although realistic people postpone it by 2030. Nevertheless, it is going to offer a 140 kilometers bike path which connect to EuroVelo and cost more than 100 million Euros. It could sound an excessive price for such a massive project, but economical studies from some years before determined that every bike tourist just in Trentino spent 77 Euros per day and the mean stay was nine nights. In other words, every bike tourist spent 700 Euros in the region. Considering only Trentino, 110,000 bike tourists enjoyed the area and it gave a yearly financial income of 77 million Euros. Summing up Lombardy and Veneto, the project could be amortized in few years. Moreover, more German bike tourists would visit the Garda lake when connected to the EuroVelo. Take for example that Munich is about four hours from the lake.

The project represents a giant challenge because on the one hand the Lombardy and Veneto zones follow a quite plain path in which building a bike line would not be difficult. On the other hand, there are 20 complicated kilometers which join Saló and Limone, in Veneto, which follows cliffs. In addition, crossing mountains and wider paths are necessary to fulfill the project targets.

In conclusion, we become aware of the defiance the Garda project is and hope it will be a reality soon.

Multi-tool facility

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Over the last decades, a myriad of ideas has been proposed to increase the number of bikers in urban and rural areas, apart from building bike lines. Objects like the one in the photo are being installed in some places where orography plays an essential role. The picture was taken in a hilly zone in which bicycles moves on unsmooth roads and paths, and bikers range from families with small children to professionals.

Bellow you can see an intuitive, bike-oriented facility with all the necessary to solve problems when riding. It counts with tools in order to fix your bike, blow your wheels up or adjust screws. What is more, it is free thanks to visionary bike friends who worried about improving bikers comfort. Moreover, facts like this one attract bike tourists who contribute to the local economy.

Bike lines between city and village

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As it comes to urban cycling, we think about it in terms of moving within the same city most of the time. In addition, we use bikes to visit our beloved park, forest or beach by pedaling few kilometers outside the place we live in. However, cycling is also a good idea in order to transport yourself to a close city or village in which you work, study or go shopping. By the way, remember using panniers if you guess you can carry weight in your trip.

It is believed that such closed cities means one big city attracts people from commuter towns due to the fact of job opportunities, amusement, culture, hospitals, does it ring a bell? And yes, this is true in a lot of cases, but not in every one. A biker can move in opposite direction from city A to village B just because she wants to visit her relatives, enjoy excellent cuisine or discover a bike route that a friend of hers told her yesterday. Thus, the flow of cyclist goes in both ways. Such a reason explains why having and maintaining bike lines which connect two cities, two villages and one city with one village is so important.

To my mind, the aforementioned bike lines should fulfill some points:

They should have a physical separation between them and the other lines, even between them and pedestrian lines
They should run parallel to the car lines when possible since these were built in order to optimize move time
If the previous point can not be meet, bike lines should run through natural, maybe previously abandoned lines with a second life
They should avoid unnecessary curves and elevation changes
They should be marked with signals and banners so that nobody gets lost

Koffeecleta

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Bicycles can be used in a myriad of ways often as a surprising idea. One of them is what the Koffeecleta represents: a new local business. The entrepreneur Yoli Díaz made it up when pedaling on her loved Female Dragon bike through South Asia (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam). Traveling to exotic places makes it easy to see the world through different eyes, not to mention that Yoli is an extrovert, imaginative and passionate woman. She lives in Aínsa, Aragon, the Spanish Pyrenees.

On the way back, she contacted a friend in order to develop the idea of a food truck. However, something did not fit in with. Finally, her friend abandoned the concept and Yoli came across what she was looking for: a bicycle. Thus, she created the Koffeecleta by combining both concepts: bicycle plus selling food (coffee in this case). Before deciding the final model, she studied hard several options like the Foodicleta, on which she would sell octopus balls, or the Conocleta, to sell ice creams.

The Koffeecleta not only offers coffee, but also handmade chocolates and, in Summer, flavored water. As it comes to its characteristics, the Koffeecleta attracts people attention thanks to its shape and colors. A highlighted front wooden crate, the canopy stands out by its design and colors combination, the rear trunk and so on make the Koffeecleta special. It weights 170 kg net load and counts on a small fridge, a kitchen, a power strip and a battery, all the accessories to prepare good coffee.

An important issue is that she changes the route on a day-to-day basis. This way monotony is avoided, although she has made regular customers. Moreover, she escapes sameness while chatting with customers in the seven minutes it takes to prepare the coffee. And no matter if it is raining, snowing or a windy day, she starts the route with a big smile on her face.

From coast to coast

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The dream of crossing the USA in bicycle from coast to coast is being built at the time I write this post. Just imagine a bike-friendly, secure, seamless path that connects the Indian and the Atlantic oceans. This is going to be possible soon thanks to The Great American Rail-Trail. This project aims for developing what was once a myriad of railroads which were abandoned long time ago. As I talked about green paths, such infrastructures can be taken advantage of in order to give them a second life, and when it occurs with a clear intention of improving human lives it becomes even better off.

The Great American Rail-Trail plans traversing 12 states: Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland, plus the district of Columbia. Its vision continues with allowing bikers and pedestrians going down for more than 3,700 miles. Moreover, imagine the economic opportunities and benefits for the local communities along the route between Washington and Washington. More than 145 existing trails hosting route and more than 90 trail gaps are being reviving, the numbers make you dizzy. The Great American Rail-Trail can constitute a landmark in the cycle tourism and bike development in the USA.

Who is behind The Great American Rail-Trail project? The NGO Rail-to-Trail Conservancy (RTC) started it back in 1986. It has set itself the task of developing a large net of paths along the country. The RTC has gathered public and private financial donations to carry it forward and giving the opportunity to 50 million people every year to enjoy their bicycles and forests, mountains, vast plains or local communities. Plain and gentle slope combine in the impressive paths so that whoever biker can pedal on them.

Paradoxically, the pandemic has made people use more and more bicycles and in turn The Great American Rail-Trail project has been increasingly supported since people is manifestly in promoting bike use.

Stolen childhood

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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.