Category Archives: Well done!

Zrinski square

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.

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.

Fyllings Dalstum Nelen

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A traditional approach when pedaling from point A to point B and there is a mountain in the middle of the path is to create a road to save it, commonly by zigzagging. Some bicycles have gears to overcome high slopes, but some others do not. In Bergen, Norway, they have built a tunnel between two neighbors of the same city (Fyllingsdalen and Mindemyren). Originally, one should pedal for 35 minutes, whereas today a cyclist can spend 10 minutes to arrive to the same destiny. This almost 3 kilometers long, 6-meter width tunnel is opened for cyclists (3.5 meters of bike line) and pedestrians. (2.5 meters). It goes by in parallel to the train line and takes advantage of the auxiliary tunnel originally built as a complement to the railway.

Apart from the obvious improvement in the sustainable mobility, it also opt for security because of all the cameras which register images 24-7. However, the tunnel is only opened from 5:30 to 23:30. Additional improvements over common tunnels for bicycles are the emergency phones and speakers throughout it. In case of emergency, ambulances and firefighters can access without problem.

The main problem architects faced when building it was the high humidity since the mountain is plenty of water and needed a drainage system to overcome it.

As far as I know, this is the second larger tunnel for bikes. The most large is called Snoqualmie in Seattle with 3.6 kilometers.

Bikebus

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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”

The Turia course

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The Turia river crossed the city of Valencia, Spain, for ages. It provided water and fish resources to citizens long time ago and is cited in books and texts. The problem is that it overflowed every autumn in a meteorological event called cold drop in which floods were produced year after year. Thus, Valencian authorities decided to deviate it upstream so that such floods were not repeated. At this point, they thought what to do with the more than nine kilometers long of new, profitable area that is called the Turia course.

At the beginning, some idiot politicians proposed to convert it in a highway with twelve car lines. “A fast way to go through Valencia”, they argued. Immediately after, lots of citizens and associations presented an innovative idea in the Valencia of the 80’s. They fought to convert the Turia course in a massive garden which could be enjoyed by locals and foreigners. You can see the huge difference between one and the other proposals in the picture bellow. People pressed so much with demonstrations, opinion pieces in newspapers, banners in streets and so on that politicians saw their desire and how important it was. At this point, some politicians contemplated the second proposal as the most interesting and protective to the inhabitants health. In the end, it was the chosen one and we enjoy the Turia course as one of the green lungs of Valencia. By the way, you can cycle it thanks to two bike lines which start at the Cabecera lake and end in the city Aquarium.

Coffee & Bikes

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One of the crowded places in the Delft Technical University (The Netherlands) is its cafeteria which is also a workshop and a bike parking. This 2018 building was projected at the square of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering with the suggestive name of Coffee & Bikes.

Interestingly, a rider can make use of its 2,100 bike parking and the two floors construction is surrounded by a mound covered with grass where one can relax between classes. Marjolein van Eig designed it inspired by the modern architecture of the Illinois Institute of Technology (USA) campus. The Coffee & Bikes presents a 5 x 6 meters steel beams grid which will ease a future enlargement and all the structure is detachable. Bikes are protected by the external parapet.

The workshop is located on the ground floor, directly connected to the bike parking, whereas the cafeteria is on the first floor. This last is accessed through external stairs and enjoys the sight. Moreover, the ceiling height varies so that the seating area is original and personality.

Cris Lares

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When talking about great trips some pass from one continent to another, whereas bike travelers also remain in the same continent. This is the case of Cris Lares. The Mexican woman started riding on her Specialized Pitch 27.5 from Oaxaca de Juárez the 23th of September 2018. She arrived in Pitumarca, Canchis district (Peru), but her plan was to reach the south of Argentina after pedaling more than 16,000 km. She had visited Guatemala, Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador, and interesting places like impressive ocean coasts, the Amazon or the mountain range of the Andes. The problem was that she suffered an accident with a motorbike and broke both her fibula and tibia. This fact forced her to wait for months until restarting her great trip. After that, another accident happened with a car driven by a drunken and the Covid pandemic. Thus, some more months waiting for the recovering and then finally she could continue riding.

The tragic experiences show how strong this woman is and some tips she shares for life and specially for a great trip are to be positive-minded, not to think about negative issues, always thank people hospitality, be fit as a fiddle and ride with wisely-decided, low weight. This last point is really important. Take for example when Cris rode to the snowed Cotopaxi volcano in Ecuador. She wore an impermeable trouser, but no jacket, neither gloves. Fortunately, she arrived at a mountain refuge where she could light a fire and warm up.

On March 2020, she arrived to Brazil after pedaling for 16,729 km.

Lady Beetle

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The LUOstutio created a special bicycle with the inspiring name of Lady Beetle back in 2019. It followed a parallel consisting in battle two plagues: the insect eats aphids and Lady Beetle is a way of recovering some bikes from the millions of abandoned Chinese shared-bikes because of a unbridled commercial expansion. Luo Yujie and Lu Zuhuojian made it possible.

At the beginning, both inventors were worried about millions of bike and additional scrap metal which were constantly producing. They talked to a friend who was a teacher and said them that he carried his didactic materials in a shopping cart. As a a result, they started working on a project which culminated in the Lady Beetle. It consists in a creative, interesting and lively space which reuses industrial residue in a natural and artistic manner.

What is Lady Beetle? Well, it is a quadricycle with a front wheel and three rear wheels, high load capacity to carry wisdom to wherever it goes. Its shell contributes to protect whatever is inside Lady Beetle, which above all is a moving library. Thus, it eases teaching materials to be transport so that teachers do not suffer back pain and use cars.

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The Nørreport Station

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The Nørreport Station, Copenhagen (Denmark) is a clear example of how to transform a chaotic area full of cars into an awarded place for people and bicycles which offers services for about 350,000 people per day today. This train station was built in 1916 and connected the medieval downtown with the neighbor of Nørrebro. It was a comfortable square until cars appeared.

In 2009, the council ordered a study to two different architecture companies. Conclusions were the same: too much car traffic and an extremely difficult place for pedestrians. Thus, an urgent remodeling was needed. Paths on snow made by people walking and cycling gave clues about how to deal with it. Specifically, station entrances, covered spaces and bike parking locations were inspired by cold. These facts determined the most favorable, natural fluxes for people.

In 2015, the remodeling was completed thanks to the impressive 2,500 bikes parking. Interestingly, this massive bike parking is slightly lower than the rest of the train station so that one can have a look of the set and a better place hierarchy. In addition, tourists’ jaws drop with the amazing view. Moreover, buildings in the square are made with rounded shaped glass which increases clarity and a sense of safety.

As a result, the Nørreport Station won the Danish Lighting award, the European award on Urban Public Place and the Copenhagen Best Urban Context Place in 2016; the Landezine Landscape International award in 2017; the Civic Trust award in 2018.

Bielas Salvajes

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Bielas Salvajes (Wild Rods in English) is a Spanish group of passionate, bike activists women which emerged in Saragossa back in 2014. Their main target is to contribute to develop an egalitarian space in which each and every say has the same value since the males say is somewhat dominant in some urban bike groups. Indeed, more than 70 people have accessed to the bicycle in Saragossa thanks to Bielas Salvajes since it was created.

They combine two main ways of using their bikes: going to work and enjoying routes outside the city. As it comes to urban biking, they propose the Safe Routes in which women who start pedaling for working are encouraged, given tips and recommended the safest paths.

Bielas Salvajes was the pioneer group of bike women and as time went by more groups with similar characteristics emerged in Spain such as Mulleres Bicivisíbeis (in Vigo), the group Cicliques (in Barcelona) or the Lavapiés Ciclist Club (in Madrid).