How many bicycles take up a car park?

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Let’s consider a standard car park, just one of the usually seen in every city. Let’s take into account conventional bikes instead of monster or folding bikes. Sum up inverted U bike racks. And finally, let’s think about putting them perpendicular to the direction a car is parked. As a result of all them, the impressive figure of ten bicycles can be parked in the same surface one car needs to be parked, not considering a two or three floors bike rack, and do considering there is enough space to park and lock each bicycle. If you add a nice, colorful frame, you get this picture:

A solar bike

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Riding a bike is considered as environmentally efficient because energy is produced by the pedals movement. If an electric bicycle is used, then part of it is provided by a normally external battery in order to reduce the effort that cyclists make. Going a step further, the solar bikes highlight since the solar light propels them. But how can I build a solar bike?

There are several ways of doing it. For instance, the solar bike based on a bicycle trailer. Here you need:

  • The proper trailer

  • At least one solar panel

  • One external battery

  • One electrical transformer

  • Wires

  • Of course, a bike

  • Gadgets

In a few words, the electrical installation starts with the solar panel which collects energy from the sun and a wire brings it to the battery. The battery stocks up the energy. Next, energy from the battery goes through another wire to the electrical transformer. The electrical transformer allows to use it. At the exit of this gadget the third wire allows electricity to reach the gadgets we want. It is advisable to secure all the elements with bridles or a horizontal surface like the picture. Also, take into account the extra weight of the whole installation.

By the way, if want to know what is the Zima project, check this web: https://www.zimaproject.org/en/home/

Bicycle and weather conditions

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Among the different actors in the pavement, bikers are the most foresighted. Due to the fact of the extreme exposition of an usual bicycle to the environment, the impacts of raining, snowing and winding should be anticipated.

There are places like the Northern European and other countries in which riders are so used to somehow bad weather conditions that they ride without apparently any inconvenient. Interestingly enough, some bikers in sunnier countries wonder how they can do it. The answer is simple: they prepare themselves. If weather forecast predicts rain, they ride with a raincoat (or even an umbrella). Coat, globes and wool hat constitute the basic equipment in winter. It does not even bother themselves when snowing and here it is better to use drought wheels. Its amazing!

A different section is required for wind. Although there is a specific garment to deal with this element know as windbreak jacket, the impact on the biker can be both beneficial or harmful just depending on the wind direction. In the first case, wind blows to your back and hence it helps you riding. On the other hand, if it hits squarely your face, you must make extra effort to move from point A to point B. Under special circumstances like in a hurricane should you not ride your bicycle for safety reasons.

Some more bike safety tips

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The other day someone at my work had a small incident and we all began sharing safety tips when biking. Here are mine:

  • First of all, your security is the most important thing.
  • I use physically separated bikeways whenever possible.
  • Totally ignore sharrows that invite you to bike in areas where you can easily be doored.
  • When I bike on the road I always bike in the middle of the lane to force drivers who want to overtake to do it following the law and giving proper clearance.
  • I wear visible helmet, shirts, jackets, gloves, etc, and 2 front and 2 rear lights at night.
    Glasses help avoiding eye-insect collisions.
  • Totally disregard the 1% of drivers who honk the horn at you and appreciate the 99% who actually follow the law and behave in a humane way.
  • Don’t wear any headphones ever, do stop at red lights, make sure to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, and specially whenever you’re riding on the sidewalk. Basically, behave like a bicycle when you’re on a bikeway, like a car when you’re on the road, and like a pedestrian when you’re on the sidewalk.
  • Despite everything above, about once a year or two I have a close call with someone changing lanes while checking their phone or something similar, so I record my rides with a gopro pointing forward and another pointing backwards just in case I ever need them, plus people behave nicer when they realize they are being recorded.
  • Bonus point I got from my coworkers: if you usually bike on the road don’t use a bell and use a loud horn instead.

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Two people on a bike?

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The bike movement is unstoppable and several factors promote it. We have the concern about the environment, the health promotion, the personal economy, the interest in living better and longer, the need to learn new issues regarding bikes, the attitude to develop relationships or the desire to make a better world. The positive impacts of riding a bike are impressive, although some people oppose them. Special attention is put on the car industry which has been making everything to stop bikes, from aggressive advertisements in order to discredit these vehicles to brainwashing other people and showing cars like a status symbol. Nothing further from the truth. Negative impacts of cars overwhelm positive ones.

Moreover, some politicians bent on putting a spoke in bike’s wheel since they dictate laws in some cases against logic. Take for example the Spanish law. At the time I am writing this post, one can read some points in it which would have been alright in the past century. One of them is the prohibition of carrying more than two people on a bike given that the second person uses a seat. Spain can look a lot of examples of countries which permit riding bicycles with more than two people on them. If only politicians treasure how cyclists go in central and north Europe. This way they would realize the present law is cochista and more suitable of the past century. But let’s think about the benefits of implementing such a law. Nowadays, some Spanish parents drive their children by car until school to distances up to 3 km generating traffic problems like double parking and increasing pollution in the nearness of education centers. Allowing riding bikes by more than two people would make more parents use it and the reduction of the car use.