He’s going round the world

EBWT in TV3 NZ (interview) from Electric Bicycle World Tour on Vimeo.

Guim will be looking for press coverage both in Brisbane, and as he rides down our coast towards Sydney.

In Brissie, I’ve put him in touch with another doctor friend who rides an E bike, Paul Martin, in the hopes he’ll be able to help Guim.

As he gets down our way, I hope to be able to ride with Guim for a bit and do that filming.

Meanwhile, some other exciting things have been happening. I’ve been very pleased with the response to the film I made about Melbourne councillor, Jackie Fristacky.

Using that as a calling card, I have been approaching councils in the Sydney area, hoping to find one which would be a good film subject.

It seems like I may have found one that will be more than just a movie topic.

I don’t want to say which council it is just yet, but I’ve pitched to the Deputy Mayor of this particular council the idea of a new sort of campaign for utility cycling in his area.

I put it this way. The normal planning emphasis these days is on infrastructure, building more bike ways of various sorts , plus bike parking etc. All well and good.

But really, all of this has little point unless people do fervently want to ride bikes as transport.

If few do, it’s like you are building a sporting venue for a game few want to actually play.

So, at the same time as you plan those bike-ways, let’s create an image of utility cycling which is really friendly, inviting and fashionable,

FIF for short.

That we do by running a campaign for a different way to ride , dramatically different to the speeding cyclist in Lycra on his carbon fibre machine, which is such a common sight on two wheels these days.

The Tony Abbott look you could call it.

Let’s mount a campaign for the sit-up bike, the Amsterdam style bike, knowing that it’s a posture which is far more comfortable, and which flies a flag for a new way ride.

It’s an image which says, forget the speed, the special gear, you don’t need them. Just hop on a bike like this and go, go to the shops to work to visit someone, whatever!

Each such rider we get going, will attract others. So, our slogan will be, Come ride with me

I loved this clever promotion the Hungarians have done for such cycling.

It’s clever though the hero bike (that a movie term of the key prop) is not a sit up. As with so much that’s great, I found this on Copenhagenize.com.

Why do I like this ckip winning people to cycling is very much about status, cycling seeming cool.

At the moment sports cycling is super cool for a certain group whilst leaving most of us, cold

Now, I know that’s not fair which is why I need to hurry up and cut the material I’ve shot with Gill Charlton. She proves it’s not, either-or.

In the weekends, Gill dons her Lycra and gets on her carbon fibre bike, loving the speed.

Weekdays, she’s on a sit up bike and to see her riding by, you’d never know it was the same person.

Here’s Gill at speed

and with her weekday bike behind her.

To see her on the latter, you’ll have to wait for the movie, Gill changes Stripes . I’ll call it.

So to finish up, not only am I suggesting to this council a campaign based on a type of bike, but also that the emphasis be put, not so much on commuting, but on neighborhood riding.

The area I’m looking at is quite flat, and has many small shopping centres, both of which make perfect for local bike use.

If we can boost the idea of getting around locally on one of these comfy bikes, it might be a bit of a breakthrough.

This is friend Bruce Moir, seen here with me on a recent ride around Sydney.

Bruce drives a new VW , a very sophisticated little car which tells him the amount of diesel he’s using at any given moment.

Knowing the great mileage the car gets on trips, Bruce was horrified to find that on local drives to the shops, this fuel economy was cut by half.

It’s the stop and go driving on short trips, which is the worst for both consumption and green house gas emissions

So, if we can get people using bikes for short local trips, we do a great thing both for our wallets and the environment.

That’s the campaign I hope to part of as an ideas man and diarist with a camera.

In the meantime, I eagerly wait the arrival of of Guim

And if you have any interest in what I’ve been doing for Avoca Village, film-wise, here are the recent efforts. Firstly, The Graveyard of the Adelaide,

And then, The Lizard Diaries

I could not resist opening up this post to communicate the excitement which is being felt in Montreal these days. Here’s an extract from the Montreal paper, The Gazette.

If only we could read this story about Sydney, eh?

By MIchelle Lalonde, The Gazette

If you are a Montrealer who cares about the environment, you should have been dancing in the streets last week. The Agence métropolitaine du transport finally released the results of its latest Origin- Destination survey, and the news was very good, indeed.

The survey, done every five years by the transit authority, gives a snapshot (taken in 2008 this time) of how people in the greater Montreal region get from place to place. For those of us concerned about climate change, air quality, public health and the livability of this city, the news was fantastic.

For the first time in 40 years, car use was actually down! While the population of the metropolis grew by five per cent between 2003 and 2008, car use dropped by one per cent across the region, which includes Laval and the South Shore. On the island of Montreal itself, car trips were down six per cent. This may not sound like a huge drop, but it is hugely significant. It shows there is hope for this city to buck the North American trend of relentless, ever-increasing car and truck traffic.

Second, public transit use jumped an impressive 15 per cent during that five-year period. And with new transit projects on the horizon, like the east-end commuter train just approved by Quebec’s Environment Department, we can expect more people to trade that stressful morning traffic jam for a window seat and a good newspaper on the train.

But here’s the stat that really gets my heart pounding: a whopping 11-per-cent increase in the number of Montrealers commuting by bicycle or on foot.

I suspect the opening of the de Maisonneuve Blvd. bike path in the fall of 2007 had a lot to do with the cycling increase. Painted bike lanes throughout the central boroughs has also made cycling safer and more inviting, since most car drivers do respect these lanes. The impact of Bixi, the city’s short-term bike-rental service, launched in the spring of 2009, has not even been tallied yet, but it’s clear Bixi is getting more Montrealers out of their cars.

Montreal has reduced speed limits on city streets, widened some sidewalks and reduced the width of certain intersections, all of which help make the city safer for pedestrians.

These are the kinds of progressive changes Montreal needs to keep the trend moving in the right direction. But instead of resting on our laurels, now is the time for Montrealers to push harder than ever for changes that make it safe and convenient for residents to walk, cycle or take public transit.

Tags: around the world on an E bike , avoca beach , bixis , gill charlton , Guim valls teruel , local cycling , mike rubbo , montreal , sit-up bikes , utility cycling