Related website – www.situp-bike-art.com

This blog encourages you to use a bike as transport. That’s what I’ve come to do after far too many years in my car. Not for every trip, of course, but for the shorter ones. Those are now all by bike. And not any old bike.

I’ve found that the secret to re biking yourself is to go for the comfort of sitting up perfectly straight as if you were royalty on wheels.

Any slight loss of speed is compensated for by the ride being so much more pleasurable, that you naturally turn to your bike for all short trips.

The Up straight bike I’ve settled on is a Giant Suede with Nexus hub gears, which means they are inside the rear hub and don’t have to be adjusted. The front hub has an add-on small electric motor. more of that later.

If you are interested mainly in Electric bikes, look for these movies on the blog. (not my suede. That came later.)

1. Commuting on an E bike. Yes, you can!
2. The great Electric bike challenge

If you are interested in different styles of bikes. ( I prefer sit-ups )
have a look at .
1. The Guy from Cycle Chic
2. Talking to David Hembrow

Bike share schemes are a fascinating topic. For more,
Look at;
1.Bike share and helmets don’t mix?
2. Biking up the wrong tree.

The helmet debate. Should they be compulsory? Look at.
1. Sue fights helmets.
2. No helmet, please.
3. Bike Share and helmets don’t mix?

This blog is founded on three ideas.

1. That too grow urban cycling, we need to ride upright like most Europeans do.

This upright position goes together with…
1. wearing normal clothes when using a bike for transport,
2. with carrying things in baskets and on luggage racks,
3. with seeing better and being seen better .
4. It also goes with facing of cycling greatest enemies, the common belief that it’s dangerous.

Secondly, this blog is very interested in Bike share schemes, such as those which have transformed urban cycling in Paris and Montreal.

In Paris, you have 25,000 Velibs on the streets for the renting.

In Montreal there are, or were, 6000 Bixis which have just finished an amazing summer in that city, lifting it to a bike leadership position, almost overnight

Bike Share is now in 60 cities around the world, with more starting almost daily. Bike share is the game changer, I’m convinced of that! Australia has none as yet.

Why is bike share so important?
1. These schemes overnight place thousands of modest-fee-rental-bikes on city streets for public use.
2. Not only do they provide no fuss A to B transport,
3. They also calm traffic and generally make cities more enjoyable and more prosperous.
4. Motorists are more considerate of bike share machines.

Bike Share goes hand in hand with my first important idea, sit-up. They are all of the sit-up type of bike.

3. The third big idea this blog endorses is that; Compulsory helmets were and are, a bad idea. They don’t dramatically protect, and they do keep rider numbers down.

Since it’s proven there is safety in numbers, helmets by suppressing those numbers, are dangerous. They can also be dangerous in themselves, twisting the head in the case of some falls. I wear a helmet, with a sun visor I’ve added. But it should be my choice.

Here, helmet laws and helmet promotion , have become an excuse for our Governments to do little else for cyclists.

We now have the bizarre situation where the safest cities in which to cycle, globally, show the least helmet use.

True cycle safety lies under the wheels not on the head.

Any society which is serious about bikes as transport, must spend the money needed to create networks of safe cycle-ways, both on and off roads. All the successful bike cities, and there are now hundreds, have done this to varying degrees.

Most urgently, our compulsory helmet laws impede the coming of Bike Share schemes because it’s impossible to dispense a guaranteed helmet on the street along with a rental bike.

Thus, bike share, if we get it, will be restricted to those who can carry helmets with them and those prepared to buy a new helmet for each ride.

There is an urgent need, if bike share is to more than a curiosity, to partially repeal our helmet laws so that helmets are a matter of choice for those riding the slower, sit-up bikes which bike share provides, and indeed for any bike of this type.

All of this means a huge shift from the rather aggressive cycle culture we now have, one that thrives on speed and sport, to a slower more European type of bike usage.

Situp-cycle.com makes two predictions. Since our hills and distances are often formidable, Electric bikes are going to play a key role in promoting urban and utility cycling in Australia.

Secondly, none of the above can happen until the Federal Govt. takes bikes as transport seriously, and plays a leadership role.

This will begin with collecting good data on cycling. Cycle statistics in this country are presently woeful, which is not surprising. One counts what one thinks is valuable .

Lastly, a country which can’t or wont use bikes as transport for short utility trips, is not serious about global warming. Mike Rubbo