I’ve been doing a lot of rubbings for the bike art show. They are fun to do, much more spontaneous that the lino cuts, and so I’m having a run on those.

It began with pieces   for Paul Martin and Veronica. They’re  on  a cycle study tour in Holland led by Paul van Bellen of Gazelle cycles.

A couple of Paul Martin photos caught me eye, and I decided to create rubbed versions. The first is Veronica on a Dutch country road.

And the second, Paul,  under an umbrella beside a Dutch canal just last week.

I guess I’m slightly surprised at how fascinating it remains  to  be making art on bikes, only bikes, and mostly of the sit-up variety.

People who photograph them regularly,  like Mikael   at  Copenhagen, Copenhagen Cycle Chic, the Amsterdamize Blog in Holland, and all the other cycle  chic blogs ,  none of them of watching bikes and their riders ever tire of it.

It’s not just the politics of promoting our  brand of cycling  which keeps us going,  but rather that bikes in action are so  beautiful and varied,  even if repetitive in the way they move

The images non riders mostly see of of bikes in the media  is of course racing machines. Thus these  get more than enough attention.

They   interest neither me nor, it seems,  the photographers I admire.

The riding  we like to record  is always fresh viewing for several reasons. Firstly,  our riders are in their normal clothes so that their individuality is on display on the bike.  Not for them the conformity of  Lycra.

Secondly, unlike racers, they are using their bikes for the huge variety of reasons one has for getting around,  carrying everything from pets in baskets to double bases.

By their nature,  Sports bikes carry nothing but their riders and that’s boring for the artist. Water bottles, as added features,   become all the same very quickly

Thirdly, sports cyclists are much more locked into a narrow set of postures which, while they work well  for speed, for hill climbing etc,   mean that there’ss less visual interest for the photographer, the artist.

Add to this that  such rider’s heads are usual down, the eyes shaded, so the “the window of the soul”, the face, is lost to the viewer.

The upright  rider, even their  back,  is expressive whilst their faces are forever interacting with the world around them in interesting ways.

Sit-up riders may to some extent be poseurs,  well aware of how good such bikes make them look .

Some may dress for the ride . But where bikes are the normal way to get about, where they’re  very  “everyday,” what you get is mostly unguarded naturalness.

I like both, the odd look,  and the elegant regal ride.

True grace is best caught unawares,  In the rider’s  little skip , getting  balance and  taking off,  for example.

In the lift  from the saddle to crest a rise.

….or just the ambling home, a pensioner,   with the shopping on the handlebars kn a plastic bag.

I’ve been finding all this, thinking these thoughts, whilst  watching, frame by frame,  film material shot in Europe.  The Waltz of the Bikes, has been a gold mine for me.

I study the material, frame by frame,  to find my themes. In doing so, I’m strangely better off,   I feel,  than I would be drawing from life.

This is  because an artist’s  model is usually in repose, whereas my models are always in action.

Now, that I’ve worked for a year on my own photos , I’ve started using the images  of  other bloggers, as inspiration. hoping they wont mind.

What they’ve been photographing, Mikael Colville-Andersen and many of the bloggers he’s inspired,   is especially valuable to us in Australia.

This is because he and they have been according value and status   to  bikes which  are   often disparaged here  as of little interest,  slow and heavy, mere scrapheap material

I”m  keeping  posture from the images I use , but am changing  much else , the  faces, even  the story sometimes.

Here’s a rubbing  based an early  Copenhagen Cycle Chic photo,  one of my favorites..

The charm is in the conversation caught by the camera  and  so this story stays.  It reminds me  of how naturally  friendly this sort of cycling is.

Visiting Mikael’s blog led me  to the New York Cycle Chic and it’s  creator Noa Cortez . He also has great  images, but I was particularly caught by a video he’d posted of himself,  riding around in a long black  coat.

The cut of his coat,  how it hung on his slim frame as he pushed his Dutch bike to a parking spot , caught  my eye, and  so stopping the film, I drew Nero in several sequential movements.

It’s pretty sketchy and scratchy, this effort Yet,  I like well enough  to be sure to put it in the show.

After that , today I went to Amsterdamise.com (see above for link) another photo rich blog. I was  craving, for some reason,  cargo bikes.

I found two  great images  of these boat-like boxes, each with a very  different rider, waiting to roll from rest.

Changing the story,  I brought them together into  the same  image. It seemed like a friendly thing to do. I gave the tall think  guy a small tree to transport , whilst the woman kept her child and got one more .

The cargo boxes became  strangely boat-like

Finally,  unrelated to bike art, I was sent a piece of writing about bikes and their impact  from another blog which riveted me, so well was it put.

The author is KaseyKlimes, an American, and it seems that she might be an urban planner.

Here’s  the most relevant piece  for us.

On a bicycle, citizens experience their city with deep intimacy, often for the first time. For a regular motorist to take that two or three mile trip by bicycle instead,  is to decimate an enormous wall between them and their communities.

In their cars, the world is reduced to mere equation. “What is the fastest route from A to B?” one will ask as they start their engine. This invariably results in a cascade of freeway concrete flying by at incomprehensible speeds. Their environment, the neighborhoods that compose their communities, the beauty of architecture, the immense societal problems in distressed areas, the faces of neighbors… all of this becomes a conceptually abstract blur from the driver’s seat.

Yes, the bicycle is a marvelously efficient machine of transportation, but in the city it is so much more. The bicycle is new vision for the blind man. It is a thrilling tool of communication, an experiential device for the beauty and the ills of the urban context. One cannot turn a blind eye on a bicycle – they must acknowledge their community, all of it.

Here lies the secret weapon of the urban renaissance.

You see, those of us fighting for our cities, we struggle because too few see the problems, and fewer understand the solutions. They are quite literally racing past the issue, too busy to see, too fast to comprehend.

I cannot approach the average citizen and explain the innate intricacies of land use and transportation relationships, how density is vital to urban sustainability, how our sprawled real estate developments are built on economic quicksand, how our freeways shredded the urban fabric like a rusty dagger, how deeply our lives would be enriched by a collective commitment to urbanism.

Not only will their eyes glaze over, but they may very well become outraged. No one wants to be told that they must radically alter their lifestyle, no matter how well you sell it.

The bicycle doesn’t need to be sold. It’s economical, it’s fun, it’s sexy, and just about everyone already has one hiding somewhere in their garage.

Invite a motorist for a bike ride through your city and you’ll be cycling with an urbanist by the end of the day. Even the most eloquent of lectures about livable cities and sustainable design can’t compete with the experience from atop a bicycle saddle.

“These cars are going way too fast,” they may mutter beneath their breath.

“How are we supposed to get across the highway?”

“Wow, look at that cathedral! I didn’t know that was there.”

“I didn’t realize there were so many vacant lots in this part of town.”

“Hey, let’s stop at this cafe for a drink.”

Suddenly livability isn’t an abstract concept, it’s an experience. Human scale, connectivity, land use efficiency, urban fabric, complete streets… all the codewords, catchphrases, and academic jargon can be tossed out the window because now they are one synthesized moment of appreciation. Bicycles matter because they are a catalyst of understanding – become hooked on the thrill of cycling, and everything else follows. Now that new freeway isn’t a convenience but an impediment. Mixed-use development isn’t a threat to privacy but an opportunity for community. And maybe, just maybe, car-free living will eventually be seen not as restrictive, but as a door to newfound freedom.

The real reason why bicycles are the key to better cities?

Some might call it enlightenment.

-Kasey Klimes

Sue Abbott called it a Punk Commute, a respectful but rebellious  claiming of the streets  for cyclists  who choose to ride without helmets.

The rally was called for 12 noon  on Friday, 20th of May,  on the imposing steps of Sydney Town hall.

An interesting  group of participants turned up. There was Prof.  Chris Rissell, author of  ground breaking studies questioning helmet efficacy.

There was Herve Commeignes, IT specialist and cyclist of Belgian origin, long time student of helmet  law  contradictions and advocate for change.

There was Alan Todd, who’d  come especially from Victoria for the rally and who’d been  a  participant in a similar protest in Melbourne  a year ago.

Alan was  thrilled to be making the case for helmet choice again in public again, having almost given up his bike riding  when the laws came to   Victoria  in 1991.

There was his partner, Cathy Francis, also up from Victoria for the ride.

She was  finding it hard to believe how laid back  the bike scene  was in Sydney compared with Melbourne. Here, she speaks to Herve.

Cathy has been  so enjoying the city helmet-less,  whilst such behavior in Melbourne would result in an instant fine,  she tells Chris Rissell.

Cathy wants another such protest ride in Melbourne soon!

Confirming this difference was Sydney Univ. law student, Paddy Nestel…

…who says he was astonished on moving to Sydney,  to see students riding around campus without  helmets, an act which on the Melb. Univ campus,  would see one fined immediately

Paddy’s friends with Sue’s daughter,  Pip, who played a major part in the rally.

And who  I thought made this banner.  But it turns out to have been the work of  her sister,  Georgie

Georgie’s seen here with Bob Brewster.

Her mother, Sue,  no doubt  proud to have two daughters who cared enough to come  and risk being ticketed.

Finally,  the Abbott contingent was complete with Richard Abbott the GP,  and Sue’s husband . He’s  habitually worn a helmet , but has come round to his wife’s way of thinking

There was also Kathi Herrick of the Feather Brigade, a women’s cycle group. She’s got a crocheted money who rides with her called Milky Joe.

There was Kerry Chin usually the most colorful person at such rides, famous for the sound system on her bike and much more. She’s the real life Captain Dashboard

And Tom Nockolds who promised to help publicize my art show at the TAP which was good to hear.

I was not surprised, by the way, that many of the bikes of choice of these people,  were sit-up style

These bikes are closely associated with riding in one’s own clothes and helmet  free.

Sitting up straight gives the rider so much better a view, that one feels safer which probably compensates from any sense of security the absent helmet might provide.

Speaking of helmets,  Garry surprised me somewhat by his presence. He’s had a bad bike accident in the past,  I understand,  and always wears a helmet

Would he ride to day with his blue lid on or off, I wondered?

Sue’s plea from the steps was for choice when it comes to wearing a helmet or not.

She argued that,  since the experts can’t agree as to whether helmets are effective or not, then surely the choice should be left to the individual rider

We know from surveys that many agree,  even  whilst politicians continue to  put the question  in the too-hard basket.

I spoke too, outlining  my feeling that it is Bike Share which will be the game changer.

Bike share is rapidly becoming a key part of a  modern cycle friendly city.

As our comp. helmet laws  prevent bike share from working properly, as is now happening  in Melbourne and Brisbane,  it’s from this  angle that I think those laws will come under most effective pressure.

Sue had done an excellent job of contacting  with the police, her legal training coming in handy as to what our demonstration rights are.

As a result,  we soon found ourselves moving off along Gorge street , helmet free and with a police escort. Just amazing!

There was indeed a very strange feeling of freedom on our ride to the State parliament,  and the wish that it  always be like this. (Not the police escort of course)

I noticed Garry at the back.  For the first time I’ve seen him, he was riding  without a helmet. Must have felt really safe.

The police were with us all the way, both on bikes and one red squad car. They were unfailingly polite.

You notice that we are able to do a large part of the route on Mayor Clover Moore’s ‘s new separated bikeways, which made for added enjoyment.

When we got to the Parliament , we met first with a member of the Greens, Peter Stahel in the suit…

…and then with the Hon. John Ajaka, parliamentary secretary to the Minister  for Roads and Ports.

Also with  Lance Northey, Senior media advisor, Office of the Minister of Roads and Ports.

Mr. Northey has a face I’d  like to capture for a feature film if I ever go back into that work, a real Jean Paul Belmondo look.

Sue was delighted that a politician, the Hon. Jon Akaja, was actually taking and promising to read her submission.

It remained to thank the police for their co operation.

Sue hopes to mount Punk Commutes in every state.

 

Now for more treats.  Here’s a film showing our friends   on a bike study tour  in Holland, organized by Paul van Bellen the Gazelle rep in Australia.

I almost went. Next year I will. look out for Paul Martin, our Brisbane activist, with his small camera on the fishing pole.

Paul has been posting an interesting photo record of the trip on facebook, the meeting with David Hembrow, for example. As a surprise, I sent him back some rubbings based on his photos. Here’s Paul’s wife on a Dutch country road from such a photo.

Also this great film about an older cyclist from NYC. Streetfilms, they are always excellent.

http://www.streetfilms.org/my-nyc-biking-story-lucette-gilbert/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+StreetFilms+%28Streetfilms%29

 

What to expect from Woop?

I knew that a celebration of the new Bourke st cycleway on a sunny Sunday, had to be colorful….

The Bourke st. Cycleway has to be one of the most beautiful  in the world, threading it’s way, as it does  under a canopy of trees for  7 kms, across Sydney.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I posted news of the bike art show I want to have in Sydney in July at a local gallery

I showed the venue, the TAP gallery in Surrey hills and some of the lino cuts I have in hand.

But they wont make nearly enough to fill the walls I’m renting and I began t worry that being all lino cuts would make for a sameness that wasn’t good.

I remembered that years ago I found a smooth paper which allowed me to do rubbings which are quite dramatic and might suit bike art.

We still have some on the walls here at Avoca.

but the supply of that magic paper is long gone.

That’s my son above. He’s now 36 which gives some idea of how long ago these were done.

Above is one of a series of torsos based on roller skaters in Central Park, NYC. I was living in Montreal in those years and used to go down to NYC quote often.

The paper which allowed me to do this, I’ve no idea how to get it today.

So, wanting keep going with this idea, I phoned Robin Norling of the bakehouse gallery in Patonga. (Here you can see the charming gallery in the former fishing town.) and asked him how to treat paper to get this effect.

He explained, and soon I had some paper drying on the improvised clothesline.

I’d always thought the black was too harsh and so I decided, after my 30 year gap, to experiment with a warm brown.

It rubs a little differently but I like the result well enough to think some of these might be part of the show.

Though I’m wondering if the brown is such a good idea. Perhaps I should go back to a warm black on a creamy paper.

I’m also wondering to what extent I want to make the show a social statement. I feel our Australian bike culture is very much a prisoner of our helmet laws.

With helmets being obligatory, we’ve been pushed towards a sport and racing culture, the Lyca look, whilst the riding which interests me, just getting around on graceful bikes as transport, has been stunted.

Elegant serene cycling, sitting up straight, wearing normal clothes on classic dutch style bikes, that is starting to appear, but needs a boost.

So is that going to be theme? Should it be? It’s what I feel passionately, but will it cramp the art? The NY skaters were wild. There is the bike equivalent to find.

So what do you think of……
1. Lino cuts versus rubbings?
2. The brown rubbings versus the blacker ones?
3.The stately images versus stranger, wilder ones?
4. Should the Tap show be my manifesto?

I’m just checking out a funky artist-run gallery in Surrey Hills, the very core of Sydney.

It’s called the Tap and the only thing missing, from my POV, is a bike rack out front.

There really should be one. It’s only a block from the fantastic new separated Bikeway which runs across the city on Bourke street under the stately plane trees. Here’s the new path, two way, as you see.

I peep inside. Wow! Nice, but it looks way beyond the budget of a bike blogger.

But I must ask. I’ve been making bike art for a year now and feel it’s time to show. There’s a family reason to exhibit too.

Very soon, My grandfather, Antonio Dattilo Rubbo, is going to be honored at the Art gallery of NSW as one of the fathers of Modern art in Australia.

Not that he was a modern painter himself. But as a beloved teacher, he set some of our greatest 20th century painters on the modern path.

Here he is, a self portrait which the AGNSW has chosen to announce the tribute.

I never knew him like that. This is how I remember him, Nonno as we called him, a frail old man with a ferocious dog. I was about ten when he died.

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Though I loved making images even then, I don’t remember him helping me at all. I feel I missed a great chance not having him teach me.

Now, if I do show my bike art at this gallery, it will be somehow to make a link with my long gone Nonno.

When I was about 6, he gave me a fright I’ve never forgotten. He pulled something shrivelled from his pocket, and grunting in his heavy accent, said; “Eets, a ‘uman ear, Boy.”

I think now it was a bit of dried apple but pressing it into my hand, he breathed on me a foul tobacco smell and whispered; “I cut eet off in a Duel”

I go into the TAP and find Leslie at the desk with her cat. She started the gallery 17 years ago whilst still at art school since there was nowhere affordable in Sydney for students like herself to exhibit.

They have four rentable spaces, the most expensive, the one I’ve just walked through, is $680 a week.

That seems very reasonable indeed for an inner city gallery. Maybe the commission is the killer. No, it’s only 25%, way less than usual. Leslie checks her calender to see what dates are still available.

There are several slots available, including gallery one. I should look at the other spaces, see what I Like best.

Gallery 2 is hosting The Bald Archie, political satire, a riff on our famous portrait prize, The Archibald, recently at the state gallery.

Julian Assange seems to be the favorite subject.

And indeed, Julian”s the winning subject of this year’s bald Archie, seen pissing into Uncle Sam’s hat.

I like this gallery 2 a lot. It’s intimate like this alcove where Julia, our prime minister, serves and smiles.

But what a lot of images I’d need to fill this space, work not yet done, and work which will never be big wall-gobbling pieces like these ones here. Mine are all smallish.

How will my monochromes, my lino cuts look here? This one is called, the bikes are leaving town. Maybe I’ll be on the run as well if this is a flop.

I go upstairs….

…and run into a mirror, revealing this artist, wondering what to do.

Beyond a door, there’s a magical cafe, moody and, empty. I love it.

They have live theatre up here at night apparently, so Leslie says.

That’s Leslie I guess, with her cat.

Through an arch, there’s another exhibition space, now filling up with the rejects of the rejects from the Archibald prize, portraits rejected both by the Archibald itself, and the Salon Des Refuses.

Here, everyone gets hung, that’s the happy promise of the Tap..

I like the Tap gallery more and more, the spaces, the philosophy, a certain mystery it has as well.

But what space to choose? With the works I have right now, I could fill only a very small wall.

Am I really going to have all the ideas in my head on paper in time? Perhaps this idea is madness.

Can I really commit to the date Leslie’s offering me, July 4th through to July 17th?

Somehow, the idea of Grandfather being across town, his homage will still be on in July, urges me on.

I wish I could ask his opinion, the fiery Neapolitan who the cartoonists of the day loved to portray as almost a dwarf, but who loomed very large on the scene in his time.

For him, good drawing was the core of great art. The story goes that he would pace around behind his students as they drew from the model, and if a drawing was going badly, he’d rub out the student’s work with a feather duster.

I’ve become fascinated by the body postures, the movement, which bikes provoke. There is a particular choreography which I feel has been missed, ignored be everyone. The bike is an amazing presenter of the human body.

Below, is a lino I’m marking up for cutting which shows postures and movement of the sort I mean.

Grace, balance, all are there to be discovered. I'm not at all interested in the usual images of racing cycling, the hunched over posture, the helmeted heads.

I pay no attention to them, not yet at least. For me, only the graceful, slower, sit up bikes are of interest,

Only riders relaxed in normal clothes, or no clothes at all, and certainly no helmets.

I say no clothes at all because there’s an image which years ago fascinated me and brought me to the idea of bikes as art.

It was a painting of a nude woman, back to the viewer, riding down a cobbled street with a violin on her luggage rack.

It was such a strange and compelling image. I want to find it again. If anyone knows it, has it, (I had it as a poster on my walls) please do send it to me. It looked something like this.

This raises another challenge. Do I want this show to be all observational, based on observed postures, true bikish grace…

…or shall I, like that nude, bring in more strangely compelling images?

As I was recalling the nude and her violin, I doodled another nude with a pillion rider and his laptop. Shall I make this into something? Not sure.

I dream of flying bikes sometimes and have done one lino cut featuring them so far. Shall I take them further.? I imagine skies full of them.

I guess the TAP show will be a way to work our what I love best with bikes as art.

And if grandfather Nonno rubs out my drawings with a ghostly hand, that’s Ok. I’ll have already transformed them into lino cuts.

And now I must get going for time is short and there is so much to do.
Meanwhile which space should I choose, gallery one or two? I’m hesitating.

It’s been an exciting couple of weeks. I knew that Velo City Seville, the world’s premier utility bike conference, was to be in Seville this March.

But what a shock, and a pleasant one, to be phoned by program organizer, Matthias Nuessgen, and asked to suggest a presenter to speak on the Melbourne scene. A scheduled speaker had suddenly pulled out and there was a slot open..

For me, it was too late to think of going, not to mention cost, and the same for my first choice, Councillor Jackie Fristacky. I’d filmed Jackie last year, you may recall, and knew she had a lot to offer. (Councillor on a Bike)

Wanting to be in Seville but unable to go, we cooked up the idea of a video presentation. At first, it was just be Jackie talking to camera for the required 20 minutes.

But who could bear to fill such an opportunity with such a staid offering? Not us, for sure.

So, I went to Melbourne, filmed for two days in and around Jackie, and then dashed back to Sydney for the edit.

We were lucky on content. On one of these two days, Jackie happened to be meeting with the relevant Minister’s office, and on the same day, as we are collecting vox pops on the street, the former minister comes past and speaks on camera.

The edit completed over one of the longest weekends of my life, we set about experimenting with how we’d get it to Seville two days later. Nick Dow was a great help to us as we uploaded a film way longer than anything attempted before.

Suffice it to say, the video ran early on the evening of the 25th March, and without a hitch.

Oh, what a sense satisfaction there was. Just as good was the realization that the film could be a powerful tool locally.

The first part of; Cycling thrives in Melbourne. Does Bike share Contribute? is about Melbourne cycling achievements, and whilst they are impressive, we pull no punches as we reveal what doesn’t, in our minds, work.

In part two, we zero in on the drama that many overseas are following, the ongoing woes of Melbourne Bike share.

To diagnose what’s wrong , we took to the streets to see the blue bikes in action , which they largely were not

Then, we enlivened what could have been a dismal report, with feisty encounters on the streets near docking stations.

As we suspected, the problem is the compulsory helmet, and whilst the MBS is making valiant efforts to provide riders with absurdly cheap lids on sale near by ($5 with a $3 refund) at participating 7/11′s, it does not deal with the core problem.

MBS doesn’t offer the sort of hassle free usage these schemes are known for. However they cut it, the helmet is still a big enough impediment to keep the numbers down, round about one 8th of what a healthy bike scheme should be boasting, and will always do so.

There is no other solution but to toss the albatross, provide a helmet exemption for these bikes.

As overseas usage shows, share bikes are inherently safe, safer than private bikes. There seems no way, if helmet choice were to be tried, that this would lead to more or worse injuries than our cyclists are now experiencing.

In any case, share bikes generate super stats, and so we’ll know soon enough whether such an exemption is a good move or not.

Just as new drug trials involve an element of risk made clear to those who take part, so too the helmet choice trial we propose can be so conducted, the low risk revealed.

Here’s the film.

Here, Jackie gives her report.

Matthias Nuessgen told us in follow up emails, that a cycling policy and working bike scheme is coming to be seen as one of the standards for a liveable city.

Nuessgen assured us that the video attracted keen interest, especially its interviews on Melbourne Bike Share.

Delegates were particularly surprised, given Melbourne’s ideal climatic and geographic conditions, by the low daily use of 0.7 uses per bicycle, compared with average rates in Europe of 7-10 daily uses per bicycle and even higher (Paris 10-15).

Compulsory helmets were seen as a barrier to spontaneous trips, so integral to a good working bike hire scheme.

It was noted, says Nuessgen, that when Mexico-City abolished its compulsory helmet law, ridership increased (8 daily uses per bicycle) while accidents decreased.

Next year, Velo City 2012 is to be held in Vancouver, Canada, the World’s most livable city.

President Obama’s transportation secretary, Ray LaHood, says “the next generation of transportation” will be high speed rail, biking and walking.

He recently told a conference of bicycle advocates in Washington, DC, that President Obama’s national transportation plan will continue to de-emphasize private vehicles:

Cycling is the city transport mode of the future and smart cities need to invest in infrastructure to become cycle friendly.

Mike Rubbo and Jackie Fristacky

Bikes on billboards

If you had been near Central Station, Sydney last week, you would not have seen this impressive billboard featuring Sue Abbott, famous for her fight against compulsory helmets in Australia

Nor if you’d been waiting for a bus to Bondi, would you have seen Paul Martin advertising freedom on this street furniture.

Paul is riding a Gazelle, by the way, a rare bird in these parts.

There’s Paul (not) again on top of that building a few yards down Broadway.

And Sue and her daughter, Pip, have (not) now captured the street furniture of J.C. Decaux.

This example, below, of culture jamming features an image from Lekker a new company on the Australian scene selling sit-up bikes of great elegance.

None of these images of course is actually there. They’ve all be photo-shopped in, by Paul Martin himself.

I asked Paul to try put these cuckoos in the nest as it were, to make a point.

They look so out of place because we don’t as yet truly think bike.

It’s just inconceivable that a billboard with bikes on it, sit-up bikes to boot, would appear in Sydney or in any Australian city.

My Blogging Friend, James Shwartz (The Urban country) has carried the billboards over to Toronto

There probably hasn’t been a bike on a billboard eithe in Australia or Canada in the last 100 years.

Speaking of a hundred years, the video below intrigues me. It’s one of the first films ever taken with a movie camera, apparently by the Lumiere Bros.

As a film maker, that interests me of course. But what interests me more, is that it features a bike whose ride is no different from what you’d see today .

Indeed, if the picture was not so flickery and grainy, you might never know this was shot 115 years ago.

Does it matter that bikes don’t make it to our advertising landscape? Only in the sense that it says that we haven’t yet made bikes a part of our daily lives.

If we had, they’d be advertised too, like the real content of those billboards, Cars!

But there’s no racing bikes on billboards either, you say, and they are a very big part of daily, or at least, weekend, life here. True.

But I’m not concerned about them. The place of sports cycling is assured and, anyway, speedy machines are not the transport choice we need to unclog our cities.

We need solid workhorse bikes like the ones we’ve sneaked onto the billboards. They are the ones which can cut our carbon footprint.

How can we come to Think bike, Do bike, Live bike?

The hard answer is to bring on Bike hare.
The easy answer is also to bring on Bike Share. That puzzle is explained in the film below.

By the way, did you know that many of the successful bike share schemes around the world, (there are some 420 of them) don’t cost their host cities anything?

A deal is done with J.C Decaux, the French street advertising company whose billboard we borrowed above, by the way.

J.C. provide the bikes and keeps them running too, all in return for street advertising rights in the host city, a neat arrangement I think .

That’s not the case in Barcelona which boasts one of the biggest and most active bike share networks in the world.

In a bit of poetic justice, it’s the parking fines collected in that lovely Spanish city which go to pay for the 6000 Bicings. on the streets for the taking. (Bicing is their name for their rental bikes)

As you’ll see in this film, The Bicing Story, one of several we are doing on bike share around the world, the people looking after cycling in that city, have thought it all through and acted upon it too.

I think they are pointing to the way we have to go if we are ever to have the joy of truly bike friendly cities in Australia .

My friend and fellow Blogger, James Schwartz writing out of Toronto, (The Urban Country) has an interesting idea which will be a help to me personally.

He’s going to start a site on bike art (There’s surprisingly little around. Almost none on stately bikes) which you’ll be able to buy, profits going to promoting utility cycling.

This is great for me since it coincides with my launching a series of lino-cuts all based on sit-up riding. Here are a couple.

High quality prints will be available from James’ site soon. Originals, you’ll have to get from me. michael.rubbo@gmail.com

Do you remember that in the Northern Territory they sometimes call everyday bikes, Pushies? I discovered that on a recent research trip to the Top End.

Now, I’m just back from Perth where their everyday bikes are not called pushies but they do have a slightly related slogan.

We don’t hear much about Perth when it comes to cycling, do we?

That’s not very fair because, it turns out, they are doing lots of imaginative things to make riding safer and more fun.

Before this visit, If you’d said , Perth and Bikes to me, I’d immediately have thought of the Narrows Bridge and bike traffic flowing across it into the city.

Crucial counts of cyclists are done on that bridge, folks going in and out to work, and in the early nineties, those counts recorded a turning point in Australian bike history (photo Moondyne)

It was through the counts at the Narrows we discovered that our new helmet laws, (they became compulsory in 1992) were having an unintended effect, they were killing off cycling by between 30-40%.

For more on these stats, go to the web page, Mandatory Helmets in Western Australia

There has been so much anger in the comments about these figures, the idea that some slur is being cast upon WA, that I’ve added the figures from my source at the end of this post

The impact was the pretty much the same all over Australia, but it was the accurate counts before and after the change at the Narrows bridge, which got the most attention, not only in other states, but overseas as well.

As a result, many other countries which had been tempted to followed our lead, decided that helmet wearing should remain a choice for adults.

Anyway, back to my own Perth story. I received and email enquiry about my Darwin film from Jillian Woolmer who works for
Bikewest, in Perth. .

Jillian wanted to know more about the Darwin accident stats I was quoting in my movie; Darwin Shows the way.

Especially about my claims that the unusual helmet exemption they have up the Top End, has not resulted in any increase in serious injuries.

Sharing what I knew, I was soon getting some interesting info in return.

Jillian reported that her employer, Dept. of Transport’s Bikewest has been running a very successful initiative called Glamour Push.

Lead by Jana Zivadinovic a small group of the promotional staff of Bikewest have been working on the Glamour Push campaign for a couple of years now.

Glamour Push sounded rather like the Copenhagen Cycle Chic idea, meaning, they are both about getting people to ride in style, about looking good, about taking short trips on bikes, and foregoing the Lycra.

I gathered Bikewest, being government, can’t use the Cycle Chic name because Mikael Colville -Andersen its creator, does not wish the trademark to be associated in any way with helmets.

So Jana's group coined their own term, Glamour Push. The word, “push” picks up on the push bike, I guess, maybe on pushies, and on the idea of forging, pushing, ahead.

Cycle Instead is another catchy slogan from Bikewest, also to do with encouraging easy going cycling.

Now, here’s what really intrigued me, Jillian said Glamour Push is completely in synch with my own personal push, which is as you know, is about promoting Sit up Cycles.

I’m convinced that they are the bikes we need to adopt for everyday riding (I explained why in my film, Bike it or Not)

The Bikewest people insist that they are succeeding in getting many riders, especially but not only women, to ride in the classic, stately, way on sit-ups, on Cheetahs, Globes, Gazelles, Electras, etc.

I found this good news but hard to believe, so addicted are the Eastern riders I know to their Drops and Flatbar bikes.

You have to go on one of Saskia’s Sydney Cycle Chic rides to see more than two sit-ups together in Sydney.

I exaggerate, but I think I’m right in saying there is as yet no bike shop offering a really wide sit-up range in either Melbourne or Sydney!

Sorry, I forgot Papillionaire in Melb which I’ve yet to check out.

Anyway, Sam, the WA wholesaler for GPI Cheetah cycles, told Bikewest that he’s sold around 500 sit-ups since last months” Glamour Push expo.

When I heard that, I had to take the red eye flight to Perth and see if they weren’t, well, exaggerating. It seems there really is a trend to these inviting bikes

Those two Bike West women, Jillian and Jana, had it all laid out for me when I stumbled off Virgin Blue , one recent dawn into a gust of 34 degrees heat.

Here’s the two conspirators texting me some of what to expect in the weekend ahead

Over the next few days, they promised I’d see the Glamour push grafted onto the Santos Great Bike ride.

There’d be, they assured me, a mini expo of stylish urban bikes near the starting line that one could try and pose with.

I was somewhat cynical, even disbelieving. For months, in NSW, we’ve been trying, Ian Chalton, Gill and I, to get young women to try riding in style, but with no success.

We’ve wanted to replicate the Beauty and the Bike experiment done in Gt. Britain, and whilst we’ll have another go at it soon, so far no luck.

So, I couldn’t believe these superb young women around the Glamour Push tent were doing more than posing. It was very unsettling.

Was I still Australia or had I been spirited to Mikael’s Denmark in some pleasant nightmare?

Where was the Lycra? Woman/bike/Lycra, the combo’s inescapable surely in our sunny land?

In any case, there was no way these strangely dressed women would actually ride those stately beasts, or so I thought.

and yet….

…. and yet some did seem to be riding if somewhat posingly.

Jana and Jillian said its was all intentional as they confided their secret .

They’ve discovered that when a woman poses with a stately sit-up in clothes she likes, (just the act of posing can do the trick) something clicks and the model, till then not thinking of herself as ever riding a bike, can suddenly see it happening, see herself wheeling along, beautiful and free.

I felt Jana and Jillian must be in league with a certain series on the ABC which wants to spread happiness across the land. But they denied any connection, unconvincingly.

Using the tiny red carpet to spread the disease, Jillian and Jana set up intentional opportunities for contagion . If infected, a rush of not unpleasant gorge-osity (gorge-jossity) overcomes the victim.

They heard by chance a year later from one woman who’d been on their red carpet and as a result, turned her life around. She’d not only purchased stately sit-up, she’d found love as well

Epiphanies on Perth’s small red carpet, it seems.

Here’s a Fremantle GP, Dr. Helen Sadler, looking pretty good as well. Helen is thinking about getting an E Bike sit-up.

To help this process along, they have helmets on hand which don’t look like the usual racing gear, like striped tigers crouching on one’s head. More like geodesic domes or…

…. hot air balloons, rising pleasantly in the morning air.

.

I was partially convinced Jillian and Jana had had a breakthrough. Maybe they were able to get young women to ride, (almost unheard of in this country)

Checking further, still the doubter, I asked a bunch of athletic looking girls to cross to the shared path at the river’s edge just a few steps away where I could put them through their paces. Or rather, my paces.

I’d soon find out if they were just decorative riders or not.

“That’s far enough,” I cried as they took off down the path.

Back they came those young women, out of the saddle, rocking along at speed.

They were traveling at such a clip and with such style, that there was no faking it, that’s for sure!

I reckon Bikewest has discovered a species thought to be extinct, supposedly killed off at the Narrows in 1991.

It’s young women riding elegant bikes, not in Lycra, riding and loving it! Not to say that young women don’t have fun riding in Lycra too on occasion. But that’s well reported and so not our concern here.

I was thrilled. Suddenly I felt I needed a new word for these riders. Cyclists wasn’t right anymore, bringing to mostly mind the Lycra crowd.

Cyclist evokes speed and sport, costly lightweight bikes with no chainguards, no baskets, none of the things a girl needs on a useful bike. Or a guy for that matter with laptop and briefcase, on his way to a business meeting

Everyday riders is a pretty good alternative and is a term favored around the offices of Bikewest, I discovered. But for me, it’s a bit too… everyday.

For those folks who just want to use their bikes for the truly everyday,
for going to the shops,
for school,
for going to the job,
for visiting,
for everything except sport and racing,
then maybe they could be, should be called…

….Wheelers. It has certain ring to it, doesn’t it?

Come wheel with me!
I’ll wheel round to your place.
Bye, I’m wheeling off now.
Just wheeling to work as usual.
Oh, I’m just wheeling away a few pleasant hours.
Free wheeling again.
Hey, wheel on over if you want!
With my wheels on the path, and the wind in my hair…

What do you think? I know new terms don’t take on easily, though the name, Fixie, has caught on. Surely the need is there for something more engaging than utility cycling which I’ve used till now!

There’s history too, to this word. I’ve never forgotten reading about The League of American Wheelmen ,

At the end of the 19th century in the US, the wheelmen lobbied for better roads for their often gigantic wheels.

After years of pressure, they got the roads, but then along came the T Model Ford and stole them all away. Wheelmen, and women, were left on the shoulders, ingesting poisonous fumes from the noisy machines

I’ve always liked that name, wheelmen. So, taking away the gender, Wheeler remains and I now think of myself as a wheeler.

My other discovery in Perth was the strange attraction that riding out of the saddle has for me.

I’m talking from an artistic POV, and thinking of one of my first linocuts as I do (One of many, Hopefully) This one.

I’m not sure why this posture appeals. Something to do with the range of body movements the bike provokes when out of the saddle.

I have already decided that for an artist, two wheels provide one of the most successful presentational devices for the human body ever invented.

And the wheeler out of the saddle, standing tall, is an exciting figure.

I put this to Bree who I saw as having the line I was looking for. You glimpsed her in the green dress above.

Would she ride out of the saddle?

Not to say that Bree didn’t present a fabulous line just wheeling along, saddle bound. She clearly did as you see here.

I caught that too. But out of the saddle is more alive, more exciting as an image, I find.

Bree agreed to ride like that. We found the tiniest of rises and she powered up the incline two or three times.

Here’s another angle, head on.

Yes, Bree was indeed riding to order and giving me images I will use in Lino cuts later on, not the usual documentarian stance on my part.

But just to show you that Glamour Plus is not all coming from the hands of such fabricators, here is a woman wheeler we spotted on the outskirts of Freo and photographed in the true fly on the road manner.

(Freo, that’s Fremantle to the uninitiated, spelled with only one “e” to my (and google’s) surprise.)

She’s a wheeler who we stopped as we passed her by.

Jillian hopped out and made a good job of explaining our world view, our mission, and our crazy drive for sit up glamour….

All to find someone wheeling along as happy as she seemed to be. We never got her name. Maybe she’ll find herself here and leave a comment.

Have you heard of Cottlesloe beach?

That’s where my two guides, Jana and Jillian, took me at the end of a fabulous day.

.

I though that was all but, no, we had to stop on the way back to see the windows of a classy boutique featuring mannequins and sit ups.

No doubt about it, these bikes are, as they say in the trade; The Next Big thing!

Narrows bike counts.

Cyclist numbers plunged on the Narrows Bridge after 1992 helmet law enforcement but recovered from 1998 to 2003. Cyclist numbers then dipped for several years but have risen strongly in recent years partly because of soaring fuel prices and partly because more people are cycling illegally without a helmet. The inner city population trebled, petrol prices doubled and CBD employment surged over the 18 year period due to Western Australia’s booming resource economy.

In December 1991, 11,406 bikes were counted on the Narrows on weekends. In December 1992, it was down to 4526. By December 1993, it was 6507 and by December 1994 it was 6863.

This is down from a mean daily count of 1267 in December 1991 to a mean of 762 in December 1994… a reduction of approximately 40%.

In December 1991, 35,122 cyclists were counted on the Narrows on all days. In December 1992, it was down to 20,581. By December 1993, it was 29,506 and in December 1994 it was 27,216.

This is down from a mean daily count of 1132 in December 1991 to a mean of 877 in December 1994… a reduction of approximately 23%.

Cyclist survey figures before 1990 are scarce. However, these are the known statistics from random surveys:

* In a 12 hour survey in May 1976, 59 cyclists were counted on the Narrows and 100 cyclists were counted on the Causeway.
* In June 1979, 127 cyclists were counted on the Narrows over a 12 hour weekday period.

Note: It was illegal to ride a bike across the Narrows until the introduction of dual-use path legislation in 1981. Note also that cycle pathways adjoining the Narrows were completed in the 1980s and bike hire facilities are situated nearby. Both these latter issues may influence cyclist numbers on the Narrows.

* 1047 cyclists were counted on the Narrows during a 12 hour weekend survey in November 1984.
* 1763 cyclists were counted on the Narrows during a 12 hour weekend survey in August 1989.
* There were 839 cyclists on the Narrows during a 12 hour survey in September 1989.
* 1700 cyclists were recorded on the Narrows in a 12 hour period on a Sunday in September 1989.
* A maximum peak hour flow of 288 bikes per hour was recorded over the Narrows Bridge on Sunday 3.9.89 between 3pm and 4pm.
* Government departments calculate weekend cycling numbers on the Narrows grew by an average 11.4% per year between 1983 and 1989.

In 1792, Jonathan Swift wrote his Modest proposal suggesting that to alleviate poverty in Ireland, the children of the poor should be sold as food.

“A young healthy child, well nursed, is, at one year old, a most delicious and nourishing food.” wrote Swift.

In the same vein as this famous satire, I suggest that the safety situation for cyclists is so bad in our major cities, esp. Sydney and Melbourne, that bikes should be banned from all roads till authorities can deliver levels of safety matching other countries.

Do you think it’s acceptable that the bike injury rate in Melbourne is approx. 22 times greater than in Holland, 18 times greater than Denmark, 6 times greater than Germany, and even 5 times greater than the UK?

We know the dangers of driving, but how about discovering that in Melbourne you’ve 34 times more risk of being seriously injured on a bike than in a car? Or that you are 4.5 times more likely to be killed.

In Sydney it’s both better and worse. You are only 15 times more likely to be injured, but you are 13.5 times more likely to be killed on your bike than in your car.

These shocking figures come from a paper in the August Journal of the Australasian college of road safety, entitled; Cycling injuries in Australia; Road safety’s blinds spot. (p. 37) The authors are J. Garrard, S Greaves and A Ellison

How about also discovering that, whereas everywhere else where bike numbers go up, so does safety, (the well known safety in numbers phenomenon) here the reverse is true.

Injuries to cyclists have more than doubled in the last eight years, according to the Garrard study, even as the number of riders rose.

At the same time, car death and injury rates are going down.

This is a monumental scandal and it’s happening in a country where we cyclists are being bullied daily about bike safety.

My friend, Dr Paul Martin was recently fined yet again in Brisbane for riding without a helmet.

When he cogently argued his case, police back up with ticket books was called for, and he was threatened with arrest.

Here, Paul rides with Sue Abbott who recently beat her helmet rap, the judge seeing the wisdom of her arguments.

Toronto’s The Urban country blog will tell Paul’s story soon.

It makes no sense. We are compelled to wear helmets, devices which rob cycling of its spontaneity, doom bike share schemes here to fail, and and yet we still end up with this appalling safety record.

Tonight’s news reports that tourism to Australia is falling off.

It will fall off even more when our awful bike story reaches Europe, reaches those prospective travelers, and there are many, who believe bikes are important in solving the problems we share globally, greenhouse gasses, dwindling oil, exploding health costs.

To be seen as stupid on all this, and not being able to deliver safety to the population so bikes can thrive, is stupid. It’s going to be a big tick against Australia.

For backpackers, and we rely on them to pick our fruit and wait on tables, bike share is a symbol of a cool city.

When our attempts at bike share fail in both Melbourne and Brisbane, fail because of our helmet laws, and they will do so, it’ll be a global story and it will cost us dear.

So, it’s time to ban all bikes on all roads till we sort out what’s happening on safety, why we need comp. helmets when others don’t, all of that.

Such a ban would inject some urgency, don’t you think?

In the meantime, I am so mad about these figures, that I’d like to play The Pied Piper and lead all the cyclists out of town. The Moonfinder is waiting, folks, lets go!

This image, The Bikes Leave Town, is copywright, as are the others in a series of lino cuts which I’m calling; That Which We Are denied

I can be ticketed for riding without a helmet. Can I be prosecuted for promoting helmet free riding through art? I hope they try.

My idea is to produce images of forbidden riding. Riding without helmets, riding in whatever suits you, even with a lover on the pillion or a dog in a basket. Riding as it’s yet not done here.

And to those who say I’m being irresponsible, I simply say that if helmets showed a compelling cost benefit, they would have been taken up long ago by countries far more serious about bikes as transport than we are.

The idea of my bike art is simply to celebrate the beauty of cycling as it is when its free. Like it is in places where safety has been been sorted out.

Places where the cycleways are built, and forever building, where bike parking exists, abundantly, where the car is no longer completely king.

In other words, sensible communities who get it, who understand that we have to be different. and that this change is fun.

Even Obama’s America, so insane, so dispiriting in many ways, has visionary bike plans afoot.

Like a Bike route system to span the US as announced by Obama’s transport Czar, Ray LaHood

This is Ray.

I hasten to add that there are hopeful pockets in Australia and I’ve been seeking them out to film and photograph.

By the way Gazelle Australia next year is leading a 10 day study tour to Holland to find out how they do it there. Sadly, all places on the tour are now taken

On other matters, I’ve just interviewed Andrew Montague in Dublin. Well, Violeta Brana-Lafourcade who shot the lovely, Waltz of the Bikes, went to Dublin on my behalf to interview Andrew whilst I posed the questions via phone from Australia.

Andrew had a lot to do with setting up Dublin bikes,

This is Andrew on the launch day of Dublin Bikes.

It’s a medium sized bike share scheme which is going from strength to strength, fielding approximately the same number of share bikes as Melbourne.

I hope it will have some impact, this interview with Andrew, as he speaks about why Dublin Bikes works and perhaps why Melbourne’s MBS, doesn’t.

We also delve why riding bike share bikes is safer, whilst the way we ride here, even with helmet protection, is not.

It’s something to do with sitting up straight, with going slower, with maintaining a friendly interaction with other traffic, instead of the state of war between cyclists and cars which exists here.

It’s to do with the choreography of our roads in Australia for bikes , whether it needs be always like a Rugby League game or can be more like this.

This is the other style. Peace has broken out here, secretly snapped.
Helmet choice in operation, you see, a very different choreography, wouldn’t you say?

As I write this, news comes in that Dublin bikes is now so successful, that they are planning to expand from their present 450 bikes to 5000 over the next few years.

Also, I am off to Perth in a few days to investigate what they are calling the glamor bike movement over there.

Sounds like they might be generating the sort of images I need for my bike art, people riding in normal clothes, colorful clothes, people looking wonderful on bikes

Meanwhile, if you want to leave town, there are still a few seats and bike racks on the Moonfinder, I believe.

By now, all of you know about my obsession with riding in a sitting up position. the straighter the back the better, I feel.

For a year, I’ve had my eye on my friend, Hilary and the very beat up old flat bar she rides 18 kms. to work (she says she bought it for $60, many years ago)

I’ve been trying to persuade her to change the handlebars, surely an inexpensive move, towards much greater comfort.

Well, here is Hilary, getting the change done by Roy at Mates Cycles . Roy did it for free and so his shop on Your st. in East Gosford, Central Coast, NSW, deserves a plug.

I hope to use Hilary some more, talking about how she planned her ride to work for safety because this area is only set up for leisure bike riding, the sort you saw in the last last post on the Sunday ride.

Are the Dutch still riding what we regard as the classics. Well, a visit to David Hembrows blog, A view from the Cycle Path, shows that they are.

Nice photos of the sort of bikes you can buy over there and the prices.

David Hembrow has just written to say that they’ve set a new web site, Dutch Bike Bits to provide the bits you need for a conversion at reasonable prices.

I see they can provide handlebars much more swept back than those Hilary was able to obtain.

Apropos of such sit-ups, how long will it be before we have shops here, specializing in these essential bikes, essential for comfort and essential for promoting everyday utility riding?

My friend, Milo Hurley, sent me this news about a shop in London, Bobbin Bicycles, which specializes in Sit ups and claims to be the most beautiful bike shop in the world.

And some sit-ups will surprise you, especially Milo’s favorite

Milo’s letter on his own up-sitting days, is worth quoting he writes so vividly, so fluidly

The last upright I owned was a Danish Pedersen.

This was in Ireland, ’90 – ’91. The Pedersen is famous/notorious among the tiny clique of riders who cherish it.

You sit on a hammock-saddle, suspended from an anchorage point attached to the elevated head-tube; at the rear, the saddle is anchored by horizontal springs to a set of tubes which angle down to the bottom bracket.

The whole thing looks improbable yet arresting. The usual comment is that a Pedersen looks like a camel that swallowed a small suspension bridge. It looks subversive. Suspect. An embarrassment or a triumph of anarchist invention. (Google Pedersen bicycles, Pedersen people).

I used to call it a Sopwith Camel, because of the bracing wires, the gunmetal colour and all the slender tubes that rose up in front to support the steering head.

The riding position was bolt-upright. I really had a sense I could see over walls and tall hedges and anything else around me that threatened to block my vision..

It was efficient to ride, mine having 34mm high-pressure tyres on tough Weinmann Alesa rims and rolled easily. Peculiarly, it went up hills very well.

The sense of leaning back, as the bike pitched upwards, was disconcerting, a bit like motoring up a hill inside a cable-car.

It was wonderfully pleasant in the Irish countryside, with hedges pressing close or tree-branches to glide under.

The big thing I learned from riding the Pedersen is that an upright bicycle is a different form of travel, with different references that have nothing to do with conventional understanding of performance.

It was lighter than an Old Dutch (about 28 lbs, depending) had wonderfully light steering and a sense of suppleness all its own. It was also a crowd-stopper.

If you are looking for a Sit-up locally, the best quality, built to become a heirloom, are the Gazelle bikes. Paul Van Bellen seems to be doing pretty well with them.

Paul lent one to Paul Martin for Saskia’s ride.

It’s been fun these last few days in my area. Friday night, some great bike movies were shown at the Avoca Beach Picture Theatre . It was free too!

Then, Sunday Morning, we rode from Gosford to Woy Woy, along the water front.

This well pleasant mid morning roll along the shared path was organized by David Gillett, a Pom and the new bike man at Gosford council.

As you’ll see from my pics, this is staunch helmet country which will be a relief for those of you who are tired of my frequent posts about the draw backs of compulsory helmets.

These riders hardly give helmets a thought, I suspect.

\
Though you’ll see one rider without a helmet.
You can’t miss him. He’s very visible

I’ve rushed this post, hoping these riders will be looking for their images. Coming to the blog, they might stay to read other stuff, thoughts about where we go from here

I too several hundred shot’s, rapid fire, quite happy at last with my Canon SLR

We arrived late, Kayta and I, and so we didn’t see the riders as they took off, (there were over 100) but with my bike motor whirring , I zipped along the line to sample the faces on the path ahead.

My E bike makes it so much easier to cover an event like this. I’m still a cyclist, still riding with them, but I can get ahead of the crowd whenever I want

Some took me for the official photographer. Others were a bit wary of me being a hazard as I lay on the ground for some shots .

I’m showing just the start of the ride in this post. The other photos will have to wait for another post. I know the images may be mainly of interest to folks on the ride. That’s Ok. We need to affirm local events.

The rest of you, our of the area, can marvel at this amazing environment we have here to bring up our kids, though we usually don’t appreciate it

No, this is not a two wheeled philosopher. He’s mocking my beard I’ve worked out

And, yep, he’s the guy without the helmet. Great pose, eh?

Bike advocates here like to quote the fact that more bikes are sold in Australia than cars.

Yes, that’s true, but many of those bikes only come out on weekends, like today, if at all. Many sit in carports, unused.

When it comes to using bikes used as transport, we are pretty much coming last, globally.

I blame helmets in part for that sorry situation, which you’ll find out if you read other posts.

We’ll be getting somewhere when people start using their bikes to go to the shops, as they do in Europe.

Now, he looks like he might use his bike as transport.

We’ll be making real progress when we come out of the house and may a different choice.

There, in the carport are the car and the bike. That will be the day, when and we choose the bike not the car.

You are going for milk and bread, for example, a short trip to the shops like most of our trips. Why not the bike?

Or you send a kid… on a bike. Once, kids went everywhere on bikes. I did when I was young. No one worried very much and nothing terrible happened.

I’m just re-reading the life of of Albert Facey.

At 7 Bert Facey was adding to the meagre family income by snaring possums and drying their skins for sale

Have you read his story of growing up at the turn of the 20th century in rural Australia?

The book’s called; A fortunate Life Actually, a life of great hardship but so fulfilling . It renews your faith in people and their strengths.

We protect ourselves and our kids too much. Maybe they thus avoid some scrapes, but at what cost in terms of experience missed and character growth which never happens?

Read Bert’s story and you’ll understand.

Now where was I? Oh, yes showing you photos of the Sunday ride, Bike week at it’s best.

He’s stopped mocking me.

And so as they head around Brisbane waters, past the place where one of our politicians came a gutser a couple of years back

I must race ahead for a change of view.

Don’t worry, if you were photographed on the ride and have yet to appear, I might have caught you on Spike Milligan’s bridge That’s yet to come.

That’s all for now. And next time, I might render you as paintings. How about that?

I forgot. Thanks too, to Allan Brown, who used to have David Gillett’s job at Gosford Council, and came back specially for today.

And here’s my darling, Katya, bringing up the rear. She’s a beginner!

Someone sent me a segment of Jim Kellett’s film on bike history, particularly concerned with the Denver, Colorado, area.

Victorian Cycles; Wheels of Change is a great dip into the impact that bikes had before cars swept them off the roads, especially on women’s lives.

I was so charmed by the various segments I wrote to Jim, asking if I could run them on the blog, and Jim, here’s Jim, said yes

So, here’s the the fist clip. I’m bringing you the segments which appealed particularly to me. But there are more.

Here’s the second, going further into what bikes did for women

And here’s a great portrait of one of these liberated women on her bike, riding 100 miles a day on rough roads with long skirts and no helmet of course

Then of course courting became easier with a bike

I bet you’ve never heard of Scorchers.

And the last clip of Jim’s which I’m offering, is on bike design, The Safety Bicycle.

Before the safety bike there was the Ordinary or Penny Farthing as they were later known.

They were called, Ordinary, because they were the mainstream, the preferred, bike of their day.

Penny Fathing, a later nickname when the were on the way out, came from the fact that they had one huge wheel in front and a tiny one at the back, like a penny and a farthing, the latter being a quarter of a penny.

We have two expressions which remain in common use after 120 years, and which, I believe, come from these very dangerous bikes.

The first is to go “at breakneck speed”

And the second is; “to take a header.”

Why so dangerous? Because one sat high up over the front wheel right on the fulcrum, and any flaw in the road, a stone or pothole, could pitch you forward to land on your head from a great height.

I’m telling you this because this clip on the Safety bike, which came next, does not mention its predecessor.

The Northern territory producers some very impressive bike statistics. 4.2% cycle to work compared with 1.3% in the rest of the country.

Also, 31% of cyclists are women compared with the national average of 19%.

We know that women cycle when they feel safe, and so we can assume that women feel safer cycling round Darwin than elsewhere.

As for the serious accident rate, it’s right on the national average.

What’s going on up there? I think the good results might be partly due to the strange helmet exemption operating at the Top end.

To show you how it works, what the rules are, are I made Darwin shows the Way.

Here’s a thought which did not make it into my film.

What this exemption has done, is allow cyclists to sort themselves into two groups.

One, the road cyclists who love speed, their advanced lightweight equipment, and happy to use all that on the roads.

The second, is a group that’s stifled and struggling down South. Riders who tend to go slower, who are not very interested in equipment, but who just use their bikes to get around.

For Simplicity sake, lets call them, Fast and slow cyclists underatanding that some fast are slow, and
some slow are sometimes fast.

As you can see, both groups are alive and well in Darwin. The second, the slows especially, is flourishing, bare headed, around the city.

And I don’t think we need worry overly about the safety of the slows. They have it well in hand themselves.

Someone once said; If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.

I would like to adapt that. If you take the pressure off cycling by lifting the mandatory helmet law, giving people choice, riders will sort themselves out, and ride in the way which feels best.

Will this be tried elsewhere, following Darwin’s lead?

They are a community in touch with good things, I felt, like watching sunsets, hundreds of people doing it together.

It would be sorta fun if Darwin became famous for starting the sunset of compulsory helmets in Australia.

As you know, Melbourne Bike Share Scheme is in urgent need of a way out of the self made trap in which those 500 bikes find themselves.

Apropos of Safety in the NT, it seems that you are only safe on a bike. A friend sent me this.

The Northern Territory has an atrocious road safety record with the worst injury rate in Australia for all road user types – except cyclists.

Below is extracted from Serious injury due to land transport accidents, Australia 2006-07 (RTF 1.5mb) published in 2009 by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

The data shows the Northern Territory car occupant serious injury rate was 124 compared to a national average of 78, its motorcyclist serious injury rate was 45 compared to a national average of 35 and its pedestrian serious injury rate was 19 compared to a national average of 13.

The Northern Territory cyclist serious injury rate was exactly the same as the national average at 23 and better than several states where helmet use is mandatory for adult cyclists in all public places.

The Northern Territory cyclist serious injury rate with a high threat to life was exactly the same as the national average at 4.

On the comparatively dangerous roads of the Northern Territory, the only road users with an average rate of serious injury are cyclists who aren’t forced to wear helmets.

For a full examination of the strange matter of compulsory helmets, go to Chris Gilham’s page.

Bye!

Saskia organized a ride for her creation, Sydney Cycle Chic, last Saturday.

They came together from all directions, to a lane way off Bourke St. St Mary’s by name, to meet at a new tucked away bike shop.

Who’s next?

How colorful it was. What a superb reminder of how good we all can look on a bike if free to dress as we please

Saskia was dealing with the press, unused to the lack of Lycra perhaps

As more and more riders arrived. Some with lids, some without.

The helmet politics of the day? Some lids I saw were dangling from handlebars

Others were in baskets, cosily

Or proudly worn.

But not by Sue Abbott who has just won the right not to wear one from the court!

Which aroused great admiration, not only from Saskia

But Paul Martin, a Brisbane doctor, strong advocate for helmet choice, and also for riding in a more laid back way like they do in Europe.

Paul usually rides a Gazelle and was lent one for the day by the local distributor, another Paul, Paul Van Bellen.

And that was the spirit of the day, lending, sharing, as off we cranked

riding along the newly opened Bourke st. smoothly separated cycle way.

Clover Moore, who’s fought so hard for this bikeway and others, was there to see us off.

And so we drifted from coffee shop to bakery, not a long ride but a fun one

And whilst others drank lattes and tried on helmets out of curiosity or nostalgia.

Some of us, a very few I dare to say, do actually look good in a helmet, not that that should be a consideration of course.

Whist that was happening I snooped around, admiring bikes…

…bits of bikes, not only sit ups, but elegantly simple machines from Tokyo bike, from whose small shop on Mary Place, Surry Hills, we started our historically short ride.

But we had to get going so Saskia rallied the troops

And off we rode to a small park, 100 meters away

Where we moved in pleasant circles for while

Sue’s boots caught my eye.

Side by side was just fine of course.

And Saskia reminded this observer that you are no better than your basket

And Paul looked happy, demonstrating that there is sitting up straight and sitting up really straight, and that it takes a Dutch bike to sort one from the other

For this effect, Gazelle or Velobris are the way to go. Here’s a Gazelle at home in Amsterdam patiently awaiting its owner.

Whilst Sue told how she’d won her case.

…and others looked like flowers on wheels, and I mean that most admiringly, as round they went.

When last did cycling look so great or so proud?

Could be that be a fixie which has snuck into our circle?

In any case, who can deny that the beauty of slow riding elegance is now back is Sydney after many years away?

Only one person was missing, someone who Saskia hopes to have with us next time Sydney Cycle Chic takes to the bikeways, the streets, the coffee shops, and the parks

I have to add this, a wonderful link to a designer who is saying with professional knowledge what I’ve known instinctively to be true, that sitting up is the way we should be riding, and that the industry has been crazy, and irresponsible, to push flat bars and mountain bikes on people who just want to get around. Time to change!

http://www.bikebiz.com/news/32843/Upright-is-right-says-Strida-designer.