Cycling in Australia

This is the story of the day I spent following ( on a bike) a very inspiring politician around the streets of Yarra city, which is part of Melbourne.

Jackie has been part of a push which has seen Yarra city climb to the highest rate of bike commuting of anywhere in Australia.

Jackie Fristacky’s story might look like just another movie on YouTube. But actually it’s a very special tool for change, at least potentially.

What you can do, if you like it, is to find out who is sympathetic to bikes as transport on your own local council, and then send that person this video.

If you get a response, follow it up. See if they’d like to be in contact with Jackie Fristacky and Yarra council to find out more.

We can grow bike use together in ways like this. It’s fun.

Just like it’s fun riding a bike as transport, so much fun it should be illegal.

These are not my councillors, not yours either, but they do look receptive, don’t they?

You might be surprised to find your timing is spot on when it comes to your council and bikes. The world is changing and the only way to know, is to pay a visit.

So, here’s the secret weapon, the Fristacky file.

Let me know how you go with Jackie’s story.

People might want to know more as to why Yarra city council is doing so well. Jackie Fristacky has sent myself and David Hembrow, some more detail.

She says; There are a range of reasons why Yarra has a high cycling mode share.

Cr Jackie M Fristacky
Councillor for Nicholls Ward, City of Yarra
jackie.fristacky@yarracity.vic.gov.au
Phone: 0412 597 794

And here’s a companion story, another busy professional who, not only uses a bike on the job but, like Jackie, has interesting ideas about how bikes can make our lives better.

This is Ian Charlton, The Doctor on a Bike. Seeing patients, Ian prefers to prescribe a bike than a pill.

Indeed, Ian believes that if we were to increase our exercise through cycling and walking, we could get off those lifestyle pills so many us now take.

He’s got me off. A year ago I was taking six pills. Now, I take one.

P.S The three men in suits are actually Montreal council people riding the new Bixi bikes around that city. Montreal is a case of city council making a huge difference in the cycling culture of a city.

A movie for Australian cyclists.

I’ve had this little film The Waltz of the Bikes in mind ever since I looked through the one tape that Violeta sent me of a sunny day’s shooting on the streets of Amsterdam.

I’d asked her to just watch bikes, the variety of riders, the flow and curve of them. But nothing prepared me for the ballet she sent me on the tiny tape.

I knew that these were the perfect images to prompt you to see yourself on such bikes, but how to do them justice?

Since then, about two months ago, I’ve been nibbling at the footage, using a few shots here and there, mustering my courage to do justice to the whole feast. The best use so far was probably in;Talking to David Hembrow

Usually, I rely on a strong story telling voice to pull you into my short offerings, but this time I knew it had to be music, and music which would make the pictures dance.

Then, The Blue Danube came to me, and I began playing the images in my head to the music but cutting nothing, fearing it would not work as my imagining said it must.

Also, I was fearing it would not build, but just be more of the same, round and round like a wheel.

Then finally, yesterday, wedged between Xmas and new year, the sky pouring unseasonable rain on us, I began The Waltz of the Bikes. Cutting, showing it to Katya and cutting some more.

Try this Vimeo version first. The YouTube upload (below) is stopping as starting.

The Waltz of the Bikes from mike rubbo on Vimeo.

…………………..

Violeta Brana-Lafourcade has not seen her material so shaped as yet, she is off with her family on a boat, but I am happy. Indeed, I look at the waltz again and again.

It has always fascinated me how disparate shots can hint at stories in the lives of people I’ll never meet, who may never know they were filmed.

The women chatting, two pairs, two conversations, glimpsed and gone.

The two guys with guitars, one like a gun turret on a pocket battleship, the other, an unwieldy parcel.

The couple dinking, he riding and she on the back in her turquoise skirt.

But then she parks the bike, clearly hers. The shot continues beyond what you see, as they unlock a shop, maybe it was theirs.

There’s the mum who gives into buying an ice-cream for her blonded pillion rider, her son for sure.

Long legs texting who?.

The men in power clothes, one cresting, and the tiny white dog who zips past, used to riding in the basket.

The grumpy look of the pink shirted man is good too, for surely all is not fine just because the sun is shining in the city of canals.

Towards the end had to come the father and his moppet. She’s in her baby shades, waiting as he secures the cargo bike, the family SUV.

Behind, if you look closely, two men eye a poster of another man, a naked torso.

The last flurry of the music, ( two minutes of the waltz are cut out under the jingle of a bell) just had to go with the flurry of the hurrying woman’s summer dress.

Then the way for the power glide of a rather imposing personage in white, down the long leafy canal.

If any of these riders see this, thank you, and if you contact me, there’s DVD for you.

Meanwhile, the message for Australia is this; let’s at least admit to ourselves that this is how riding in a city, even our city, could be.

It could leisurely too, the Dutch are no less happy no less prosperous for taking their travel slowly.

And it could be, without the danger gear that more and more we wear, the helmets and the day-glo vests, confessing we are in hostile territory. Why should it be here and not there?

If we slowed our traffic, if we impressed on motorists that if they hit something smaller than themselves, they are to blame (that’s the Dutch rule) and if we ride regally like this, seeing and been seen, then this waltz could be us as well.

But then, we’d have to celebrate that we do want this and not always and only the cultish adversarial side of cycling, as is now the case, the glorying in the fight.

(“Share the road, Damn you!” reads a T shirt in Canada infected with the same virus)

(sharethedamnroad.com)

Racing, speed, the high performance bikes which cost a fortune, the Tour De Francing, all of that is fun, challenging and noble in it’s own way.

But it’s no longer the whole story. Ad it should not take all the oxygen to leave this other possibility, this simpler more join-able biking stifled, breathless, marginal.

When, Australian Cyclist recently wrote about Copenhagen as Pedal Paradise, which is very true, they primarily interviewed Mikael Colville-Andersen

He’s the writer of the famous blogs, Copenhagenize.com and Copenhagen cycle chic.

(Ezra Shaw)

You’ve perhaps met Mikael here, for Violeta filmed him too, (The Guy from Cycle Chic and; Talking to Mikael).

Robin Barton of Australian Cyclist was right to pick Mikael to talk to, but it was not so fine to reduce his famous photos of beauty on the bike to almost thumbnails.

All the beauty of the those famous photos in Copenhangen Cycle chic was lost, and moreover, you’d have to look very closely to see no one was wearing helmets.

(Australian Cyclist, Jan. Feb. 2010)

Now these are the sort of photos for which Copenhagen Cycle Chic is famous. (see more in;The Guy from cycle chic)

May we not see them?

There is something going on here, something a bit awkward.

How about we get over our helmet modesty, as if to show rider fully un-helmeted was to show them nude.

I have been reading Australian Cyclist for only a year but I have yet to see a photo of a gloriously un-helmed rider. Might it might put ideas in our heads? Is that the worry?

It’s always pics like this. Now I’m sure these ladies love their lids, but how about not shying away from the rest of the world?

(Australian cyclist)

Whilst helmets might have seemed like a good idea here at the time, virtually no one has followed our lead overseas, in making them compulsory for adults, and and some of those places which have, are now in second thoughts.. (See Israel below ) for adults,

People like Milkael have very strong opinions as to how counter productive helmets are.

It is not right to make him the core of an article in Australian Cyclist and avoid his views , passing over the dramatic lack of helmets there with this offhand remark: “with cyclists feeling so safe on the streets, so safe in fact that most don’t wear helmets…”

The truth to report to that is that Mikael is very disappointed and frustrated that official bodies in Denmark have been using a fear campaign to provoke helmet use in a country where before there was none, and that that fear campaign is working somewhat, to the detriment of cycling. So he feels.

(German helmet promotion)

For as is proven again and again, when you push fear to sell helmets, you do sell helmets, but you also convince many people to stop riding.

As Mikael ends the second video he did for me, (Talking to Mikael) he said;

It’s no coincidence that since Australian put it’s helmet laws into effect ….

…they have actually become the world’s fattest country, a higher percentage of obese people than even America has.

So, you can either promote helmets and kill off cycling, or promote cycling and reap the health benefits, and extend the lives of your citizens. You have the choice but you can’t do both. “

Dr. Ian Charlton said the same thing in…. Doctor on a bike

The Australian Cyclist can disagree with that polarity, but it should report what the man, the most respected blogger on cycling in the world, believes.

As for Israel. They brought in compulsory helmets for adult cyclists just a a year ago.

Now, they are having second thoughts. Why?

(photo borrowed from Copenhangenize.com)

It’s nothing to do with the fact that helmets actually offer very little protection, and in some circumstances, are actually dangerous in that they can result in brain damage through twisting shock.

No, it’s for other unexpected, reasons which might just provoke a rethink here as well.

The big news, the sensation in urban biking is how bike share schemes like the Velibs in Paris and the Bixis in Montreal are sweeping the world.

Cities, their citizens, and their visitors, love the the easy access bikes scattered all over the city, bikes which you don’t have to own or store, but just use and leave.

(My friend, James Schwartz on a Bixi)

The success of Bike Share is massive , despite vandalism….

….as it benefits each host city in terms of less traffic , less greenhouse gasses and the upward tourist dollar. becomes more and more irresistable.

But Tel Aviv quickly realized that that the 2000 bikes slated for that city, can’t be deployed because of their new helmet law.

They’d made themselves a catch 22, since there is no way to dispense a tested, sanitized helmet on the street, along with the bike.

Here is what Mikael has just reported on his blog, Copenhagenize.com, reporting Israeli sources.

The bill, sponsored by MK Sheli Yehimovich (Labor) repeals part of the Helmet Law which was passed last year.

Moreover, the law is unenforceable and the police have said they do not plan to even attempt to enforce it,” she added.

Mikael ends. “The bill hasn’t passed just yet. There are three votes in the Knesset to come. Nevertheless there are signs that rationality is returning to our species.”

Over to us in Australia. We are aware of the problem as; Bike Share and helmets dont mix? discovered.

But what will we do to enable the Waltz of the Bixis?

By the way did Waltz, leave unanswered questions in your mind? Well maybe Michael Bauch can answer them for you.

Australian cycling, a mono culture. Let’s expand horizons.

There are some great bike blogs in this world, and it’s on these blogs that the best information is being exchanged, good stuff about how to grow urban cycling in our needy times.

Needy from a public health point of view, (we are a very fat nation, Australia) and needy from a climate change point of view. We are a spendthrift nation, too.

Our carbon footprint, each of us, is over 20 tons. We go everywhere in our cars, even the shortest trip has us reaching for the keys.

I say that our cars are not a life style choice as we suppose, but a lifesteal choice. Each unnecessary trip in a car steals an exercise opportunity

Many blogs contribute to this semi underground debate on urban biking Two have come to fascinate me.

Those of Mikael Colville-Andersen in Copenhagen, (copenhagninze.com) and that of David Hembrow in Holland. (A view from the cycle path)

David is actually a Brit. who moved to the Netherlands with his family for the better bike infrastructure, which he now enjoys and makes wicker bike baskets too.

If David has a fault, it’s his constant posting of the Dutch as such paragons of bike lane building, etc. It makes you just feel like giving up in a country like Australia.

I’ve told David this, but he can’t stop. How could you in a country with 29,000 kms. of cycle paths? It’s sickening.

Anyway, my wish is to interview all the great bike bloggers of the world. With no grants, that’s a probably an impossible dream.

In the meantime, I’ve been using a young videographer, Violeta Brana-Lafourcade, who’s super economical, to go places for me, and to film interviews, which she’s done with flair.

Two with Mikael have already been posted. The Guy from Cycle Chic and; Talking to Mikael.

Now, here’s what Violeta sent me on David Hembrow. I hope you like; Talking to David Henbrow. Do leave a comment. It’s mainly about Sit-up bikes which I see as the key to change here.

Thousand will say the type of bike does not matter much, but are they right? Here’s David.

After, making this film, I sent to it David Hembrow with a question which I would have liked Violeta to ask him if I’d thought of it before her visit.

David, Do you think that the sit-up bike sets up a different
“conversation” with other road users as compared with the bent over position favored here?

I think the sit-up is friendlier, that one can make eye contact more easily, and that it’s more apt to be friendly.

That is why I’m pushing hard for people here to think about this posture as not only as safer and more comfortable, but as sending a different message, creating a different climate on the roads. What do think?

David has just replied.

Mike, I think the sit up position is a little more friendly, but it’s only a
part of the difference between cycling in the Netherlands vs. elsewhere.

David.

> mike

Where to go with Australian urban cycling?

This is our second interview with Mikael Colville-Andersen.

I asked my friend, Violeta Brana Lafourcade, a videographer, to go to Copenhagen to see if she could get an interview with the famous Danish blogger. See his blog

Here’s Violeta

Photo by Julio Martínez Aniceto

Interestingly, Mikael got chided for his stylish glasses in the previous movie Violeta and I posted of him. The Guy from Cycle Chic.

This is the  first film with Mikael. The second, Talking with Mikael,  is below

Violeta seems to like equally fashionable specs. But she was only glimpsed in our first movie, no charming glasses visible, and so copped no heat.

I think they both look great, personally.

I was excoriated too in that review. My narration style was described as coming from to a sort of “leering guy”

You’ll note, there’s no narration in this movie. Just a co incidence, I assure you!

Mikael says things here which can be useful to those of us fighting battles for better urban cycling in far worse conditions than Copenhagen.

He offers telling arguments to use on politicians, and pays compliments to the humour with which the Dutch promote their superb cycling culture.

You’ll see a thanks to David Hembrow, whose blog, View from the Cycle path, is a wealth of information about what makes Dutch bike culture so effective and safe, Infrastructure, says David..

Here’s David on a bike path near Assen where he lives.This pic best sells the joys of sit-up cycling, the theme of this blog.

Mikael ends the film clip on a theme with which David would completely agree, the foolishness of heavy helmet promotion.

Helmet laws tend to allow disinterested Governments to stay away from where the real cycle safety is (abeit expensively) and that’s under the wheels, not on the head.

The sooner we can get our elected officials over their helmetoid fixatis, the better.

In Holland , there’s not a helmet in sight on anyone, even on kids, and yet the cycle injury rate is the lowest in the world.

Denmark by contrast, is creeping into helmet land, something Mikael feels is a mistake

Picking up on what Mikael says, We should offer a deal to our Australian politicians , a deal and a challenge.

You build the bike ways, preferably separated, and we’ll make sure they are ridden to achieve the savings Mikael identifies.

Moreover, we’ll reduce the 58 billion you’ll spend on obesity each year.

Lastly, the fiasco at Copenahagen shows that climate change can’t be achieved top down.

As James Schwartz aptly put it on his blog, Urban Country in a Canadian image, you have the captain of the hockey team making decisions, calling plays, but it’s the guys on the ice who make the game.

We are the guys on the ice. Climate change happens or doesn’t happen because of us.

There is no better way to engage a population in the drama, the crisis of climate change , than to start with their transport habits.

As we all know from our personal lives, so much transport is pure restlessness, that endless searching, foraging, which characterizes us humans.

Place the bike front and center, with pleasant paths to ride on, and it will be astonishing how that restlessness gets soaked up in moving around in the most pleasant and healthy way.

Once, in days past people strolled the boulevards to see and be seen, to take the air, to exercise, rain or shine. (painting by Gustave Caillebotte)

Then, came the car. For a while it was open and people still waved, had the wind in their faces, were part of the scene.

But cars became faster and more enclosed, the emphasis shifted to the machine and not the people.

Waving and greeting, the admiring pause, the word or two, all were gone.

Bring back the bike not just for utility, but as the vehicle of the promenade, and so much will be better. You’ll see!

……………………………..

I’ve just been down to Melbourne to make a film which will be called; Councillor on a bike.

You seemed to like Doctor on a Bike, and so when I saw Councillor Jackie Fristacky in action at a Bike Futures Conference recently, I thought, there’s a lady worth a movie.

She rides a bike of course, her main way of getting around the City of Yarra where she used to be mayor, and is now councillor.

Here, I’m trying to keep up with her as she dashes cross -country to a meeting. I’m shooting, hand held, from my own bike whose front tyre is about to go flat.

Her’s is a municipality which has the highest bike usage by people going to work of any place in Australia, a pretty amazing 9%

This success in getting people to ride bikes as transport is not all due to Jackie of course, but she has been a driving force.

I hope you’ll find the way she’s promoting urban cycling, is, well, inspirational. I did.

And she’s doing so in a nation which is a tough nut to crack when it comes to getting people out of their cars and onto two wheels,

This trip to Melbourne had it’s awful moments. Much as I love taking this Countrylink train which ambles across the land at a lovely leisurely speed, I hate having to take my bike apart to get it on board with me, and this I had to do on the way back to Sydney, always have to do, in fact.

Yes, in what must be just about world’s worst practice, they make you disassemble your bike and box it. Here’s a trembling pic of my bike in pieces, trembling with fury, that is.

Every time I do it, there’s something wrong with the bike afterwards

I hope to have Jackie’s film cut this week.

In the meantime, I’ll tell you of my stop over in Kiama on the way home, where I attended a seminar put in by weight loss Guru, Jon Gabriel. You’ve probably seen the before…

and after pics.

I was not initially there for the message, but rather to see how Jon worked the crowd, thinking I could learn something useful for promoting cycling.

But I was impressed enough by the message and the faith of his audience in his methods, he was very gentle with a lot of very fat people, that I stayed to believe somewhat, and, as well, to came away with something to apply to my bike story.

Basically, Jon argues that we gain weight because our bodies are protecting us from famines we’ve constantly experienced as a species way back in our pre history.

This famine threat is even now remembered and acted upon by our animal brains whether appropriate or not.

Diets thus can never work because they merely convince that animal brain that a new famine has indeed arrived, and everything must be done, not only to keep the weight, but to add to it.

Your only hope is to get a message through to this Nervous Nellie animal brain of yours , that, Hey, it’s OK, brain! There’s no famine. Loosen and lighten up too!.

How do you communicate with this primitive part of yourself? By firmly visualizing how you want the animal brain to see you, and then let it then act accordingly to make that image come true.

Exercise, he stressed, is of course good, but atypically, he recommends having short sharp bursts of extreme effort, sprinkled into your routine.

Why? Because this replicates flight from predators, he argues, telling the animal brain that it’s time to flee, that it’s good to be able to run fast, ride fast, etc.

Flee or be eaten, animal brain!

So now, I’ll plan my leisurely bike rides interspersed with sprints, just like Jon himself as he recounted when he out-rode a dog, intent on tearing out his heel tendon.

He spoke further of visualization techniques. For that audience of course, it was in terms of seeing themselves as their once slender selves.

But I suddenly thought that maybe I could use that same idea to promote urban cycling.

Few Australians mentally picture themselves hopping on a bike to go to the shops.

Like a pop up ad on your computer screen, when you think shopping, a car image pops up, does it not? This car image blocks all other visualizations.

How to replace that pop-up car image with a bike? Firstly, a useful mantra. You car is not a lifestyle choice, but a lifesteal choice.

This is because every time you use that car when a bike would do, you steal an exercise opportunity from yourself.

You also put yourself on the path to those six pills a day in later years. (See the movie on this blog; Doctor on a bike)

The flipside manta is; A bike is a two wheeled gym

You can build your bike visualization using images from photographers who prove how beautiful and flattering cycling can be.

This is key since looking good is a core need for all of us. Photographers like Mikael Colville-Andersen and lars T. Danielsen give us a useful gift.

So, maybe we can get you to visualize yourself on one of those Danish bikes you see here. Try it!

Mikael Colville-Andersen has many more photos like this on his famous blog, Copenhagen Cycle Chic.

You are looking superb, as if the bike was just invented to show off a svelte human form like yours to the greatest advantage.

Visualize yourself as were your great grandmothers and grandfathers

Practice bike visualization. If you are not svelte yet, then you maybe prompted, in wanting to cycle, to make your own arrangements.

I’m not making a plug for the Gabriel method, by the way, and haven’t asked permission to use these photos of him.

Kiama , by the way, south of Sydney is a superb small town. Set on a beautiful bay and craggy coast, it has had the sense to keep some of it’s older stately buildings like the post office.

and this row of cottages.

On Manning street, I found a sculpture which strangely thrilled me. As I approached the curve of metal, (they call it the wave) I saw it was covered with etched writing, readable at some angles.

It turned out to be a tribute to a man called Joseph Weston (?), a town father, and journalist in the 19th century.

From what I could read, the text being a tribute by a friend of the period, Watson had been a very fine man, devoted to public service for his adopted town of Kiama. (He’d come from England on a sailing ship)

It made me think, this sculpture in it’s simplicity and beauty, of how important it is to celebrate people of modest honesty, unlike the crooks who so often slither into power these days and on whom so much ink is spilled.

The artist , I remember the name, Vivienne Lowe, so impressed I was

By the way, I must thank James Schwartz for all the help he’s given me, unstintingly, to change this blog over from one that no one could find to what it now is, delightfully findable.

James blogs from Toronto under the name, Urban Country, I have a link on the side.

I happened to use a photo sourced from Google photos of James on a Bike-Share bike, in Montreal, I think. James got in touch and since then, we’ve shared ideas and he’s helped me a lot. Here’s the photo I used by chance.

James has just told me that he was in Montreal with just the clothes of his back, pretty much. He’d canoed there from Toronto, which has to be around 600 kms. Phew!

http://www.theurbancountry.com/2009/07/toronto-to-montreal-kayak-adventure.html

Soon, he’ll go to Montreal again to get an assessment of how well the Bixi Bike share scheme did during it first summer.

And, oh yes, this parrot lives in Kiama. He’s not aware, it seems, that he’d look much better on a bike.

Your thoughts are much appreciated. Comments are easy to leave and can be incognito of course. Mike Rubbo

I’ve just finished editing the film you find below. A young filmmaker friend of mine, Violeta Brana-Lafourcade went to Copenhagen recently to interview for this blog, the famous Mikael Colville-Andersen.

Mikael is a film maker by background whose life, chance has turned in a different direction.

The uploading of a photo of his several years ago onto Flicker, a mysterious snap of a long skirted biker in high heels (she was waiting for the lights to change) catapulted him into a a new life.

The wild response prompted the creation of the blog, Copenhagen Cycle Chic, dedicated to the discovery that not only are bikes beautiful, but they present those who ride them as very beautiful as well.

Whilst the word, Chic, suggests fashion, even the fashion industry, catwalks, etc. Mikael’s observed cycle world is peopled by riders who wear their own clothes, who are not posing, who are unselfconscious in their gliding beauty.

There is no promotion of special cycling clothes here, indeed his cycle chic is all about avoiding the the usual uniforms of cycling, the tight lycra, the space age helmets.

It’s all, by contrast, about just getting on a bike, any old bike, and just riding it because that’s the the most sensible way to get from A to B. The attractiveness is the byproduct.

As my blog name suggests, I put special emphasis on the type of bike one rides, the sit-up bike and the posture it produces.

It’s no accident that almost every photo on Cycle chic has its rider proudly and serenely upright as if to say, I’m at the peak of this way of being, and I’ve nothing to do with cyclists hunched over their machines for speed.

Cycling is a broad church, everyone keeps reminding me. True enough, but here in Australia, the congregation has warped itself a certain way, and I find nothing wrong with suggesting some balance.

It so happens that this coincides with the bursting on the scene of a video from Britain which explores beauty on bikes. It’s release is imminent

We have only seen the trailer of Beauty and the Bike, as yet but everyone is rightly tantalized. Here it is.

I plan to explore this same theme here; why are young women not riding bikes?

On a smaller scale, but following the same idea, I hope to recruit a group of young women, probably around 15-16, who’ve never been interested in using bikes for transport, and find out why.

Then, having nailed down the reasons for their disinterest, we’ll get them on some stately sit-up bikes, dressed as they want to be seen, and we’ll have them riding around, savoring this new experience, and seeing if their attitudes change.

We will have a problem, Jill Charlton and I, which the British film makers did not have.

There, the girls could legally ride without helmets. Since helmets, we predict will turn out to be part of the problem, my daughter recently got on a bike after many years when I stopped the helmet nagging…..

….we’ll have to find a way to have our girls ride hair free as well.

Anticipating that problem, we’ll find an off road location which looks like normal streets, but to which the helmet law does not apply, probably the grounds of a University. There, we’ll do our test rides.

Anyone who’d like to help with this project, please contact this blog.

And if you think we’re thus promoting dangerous behavior, consider that the safest cycling takes place in those countries with the least helmet use, a paradox which it takes some time to delve, but which deserves debate it has yet to get.

See another film on this blog; Doctor on a Bike

See also the films on the charming Sue Abbott, who has chosen to confront the law.

If you looked at our recent film, Doctor on a bike, you might have noticed that it ended with a women, a mother of two young girls, riding on a famous sort of cargo bike invented in Copenhagen, called a Christiania.

Christiania rider in Copenhagen from mike rubbo on Vimeo.

Here’s a Youtube version. Some people have trouble with Vimeo

By the way, here’s one of my favorite cargo bike photos from Copenhagenize.com.

I like the composed elegance, and the suggestion of a conversation between propulsion and purpose, the kid turning back towards the driver.

Australian doctor prescribes bikes for obesity

Dr. Ian Charlton and I made this film over the weekend.

Last Saturday, I happened on a wonderful community market at MacMasters beach.

A lady at the fish shop had told me about it, and remembering what a charming spot it is,  with its  modest little community hall, we  could not resist going along, Katya and I,  and me taking my E bike with me.

Here’s  the view down on the little hall from the road.

Can anyone imagine a scene more charming than this?  Or how about looking  back at the stalls in the trees?

Ah, the delight of dappled light on a sunny Saturday morning, with nice people all around.   Of course the lady who’d done a bike painting caught my eye first.

She had placed it in front of the Wagstaff hall in her picture,  (the nicest community hall on the Central Coast) but had seen the bike elsewhere, just the sort of bike I favor, sit-ups. Well painted too, no?

Katya was off looking at books which I never got round to doing,  and buying jams.

I had a mission of sorts.  I set up my E bike under a tree in front of the Band,  and then went for a wander.

They was playing jaunty Dixiland stuff, just right for the time and place.

I have a  pod on the back of the bike, and in it , some pamphlets about this sort of E bike,  in case anyone was interested.

About this turquoise pod, hand made out of fiberglass, I like to say;  my car knows it place, on the back of the  bike!

My sign, lettered for the occasion,  makes  a bunch of modest claims about E bikes.

Soon,  a fella did stop for a sticky beak.   He turned out to be a bloke called Max, from Sydney who has a relative living up here.

A marvelous  Saturday morning type of chap, was Max! He went for a wobbly  ride whilst I wandered around.

I had to explain I was not  selling electric bikes,  just an enthusiastic advocate.

Here’s these bikes in action and me tricked into a stunt.

What a typical Aussie posture,  I thought,  that bloke there,  talking to the Sheila . Make a good painting,  they would,  half listening to the Dixieland but in their own world too

She turned out to be his Missus. More about them later.

Then,  there was the little girl who was wondering how the Wheel of Fortune worked. Having fun spinning the lucky mermaid.

And the dapper bloke who’s  painting was good for a laugh. He was fun.

He called it; Grandma’s last smoke, It showed  an unrepentant Gran enjoying a last puff before she kicks the bucket.

The smell of sizzling sausages filled the air as they usually do on such occasions, but ,  happily,  we were both able to resist  them

I met a nice old bloke who’s look intrigued me, a bushie type,  he seemed.

His name is  Les Waddington, he’s 88, and he’d  just bought a painting from the lady who did the bike.

Les, it tuned out,  much admired my beloved Uncle, Francis Sutton, the environmentalist who died this year at 97 . Here’s dear old Frankie Boy

Francis was way ahead of his time, proposing in the early seventies,  that we shouldn’t be wasting our sewerage by piping it into the sea .

I made a film about him called: The Man Who Can’t Stop, and f0llowed his story as  saving water  became a lifelong challenge for him.

Thinking of Francis,  who Katya and I both loved so dearly, and then meeting a stranger, Les, who’d admired him  too, was a strange thrill of  the six degrees type.

Katya and I suddenly had this flash of being  suspended in a moment of perfect contentment, in our little world, so green, so tranquil.

Doesn’t  she look  contented?  And me, in my converted helmet?

We are realize how much we like things in moderation. How much we love funky little community halls like  MacMasters, stalls with not much on offer ,  just a patient little chap, waiting to be of assistance.

We went to see Mike Moore’s new film a few days ago, Capitalism, a Love Story.

Katya was shocked that we were the only two in the theatre. We both felt Mike nailed the greed behind so much capitalism,  very effectively.

Speaking of small, Nina’s little shop, is something to visit before Nina is gone. Sadly, she’s selling up. I made this movie last Xmas as an Xmas surprise for Nina.

Back to Mike Moore and Capitalism. I feel a theory coming on. I don’t think the “ism”  of capitalism is the core problem. As Katya said coming out, things were just as bad under the other big “ism ” communism,  when she was growing up in Moscow.

No,  our underlying human problem,  is our addiction  to excess. We adore excess,  even as we know it’s bad for us and the planet.

Excess is everywhere,  almost equally,  even though the US has for long been a sort of excess theme park,  and is both loved and hated for being just that.

But it’s  here too. The mainstream media live off  local excess, often the greed of some rascals  in the business world,  or Pollies on the take.

So, I’m hoping to get around to doing a Mike More type film  which will be about excess.

But by contrast, it will be and must be,  made for virtually nothing. Excess pinned to the mat by moderation, the the goal.

I might call it. Saving the world, The Cheap as Chips way. We’ll plunder the internet, youtube, etc.  to make this movie . They  will be our cornucopias , the excess we draw upon .

I was daydreaming as the jaunty music played on towards noon.

The squatting bloke, Ian,  is a horticulturalist,  he told me,  and his wife is  something to do with nature and balance.

We might do a small project together. I would like to see my bike burdened with  trees as a green delivery vehicle, for example.

Like those bikes which won the war  for the Vietnamese on the Ho Chi Minh trail, years ago. They are thinking about it.

Ian would provide the trees and I,  the bike.

The other exciting thing to come out of our morning  at MacMasters, was to hear from Barbara Wills about their dream of a building bike path south from MacMasters through the Buddi National Park.

How good would that be , eh?

And on shady bushland trails too!

I volunteered to make a film to promote their idea.

I’ve  walked the famous Abel Tasman  track at the top of the NZ’s  North Island a couple of years ago,  and wondered how come the Kiwis get all the foreign visitors,  when we have a coastline just as spectacular to offer?

And you know, what we both have to give, us Antipodeans is wild places. The bush, the sea,  and silence,  or gentle wave lap,  all of that is  never far way.

Now,  is this below, NZ or Aust?  You guess.

Bixis on Montreal

This post is some personal reminiscences about living in Montreal and my delight to discover the Bix bike share scheme which has been such a hit there this last summer.

BIXI: A New Way to Get Around Town in Montreal – Quebec, Cana… – More bloopers are a click away

Even though I lived in Montreal for a good part of my life, indeed from 1965 to 1995, I never thought of Montreal as a bike city, I have to say.

Some friends rode bikes in summer, Martin, Dorothy and Marie, for instance.

I took little notice, apart from a few nice glides along the Lachine canal on a Sunday or two. I cant even remember owning a bike though Katya says I did.

It was in Montreal that our Ellen was born

Montreal is an apartment city and many of the triplexes have steep exterior stairs.

Getting a bike up to your apt. especially in winter when those stars are slippery, is, let’s say, discouraging.

I also have to confess that, though my friend, Martin Duckworth told me on several occasions about Bicycle Bob, the amazing Bob Silverman, I paid little attention to that interesting character either.

Journalist Josh Freed, in a 2007 article, called Bicycle Bob the Johnny Appleseed of cycling.

Yet the American apple tree planter was less colorfully extreme, I suspect than Bob Silverman.

For example, in the 1970′s he and his guerilla band lay down one afternoon in a Montreal intersection in rush hour traffic, covered in ketchup blood, to protest the mayhem caused by cars on bikes and pedestrians .

On another occasion , Bicycle Bob dressed as Moses, tried to part the vast St Lawrence river which runs past the city, so that cyclists could escape the unfriendly (for bikes) island on which Montreal sits.

Bob must be getting on now, but also taking pleasure from what’s happening with bikes today, because, I guess, it all starts with him.

I miss Montreal, miss friends, the things I used to do and those I didn’t do also, like ride a bike.

I was busy making movies. It never occurred to me, when I writing the scripts for the family feature films I made with legendary producer, Rock Demers to make bikes a part of the plot, even though many of our characters did rush about on two wheels when they needed to.

Here are some of the faces from one of the movies which preoccupied me.

It pleases me a lot that these faces would be well remembered by the many Quebecers now riding on Bixis, (see below)

They are the stars of Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveler. In French it was; Les Adventuriers Du Timbre Perdu, and in both languages, a hit, even without bikes.

I saw no magic in bikes in those days. The young heroes we put on the screen, moved magically around the world in another way, on postage stamps, willing prisoners in the little pictures.

Tommy Tricker was our rascal.

So, it comes as a great surprise to me that Montreal is now one of the leading bike cities in the world. Indeed, probably the leader in north America though Portland, Oregon, has had that title for some time and still holds it in some respects.

Montreal now streaks ahead due to the brilliant street bike rental system it has created with a sit-and-beg type bike called; the Bixi.

5000 Bixis have just finished their first summer in the city. And, as if by magic, these sturdy but fun bikes, have rolled Montreal into a new reality.

(I don’t know who took these photos. Hope you don’t mind.)

The stats are impressive. Firstly, the whole shebang all was put together in record time

There have been approx. 400 pick up and drop off stations around the city. In some places, they are so numerous, that you can see one of the solar powered docking stations from another.

Apparently, the planners knew that the scheme wouldn’t work unless the bikes are literally everywhere and getting one, was seen as, “no problema ”

Bixi now has 8419 members. Those are the locals who’ve paid an annual fee and have unlimited access to the bikes.

Visitors swipe a credit card . For them, the first half hour is free, and many of the million borrowings this summer, were for a half hour or less, and so free. What an encouragement to try using a bike as transport, eh?

The name Bixi comes from putting bike and taxi together, and indeed, they are decongesting the city of both taxis and cars.

It’s impressive that these Bixis have kept almost a million kilos of green house gasses out of the atmosphere, according to their controllers.

This first season saw approximately 3.5 million kilometers ridden on Bixis.

It’s very weird for me to see these streets I know so well with this curious new public furniture on them.

What does it do to the head, I wonder, to have a constant visual reminder of this other way of getting around, not only reminder, but easy access as well.

Surely bikes, esp. these often derided sit-up bikes, have made a stratospheric leap in status?

No wonder that over 100 cities around the world have made inquiries, that London already has its 6000 Bixis. Boston is on the brink of getting 3000 , and Melbourne has just signed a contract for 600.

Hm, 600 only? Didn’t I read that these schemes won’ t work unless the bikes are everywhere?

Here’s a related movie made by the famous, Streetsblog, blog It’s a happy birthday to the mother-ship of bike share schemes, the Velib system in Paris.

20,000 or is it, 30,000 Velibs are now on Paris streets. This film also argues that you have to swamp a city with bikes for Bike Share to work.

Otherwise, it’s a novelty tourists might try out as an attraction, but no local would rely on. This film on Velibs addresses another mystery as well. How are these bikes paid for?

Why do locals love these systems? It’s a no brainer, actually.

Here’s a bike you don’t have to take care of. (Bikes do get punctures frequently you know, and those gears are always out of adjustment, aren’t they? )

Secondly, you don’t have to worry about it being stolen, the bike owner’s nightmare. Thirdly, you don’t have to carry it up all those stairs to your apartment, nor store it through a cold winter. It’s a dream situation .

A dream for vandals and the disaffected too, apparently, with 80% of Velibs already trashed and replaced.

Montreal has not had that problem… yet. Montrealers are immensely proud of their bikes and the new identity they bring to the city. They hope things won’t turn destructive like that, there.

The Bixis cost approx. $2000 each. That’s ten million dollars in bikes on the streets. Wow!

They are managed and paid for by the city, through Montreal’s parking authority, not by street advertising rights, as in Paris.

Andre Lavalle, the Montreal city politician behind the Bixi success, opined that the city parking people had the infrastructure and know-how to run this thing.

I should not have been surprised to hear that Montreal had become bike famous almost overnight because it’ s a city famous for its flair. When they do something, they do it with style.

I remember Expo ’67, the Worlds Fair which was predicted to be a flop so late it was in the building, and yet it was launched on time as one of the most thrilling displays of human creativity and good vibes, ever seen on the planet. That was Montreal at is best. It’s a summer I’ll never forget. I was working for the NFB, then.

Here’s the US pavilion at the famous fair, a Buckmaster Fuller dome.

Expo 67 was supposed only to last a summer, but so good was it, that the summer fair went on for years after as Terre des Hommes, with the temporary pavilions somehow lasting long past their use-by date.

So, Bixi is in that same tradition. It will be a great surprise if it turns out to be a passing fad.

All over the world cities are just getting on with Bike Share, not waiting for foreign experts, not agonizing, just doing it.

In this video, Spain, which does not have a strong bike culture, we see Bicing taking off in Barcelona.

Note the commentator reports that in one year, the number of cyclists has doubled. Many people are riding for the first time, and the city, hitherto almost without bike paths, is now building 160 kms. of them

He concludes, “we could wait 20 years or do it all in a shorter time.”

Australian cities wont be able to hold out for long against this seduction, the benefits are too compelling.

Indeed, Melbourne and Brisbane have signed small, cautious contracts, too small to work, say some experts.

But, as previous posts have pointed out, we are hamstrung by our very atypical helmet laws. You see no helmets in the Paris video, the Bixi material, nor on the Bicing users in Barcelona.

It first struck me how far behind we are, when I took a camera with a friend when cycling around Sydney one beautiful day, and saw only 6 other bikes in as many hours. Compare this with the Barcelona images.

I think bike share will be the truth teller for our helmets laws, a sort of touchtone. It may go like this.

I understand that only about 10% of Montreal rider wear helmets. If it turns out that even with the larger numbers on bikes in Montreal this last summer, (moreover riders who ere less experienced, plus tourists who didn’t know the city and it’s traffic)

If even with all of that, the injury rate is not significantly up on last year, then it will strongly suggest that our helmet laws, and the constant fear-based promotion of helmets, may have been bogeyman talk.

We shall see

Melbourne wants Bike share. It could change cycle culture in Australia .

It’s just been announced that a consortium made of the RACV, along with the  US company, ALTA,  has just won the contract to bring bike share to Australia for the first time.

Brisbane has recently signed a similar contract, that one with the French company,  J. C. Decaux.  Which city is up and running first, if either, will be a race to watch.

The winning RACV  bid plans to  put 600 public bikes into  the Melbourne inner city for easy public access on the swipe of a card or insertion of a membership tag.

The bikes  for Melbourne will be the BIXI model which has just had its  first very successful North American season.  5000 of  the sturdy sit-up BIXI bikes have been  on the streets of Montreal since the northern spring,  dispensed from numerous solar powered docking stations around the city.

For Melbourne though, now starts the hard part. I found out  from the winning company,   Alta,  presenting at the recent Bike Futures conference in Melbourne, that there’s a huge stumbling blog in the way.

Whilst there are now hundreds of bikes shares schemes  around the world, either up and running or in the planning stages,  there has never been one successfully set up in a country with compulsory helmet laws such as ours.

How to dispense helmets with these bikes, is a long way from being solved,   as my interviewees, candidly admit. For legal and health  reasons, helmets can’t be automatically dispensed along with the bikes.

Yet if they are not, the flexibility  which it the key to bike share success, is gone

You can see my exclusive investigation in the film below.

In my report, I call the bikes we may get, Mixis.  The Montreal name, Bixi, was decided through a public competition. It’s  a running together of the french word for bicycle and taxi.

Back to the helmet problem. A friend sent me this clip about a new folding helmet. It might be part of the solution, at least for the local bike share clientele.

By the way,  I do very much  like the elegance of slow riding that Mixis would bring to our cities.  

The slow bike movement started by Mikael Colville-Andersen of Copenhagenize.com, is a great idea.

I visited David Hembrow’s excellent blog,  (The View From the Cycle path. Link on the side)  to find this wonderful portrait of the  biking past, cycling  in Holland in the 50′s,  put together by Mark Wagenbuur.

Mark’s the one who also did another clip I borrowed, one which showed how up-straight people ride in Holland, and, as is clear from this video,  they did back then as well.

This is a film to just bathe in,  to  bask in the glide,  the beauty of bicycle movement, the serenity of such a life , much of which has been lost today,  outside of Holland.

I say, outside Holland,  because as David points out,  little has changed in the way people  get around there, even today. Enjoy it.

Electric bikes, part of cycling in Australia?

I’ve been riding an electric bike for about a year now. Indeed, I have two, each a slightly different system.

One is a hub motor and the other a crank motor.

If you are not riding to race or to train, I can’t see how these bikes can be called cheating.

In training, you could say you were cheating yourself out of a tougher workout, and if racing, that would only be interesting, electric against electric.

So, if getting around efficiently, avoiding gas pumps, and all without too much strain is your goal, I think they are great. I describe the ride as; effort without the pain.

Another way to to imagine the ride is to think of it as tandem. You are riding tandem with a small motor, the motor approx. doubling your effort.

So, maybe we can call E bikes, motor tandems and it’ll be clearer.

That said, how much advantage do they give over a regular bike?

Scott Dickason, who supplied my first bike (EVs is his company) asked me to film a test for him.

Here it is.

What I didn’t know, was that he was planning to test me too.

What is perhaps remarkable is that I’m doing well, and yet sitting upright in a supposedly inefficient posture.

The next test I’d like to do is to have Steve do the same hill on his road bike and then on a motor-less comfort bike, one about the same weight with the same number of gears.

I know the latter will be slower, but how much slower?

Scott wanted to pay me for making the film. I said, no, because I want to be free to recommend any bike I like, not just his. which I do think are pretty good.

Bike Share, part of expanded cycling in Australia?

All over the world, Bike share schemes are bursting out as many countries and cities jump on the bandwagon, all excited, amazed, by the 30,000 Velibs on the streets of Paris.

There were smaller bike-share programs before, many in France.

But it’s been the Velibs, paid for by providing bikes in exchange for city street advertising rights.

(You’ve seen those big photos on bus shelters for soft drinks etc? ) This barter scheme has led the way. And it was the clever French company, J.C. Decaux, which began the bushfire.

Here’s a line of Velibs, waiting to be rented.

From city to city in Europe, the bike- share machines come in a dizzying array of colors, but if you look closely, they all have one thing in common

Here’s a sample of the 6000 share bikes coming to London soon, to be dispensed from 400 docking stations.

You’ll swipe a card or use your mobile, and the bike is yours, usually free for the first half hour, and then a sliding scale upwards, after that.

And here are samples of the 450 bikes, just arrived on the streets of Dublin.

That’s a smallish number. How about 21, 000 share-bikes for Wuhan, China?

By now, you’ve certainly spotted this thing they have in common. For a last clue, check this bike from Avignon.

Yes, you got it! They are all unisex, sit-up straight bikes, as ridden by only …. 5% of Australian cyclists.
Yes, it’s not a posture we favor here.

What a shock it’s going to be to local riders, locked in what I call the beetle posture, to share the roads with tribes of up-straighters on share-bikes.

Just to remind you, here’s the preferred Aussie bike look.

It may be uncomfortable, inconvenient for commuting over shortish distances, but never mind, it’s ours and it’s reputedly faster!

Am I making too big a deal of posture?
All I can say is, try a bike like any of those chosen for bike share programs, and you’ll feel the difference. It’ll be heavier and more sluggish but oh so comfortable

But, anyway, will we ever see Bike-Share on our streets? Very doubtful. It won’t be for lack of examples to emulate, but because we’re saddled with our very own catch 22.

The list of cities starting up. or already going with bike share, is staggering.

Even parts of Europe, not known for urban cycling, and which don’t have good bike-ways etc. like Spain, are going great guns.

Here’s a Barcelona rack

And here’s a charming lower end offering in little Girona.

Why aren’t we getting into bike-share bigtime? Well, we are, apparently.

Brisbane City Council has signed a contract with J.C. Decaux, the same company which set up the Paris system, and is all set to bring the magic to Brissie, or are they?

And Melbourne is about to sign a contract for 600 bikes, spread around the CBD as well. Two companies vie the build the system, I’m told

So why am I skeptical? What’s the catch 22?

All those European cities, and the ones in the US which I’ve yet to mention, like Boston and Washington D.C, all have one huge advantage over us.

For some strange reason, they all agree that adults should be allowed to choose whether to wear helmets or not.

I know it sounds like madness to actually allow adults to make such a decision for themselves, when we know they’ll probably not wear the things if they do have a choice

Indeed, it’s quite shocking, when traveling in Europe, to see that most people don’t wear helmets, and seem to be blissfully unaware of the mortal danger they are in.

………….

More shocking still, the authorities in these places, just don’t seem to care about the safety of their cycling public.

Well our Governments, and it was the Federal Government which bullied the States into adopting compulsory helmets in the early nineties, do seem to care.

I hope they still care enough to do a bit of cost/benefit analysis on the problem I’m raising, the catch 22.

Imagine this scenario. You are a tourist, just arrived in Melbourne from say, Germany.

You ride a bike at home in Frankfort, and feel that nothing would be nicer than exploring this fine city with it’s many wonderful bike-ways, it’s river rides, all on a local bike.

Ah, there they are, a docking station well stocked with, we’ll call them, Mixis.

So you swipe your card and a voice from the bike stand, welcomes you to Mixi’s Melbourne.

The voice next advises that you can’t ride the bike in hand without a helmet, and if you do so, you’ll be prosecuted.

Unfortunately, there’s no way to dispense a helmet to the customer along with the bike, the voice regrets.

Helmets have to be hand fitted, and must be sterile. You are instructed therefore to proceed to a nearby human staffed, helmetorium.

You are warned that you must of course push the bike to that helmetorium.

You’ll have a number of location choices, public libraries, council offices, and some bike shops. Whether you’ll rent the helmet or buy it, is till unclear.

If it’s a public holiday, and all of the above are closed, you will be able to return the bike without payment .

That is, as long as you’ve filled out an explanatory form, detailing your search, which you need to stuff into the slot provided.

If you do find a helmet, and if you don’t mind wearing it, given that you don’t wear one at home, the same steps must be repeated when returning the bike.

Am I alone in thinking that all of this is a problem? .

Of course if you are a local and a paid up member of the Mixi club, you will have been provided with your own specially emblazoned Mixi helmet, at a very reasonable cost.

So, as long as you carry it with you on all those occasions when you think you might need to Mixi, you’ll be fine.

Though one wonders, if you are prepared to carry a helmet with you so frequently, why you are not riding your own bike?

I mean, surely these schemes work best for casual impulse renters who will be helmet-less, tourists and some who missed a train,

Don’t get me wrong. I think bike-share is essential for Australia and will do much good.

Bike share will persuade people who would never ordinarily ride a bike as transport, that it’s possible, fun, and not as dangerous as they thought.

Bike share will also persuade both new riders and old, that the sit-up straight position is a great way to commute.

A test ride on a Mixi will convince almost anyone them that being upright is safer, that you see better and are seen better. Even that, up straight, you are less likely to get into road rage situations with drivers.

Why? because you are, frankly, less annoying to the traffic than the hunched over rider. This is helped by eye contact being easier to make.

You might even take to waving to passing traffic, as does our rebel, Sue Abbott, who you should look up if you have not already seen her movies on this blog. Yes, Sue waves a lot.

So for all those reasons, plus the fact that many such share-bikes in our cities would calm traffic, save on fuel, reduce greenhouse gasses, and cut our obesity levels, all of that, we must have them.

But how? Maybe I’m missing something. Maybe there is some magic way to have the rental bike and helmet dispensed together, because if they are not, it surely cant work.

I do think that Sue’s protest against helmets, whilst it has nothing to do with their being a spoiler for bike share, is very timely because it’s necessary that we have this debate.

Sue is consistent in her opposition, by the way. Here she is 22 years ago on a Canberra rental bike of the period.

And here she is, helmet-less today.

Sue today.

Why cant adults be trusted to make up their on minds on helmets? Is this not the Nanny state gone mad?

Why is it that I don’t have to wear water wings when I swim, and yet about 6 times as many people drown each year as are killed on bikes?

Rugby players seem to be in a continuous state of concussion and yet they don’t wear helmets.

Why is it that this particular activity, cycling, one which can really change our lives for the better, unclog our streets, bring down our epidemic levels of obesity , reduce our per capita carbon footprint (ours is the largest in the world. 20 tons for each of us) why is it singled out?

I’m not into conspiracy theories that much, but is this the car lobby in action? It is curious that cars get so much money, are constantly bailed out, whereas bikes and their needs are little funded

When the helmet law came in, the Government was in fact shoving the responsibility for safety on to the heads of cyclists, whereas true safety is under the wheels.

But that cost money and helmets don’t.not to the Govt. at least

You have to wonder, don’t you?

Here’s Barak Obama without a helmet.

Barak, can you have a talk with Kevin Rudd about this in Copenhagen so you can both agree in what to do?

The photos I’ve used have come from an excellent US blog, The Bike Share blog,.

Also lso from Copenhagenize.com, a Danish blog which has done more than any other to raise the helmet question.

I end by saying, I wear a helmet. I love my helmet, (mostly for sunshade reasons) but I want to have the choice to wear it or not.

Have you been waiting to find out what happened to Sue in Scone?

Well, here’s how the day went as she faced court for not wearing her helmet.

As i said in the movie, I myself do wear a bike helmet. I actually like my helmet…

……. the way I’ve modified it, but I want to be able to decide myself whether I wear it or not.

What’s your opinion.

By the way, when I said in the movie that virtually no country has followed Australia’s lead with helmets, that is not try with helmets for your riders.

They seem to be virtually universal, except in those countries, especially in Europe, where governments have worked very hard to make cycling safe for all ages, Holland and Denmark, for example, amongst others.

David Hembrow’s marvelous blog, The View from the Cycle Path, is written from an English perspective.

But it comes from the heart of Holland, where David now lives, and is a superb source of sensible info as to what actually works when you have a society, like Holland, truly committed to safe and pleasant biking around.

It’s peer, I find is Mikael’s Colville-Andersen’s marvelous , blog, Copenhagenize.com. There are links to both blogs on the side, here.

David recently put up a video clip which, while lacking in storyline (something I obsess about) and snappy editing, is still quite hypnotic.

What you see is nothing but bike traffic, from the station of a town, a place called, Hertogenbosch.

The camera was set up by Mark Wegenbuur who resides there, I guess. What Mark gets is a lovely flow of unhurried cyclists, going where they need to go. None seem to notice the camera.

What fascinated me was that, in the two minutes running time, I didn’t see a single hunched-over Dutch cyclist, the default posture in Australia.

The posture was dramatically on show this sunny Sunday morning as I attended the start of a huge cycle ride through Sydney, organized by the city and Bicycle NSW .

I saw many thousands of cyclists, all eager to start off, bunched together in hundreds to be sent off in waves (I’ll post a video soon)

http://www.springcycle.com.au/

Few riders would have guessed that I was checking their postures closely.

Here are some of the latecomers. Of the many thousands, I saw only one bike with handlebars curved back, the rider upright, as is every rider in the Dutch video.

The rest, 10,000 perhaps, were all to varying degrees, hunched over.

I can’t, as yet, find anyone discussing posture, asking the legitimate question, is this the way we should be riding?

Riding a bike is a sort of conversation with the world around you. If you are hunched over, looking at your front wheel for much of the time, what sort of dialogue is that?

In that position, do you encourage those who see you, motorists, pedestrians, to take up cycling, or do you telegraph a sort of fixated lonely purpose, getting somewhere at speed.

Is it not a cocoon posture, not as closed off as that of a motorist, but closed to some degree?

Imagine if you walked down the street, bent forward, head half raised. What sort of message would that send to those you passed on the pavement?

A, ‘leave me alone,’ message perhaps.

If you think I exaggerate, here’s the alternative, David Hembrow (View from the cycle path) fully interacting with a fellow rider nearby.

Would you not be tempted wave to this guy, even shout a greeting about the ride, the day?

More so at least than to these riders, surely! Would it be a bad thing if cycling, off the race circuit, became less about speed and more about friendliness?

Maybe it’s a cultural thing. Maybe it does come from the strength of sports cycling here, so that even non racers are copy catting.

It’s a debate we need to have since it might help bring in a new type of cyclist, the sort of people who are trying the Velibs in Paris or the Bixis in Montreal

It might be better for our riding health as well, to think more about posture

My partner in bike interest, Dr Ian Charlton, tells me of a local physiotherapist, treating in a rider with some of the various common cycling pains, the crick in the neck, the sore wrists and the lower back problems, and who suggested to the woman that she give up riding.

He didn’t apparently know that there’s an easy solution to getting rid of those ills, sitting up straight like all the riders in Mark’s video.

Some of the riders at the Spring meet claimed that the Hunch-over position provides less wind resistance, seemingly a good point.

I wonder how true it is since countries with ferocious head winds, like Denmark and Holland, both favor the upright posture.

Anyway, it’s something I want to look into soon.

Thanks, Mark and David too, for the video.

This movie doesn’t really belong on the blog in that it’s not primarily about bikes.

At first, later that day, I posted the clip just as stunning images, but then my friend, David Bradbury got me thinking about what we’d seen and what it could mean, and so I re-cut and re-titled the clip. We Play With Fire.

It felt a bit like a situation I found myself in 1973, making a film in Cuba, supposedly doing an interview with Fidel Castro, waiting and waiting but Fidel never Turing up. That was called simply, Waiting For Fidel.

Every Kilometer of Bike-way built, is a delete for Green house gas emissions, once built, that is.

The result is that the kids I know today, have no interest in nature, the bush, whilst I love everything wild, and did make it through.

My friend, Bruce and I, have got into the pleasant habit of riding our bikes around Sydney.

Since both of us are sort of retired, we do this on weekdays, wandering wherever we like, sometimes up to 40 kms.

Since my bike is power assisted, and and his is not, I’m supposed to wait. But sometimes I forget how hard it might be for Bruce to get up a hill.

Last week, we filmed our ride and and, in order to make it a bit different, a bit special, we gave ourselves a task.

We decided to count the number of other bikes we saw, and even perhaps count the various types, though we somehow forgot about that. You’ll see why.

Here’s the movie. It’s funnier than I expected it to be, not always intentionally.

I think it’s really quite tragic that this spectacular city, on that beautiful day, was empty of bikes.

As you see, even though the facilities for bikes are very poor, there are wonderful places for wheelie wandering, and one just naturally wants to share them with the world.

Going to Tourist info web sites, I made a rough calculation that there were probably about 50,000 visitors in Sydney that day, and as far as we could see, not one on a bike.

What a loss both for them and the city.

You read about the great success of the Velibs in Paris over 20,000 bikes available on the streets with just a swipe of a card.

These handsome machines are not just for tourists, but locals too. The first half hour is free, encouraging the quick ride and leave.

Many other cities in Europe and North America are getting on the street bike bandwagon, Montreal, for instance, with Toronto soon to follow.

Here are some Montreal Bixi’s, a delectable name they came up with through a public competition

From a tourist point of view, they are all cheap transportation which allows the exploration of out of the way nooks, such as you see Bruce and I discovering in Sydney on our ride, a very nookish city.

From a revenue point of view, they are great too because the spread the tourist dollar like a gentle rain over the whole garden of the urban economy.