Some confusion with my new tires

As already mentioned before my old steed was rewarded with some new tires. So far I only had typical cross country tires (Stollenreifen, in German) on my mountain bike. These days, however, I'm mostly only cycling on the road and a flatter profile is preferable. On the other hand, with the winter in sight (and that also means snow in Vienna) I did not completely want to turn studs down.

A compromise was found and I settled for the Schwalbe Land Cruiser. That's a tough, puncture-resistant and versatile mixed surface tire. The tires have a central pattern for tarmac but also serrated side knobs for dirt roads (and hence also snow). With 15€ per tire they are quite cheap too. For more information have a look at the Schwalbe homepage.

To explain the title of this post I must admit that at first I had some trouble when mounting the tires. Well, usually the direction of wheel travel is pretty obvious from the tire pattern itself but this time I was really confused because there were two direction arrows written on the tire sidewalls, pointing in opposite directions: <-FRONT-| |-REAR->

What was that supposed to mean? Should the <-FRONT-| arrow point to the front of bicycle and the |-REAR-> arrow point to the back of it? Or do these arrows indicate that the front and rear tires should be mounted differently? Would that make any sense?

This is how my front tire (left) and rear tire (right) are mounted now

Well, according to the explanation on the Schwalbe homepage the front and rear wheel should really be treated differently for mountain bikes. Curious as I am, I tried to find out why that makes sense. Apparently, directing the tires this way leads to better braking characteristics on muddy surfaces. I don't know if it actually makes a difference, but I'm ready to give it a go.

What kind of tires do you ride? Does anybody out there know more about the sense of differently directed front and rear tires?

Do it yourself!

A piece of art on the wall of the bike flea market in Aurinkotehdas

I don't know much about mechanics. Actually I'm quite hopeless when it comes to fixing anything, especially anything as complex as bikes. That is why bike kitchens are awesome!

There is a multipurpose center called Aurinkotehdas ("Sun Factory") in Turku. The headquarters of the Uusi tuuli ry non-governmental organization is located there, and that's also where some of its activities take place. Its probably most famous project was to build the ship Estelle that nowadays sails around the world buying fair trade products and bringing them back to Finland. They also have a bicycle flea market that has a do-it-yourself day every Thursday. They teach people how to fix their bikes free of charge.

Estelle

In the past, when my bike needed to be fixed, I took her into a bike shop. (You know, fathers don't usually teach these things to their daughters...) Well, not anymore. I've been to the bike kitchen a few times this fall bugging the mechanicians with stupid questions and they have tought me loads of new things: I barely even knew how to change a tire until they told me how it is properly done. Among other things, they tought me how to fix and adjust a handbrake and straighten wheels. Last week a mechanician showed me how to make a makeshift spare part to fix the broken seat. A few weeks back an exchange intern fixed the brakes of my bike and thought me new things about bike anatomy. The next time winter tires need to be changed because black ice is beginning to appear on the roads.

A mechanician working on a bike after the rush hour on the do-it-yourself day

Here's a link to the Vienna bike kitchen and a video about Hobart bike kitchen (BTW: I love her shirt!). Care to share your experiences about similar projects?

You still here with your car?

Lately, more and more Spanish cities are promoting cycling with bike-sharing initiatives or by building cycling lanes.

Not far away from my hometown, there is a lovely city, Girona, which has also taken up to promote cycling as a fast (and healthy) way of moving around. Last Sunday I went for a stroll with my family there and I saw what is for me a pretty good ad to promote cycling. The ad is created by "Mou-te en bici" ("Move around on a bike"), an organization which advocates sustainable mobility.

The translation from Catalan into English would be: Do you still drive a car? If you rode a bike you would already be there!


And...

...this is where the ad was placed: in a place where all car drivers can see it!

Oops!... I did it again

Yes, again. Or better: not. Again I didn't buy a new bicycle although I claimed in spring that I will (and this summer for sure).

Should I? I already have one bicycle. My dear old friend, my red Kästle mountain bike (read more if you like). It has accompanied me for many many years now, and guess what -- it still works perfectly fine for me. No, it wasn't particularly expensive. But I looked after it.

Speaking of maintenance: That's why I'm bike-free this week. My bike is, as every beginning of the winter, with a real bike mechanic that checks all the bits and pieces. As for now, we have already agreed to replace the chain and the tires as both are almost worn-out. Of course, small repairs I do myself but I treat my bike with a proper service every year (for all-year cyclists it is recommended to get that at the beginning of the winter). So far that has paid off and I can highly recommend checking the bike or getting it checked, even when nothing is broken or causes trouble. Scroll down on this page to read about the "art of cycle maintenance" daily/weekly/monthly/yearly.

Me and my beloved bike

Of course, I would love to have many bikes starting with a retro kind of girlie bike, a folding bike, a tandem, a fixie, a cargo bike, a road bike and so on. I'm sure I could even find use for all of them. But actually it doesn't matter so much. It doesn't matter what kind of bike I ride as long as I ride -- any bike will do just fine :).

By using just one bike I can at least claim that I safe natural resources. Having learned much about mining lately, I can tell you that already iron is an important resource (probably even the most important one) and that it's by no means easy to get all that stuff out of the earth's crust. You shouldn't believe that it's all about oil -- rising prices and shortage on iron (and hence coal etc.) can mess us up even more! If you're interested in the topic you may read the recent world mining report. For example, did you know each year we produce about 1 billion tons of iron worldwide, and that more than 70% of the ore come from politically instable countries? Do you know how difficult and energy/time consuming it is to detect, mine, smelt and process raw materials to finally obtain something that we just take for granted and buy in a supermarket? Well, I don't want to be preachy, but I think everybody should be aware of such simple facts. It's already too hard to imagine what stuff went into my notebook and how it got there. Such things always leave me astonished and wondering...

Well, after that short side note, back to bikes. I will eventually buy a new bike (or a nice second-hand bike?) cause I want to be fancy and have a bike with better lighting, more transport capacity, proper rain and clothes protection and so on. Maybe not this year, maybe not even next year. But one day for sure :).

How many bikes do you have? What kinds? Got one all-time favorite?

Somehow I have the impression that Americans tend to have more bikes (if they have any) whereas Europeans mostly only own one (but there are more bike owners). Would be interesting to see whether this assertion holds in general :).

Leg warmers are ladies' best friends in the winter

You like to ride in skirts and dresses? Ever wondered how to survive a cold winter's day with just (thin) tights? Well, let me tell you that suffering is not necessary. There is a simple and elegant solutions called leg warmers.

Leg warmers will obviously warm your legs. But they don't just keep you warm, they are also fashionable. They come in different lengths, colors and fabrics. Currently I own three woolen pairs, one of which is over knees. That is particularly useful if I want to wear rather thin tights underneath, or short skirts.

The good thing about all of them: once you get inside they are easy to take off or can simply be pushed down to the ankles. Besides you can wear them with all kinds of clothes (may it be skirts, dresses or trousers) and footwear (even boots).

And you can easily knit them yourself! It's almost as easy as kniting a scarf :). Find a few how-tos here: How to knit leg warmers, How to knit your own leg warmers, Knitting Pattern Central etc.

Ready for the winter now?

Suburbanization and cycling

Suburban sprawl by David Shankbone 2008

As you may know, I am a geography student, so why not utilize my education? Forgive me if I'm dry, I'll try to be at least informative :)

There are 2 types of suburbanization: British and American. Both mean that people desire to live outside the city center. The British suburbanized in the 19^th century by developing public transit system. The American way was to get to the suburbs by private automobile, which also enables the low density population structure and urban sprawl. Nowadays there the both suburbanization types occur in Europe too. The American type has proved to be particularly detrimental for cycling, because the distances are too long and often the necessary and safe light traffic infrastructure does not exist.

Low density housing in America pretty much destroyed community walkability and light traffic infrastructure, but in those European towns that have managed to invest in cyclist friendly infrastructure the cyclist rates are still very high (Follman 2007). The examples of 20^th century Amsterdam and Copenhagen prove this point but they also show that it is possible to reverse this development and break the connection between suburbanization and lower cycling rates.

In the 1^st half of the 20^th century up to 75% of trips in Amsterdam were done by bike. 75 percent! After the second world war cars took over Amsterdam and the city expanded. This obviously had a massive effect on cycling, and the cycling rate dropped to the all time low of 25% in Amsterdam and 10% in Copenhagen by the 70s. How ever, the city road capacity couldn't handle many cars and the oil crises forced the government to think of measures to decrease oil dependency, so they began aggressively promoting cycling among other things by investing in bicycling infrastructure and enhancing cyclist priority in traffic. They succeeded and nowadays the cities have 35-40% bike trip share. That is impressive! Nowadays the cities are known for their cyclist friendliness and are among the safest cycling cities of the world (Jacobson 2009).

So, usually suburbanization and cycling decline go hand-in-hand, but it does not have to be that way. Suburbanization can also promote cycling if the suburb is not too far, but that would be on the expense of pedestrians or public transit, not cars. It is better to reign in the (mostly the American type) suburbanization a bit by supporting strong city centers and restricting suburban mall-building. E.g Muenster has some positive experiences of that strategy (Pucher and Buehler 2007).

Turku has both American and European type suburbs. Less than half of the households on the closer and denser (British type) suburbs have cars, but 70% of the more distant ones have at least one. The highest cyclist rates coming to the center of the city are from the closer suburb area. Surprisingly the cyclists are not coming to the grid plan center as often as the average cycling rate (11,5% of all trips) suggests. From the more distant “American type” suburbs almost no-one bothers to ride a bike to the center (numbers are from Turku Bustrip self-assessment report 2006, in Finnish).

So, it looks like these suburb theories do fit pretty well on my town. How about you, do you have any theories about the connection of suburbanization and cycling or would you like to share your experience? Is this kinda stuff too boring for you or do you wanna hear more of my academic brain farts?

P.S. Here's a video about the solution to the problems presented by urban sprawl (which is not the same as suburbanization, but closely related to the American type)

Major bike paths in Vienna

Due to the ring structure of Vienna, there are two major roads, called Ring (the inner ring) and Gürtel (the outer ring), in the center. Both of them are of course highly frequented by cars, cyclists and pedestrians. There are bike paths on both streets, but none of them is really pleasant for cyclists.

Two major connections in Vienna: Gürtel and Ring bike path

The main complaints of cyclists are

• bad design (including too small width, horrible alignment, detours etc.)
  
• ignorant behavior of other road users (pedestrians who don't care about where they walk, broken glass, illegally parked cars etc.)
• most inconvenient traffic signals for cyclists (sometimes one has to wait a few minutes every 50m)
• in some places insufficient street lighting
• currently also a lot of building sites which lead to complicated detours for cyclists and conflicts with pedestrians (while on the other hand at the Gürtel car drivers still have 8 untouched lanes for themselves)
• almost painful noise, itchy dust and car exhausts (due to heavy motor traffic)
  
• ...
  

As it is now I would prefer to ride in the car lanes, but due to our traffic regulations I'm not allowed to (exceptions only for road bikes and certain trailers, see StVO §68 (1)). I'm only allowed to use "the road" when there is no bike path.

Because of one of the building sites at the Gürtel bike path (they repair a short piece of tram lines and block the bike paths for weeks now) at U6 Thaliastraße I actually can use the "normal road" legally in one direction for about 50m. I always enjoy that. So much space, so fast :). Usually cars are ok with me cycling there. Not all of them might see the obstructions for cyclists, but as I'm only in "their lane" for a short while and they are often stuck in a traffic jam anyhow, "they" let me be.

However, today, on our national holiday, within these 50m two car drivers honked at me. Apparently they didn't see the building site and of course there first reaction was something like "Hey, you cyclist, get out of my way!". I really don't understand such a behavior a) at all and b) on a holiday where nobody is in a hurry anyhow. Suggestions?

A not so bad part of the Gürtel bike path

Well, since I'm almost daily annoyed with both of these bike paths, I will write a little more about them and show you some explicit incorrect planning of bicycle infrastructure in Vienna. In my humble opinion is this halfhearted planning one of the main reasons why a city with so much bicycle infrastructure (> 1000 km) still has such a small amount of cyclists (~ 5 %).

The Ring bike path is currently under construction. Small bits are improved, but the whole of it still just is a patchwork of leftover areas assigned to cyclists rather than a thought-through bike path. You can get some insight by reading "Stadt Wien beschließt RingRundFiasko" by IG Fahrrad (a Viennese bicycle lobby).

For the Gürtel area I have a rather radical suggestion for a redesign which would be convenient for most people (abutters, pedestrians, cyclists, shop owners, bars etc.), but well, is novel. More about all that another time.

Nevertheless I will also show you some of the good things about these bike paths, maybe do some videos so that you get an overall picture. After all, cycling is fun and I like to share that :).

The importance of bike racks

According to Christoph Chorherr's blog entry from April 2009 (a Green politician) there are about 1 Million bicycles in Vienna but only 18.000 bike racks available. This is of course far to few and explains

a) why many bikes get stolen (locking the bike frame to a fixed object is essential) and
b) why so many bikes are locked to street lamps, traffic signs, fences etc.

Well, this number is old. Recently I have seen many new bike racks, especially in the city center. The city of Vienna builds bike racks in two different types, both of which are pretty safe if one uses them correctly (see how to secure bicycles).

The most common type of bike racks in Vienna and many European cities.
Do you have such public bike racks too? Or does your city build other ones?

But it's not just the sufficient number of bike racks that is important, it's also the accessibility that plays a key role. I don't mind walking 500m from the bike rack to my destination if I leave my bike for a few hours (e.g. if I go to the cinema, theater, dinner or so), but if I just have to buy a milk or post a letter (which takes less than 5min) I want to be able to park my bike right outside of the shop.

This is something that is certainly missing in Vienna. There are very very few shops with bike racks, even in major shopping streets like Mariahilfer Straße bike racks are rare. There is, however, one positive example that sticks out:

Bike racks at U6 Floridsdorf: subway and train station
and a big shopping mall are right beside the racks, which are even canopied!

Talking about it, other important spots for bike racks are of course public transport stations, especially train and subway stations. Vienna lacks many bike racks in these places as well as in front of schools and universities. But the city builds many new racks these days and is certainly improving, something that I can only appreciate :).

Still, the best and most bike racks ain't help if they are occupied by someone else. So I kindly ask all moped and motorbike riders: please park your vehicles somewhere else and don't block the few racks that are available for safe bike parking.

Thanks in advance.

Anna^4

Well, as most of you probably already know, there are two Annas writing on this blog:

anna from Vienna, Austria (me)
Anna from Barcelona, Spain

Although we live far apart, we've been close friends for many years now. We don't meet often, but whenever we do we share a great time. I visited Anna last in April 2009 in Barcelona (a surprise visit for her birthday) and also wrote about my impressions of cycling in Barcelona on the shared BiCiNg bikes: Anna cycling in Barcelona. Moreover I also shot my first bike video in this fancy place (none have followed so far, but I plan to do one in Vienna too).

One of the best things about our last reunion was definitely the Tandeming on Anna's birthday. You can see a few pictures and read about all the fun we had if you follow this link. There is, however, another picture that I shot with my analogue medium format camera Diana (it's a lomo camera in case anybody is familiar with the concept) and which is still unknown to Anna. Since I don't use the camera very often it takes forever to finish and develop the films. Thus I only received this funny picture a few days ago:

From left to right: anna, Anna, anna and Anna

Note that the "doubling" effect is not due to Photoshop (boring) but due to a so-called Splitzer (a multiple imaging slicing accessory for the Diana) and a rearragement of ourselves. The quality could of course be better, but hey, it's just a fun camera. And we certainly had a lot of fun!

Hey, we are missing an indian summer here

Let's talk about winter. I like winter. I love the snow. And the feeling of coming in from the cold to a warm cup of black tea with milk. But ...

View from my window

... it's only October! And it's unusual for Vienna to have snow in the middle of October. Imagine, we still had 28°C (about 82 F) last week in Vienna. Well, now it's less. Far less. We had snow on Wednesday for the first time. Apparently, according to the news (in German), this is the first October with so much snow in Austria in 25 years. Cool, eh?

Oh, I enjoyed it so much. I like to get all wrapped up in my velvet jacket, my warm gloves, my cosy scarf and my colorful cap. And then the snow. Snow just looks lovely. And cycling in the snow is much better than cycling in the rain. One arrives a lot drier. And happier :-).

Ready to hit the road (me in winter clothes)	My "I don't like to be stuck in a traffic jam generated by lazy I-use-my-car-cause-I-don't-want-to-get-a-cool-butt-people when it's f***ing freezing"-face	Yeah, snow is nice (me dreaming of winter already :-))

Well, the snow unfortunately didn't stay and they claim that it will be a lot warmer again next week. Generally fall in Vienna means the following: fog – fog – rain – fog – rain – fog – wind – fog – rain – rain – wind – fog. That's a good weather to get into a slow and lazy mood. For proper snow we probably have to wait a few more weeks ...

Still, it's time to dig out your winter clothes and strong bike lights, and to peacefully cycle into a winter full of snow (as always I hope that there will be a lot of snow, I hope you agree). For some general tips about winter cycling see my posts from last time:

1. the bicycle
2. the cyclist
3. cycling