Discover your town!

Whenever I think about city-cycling I think about the German campaign Radlust which deals with the promotion of federal cycling traffic. The term "Radlust" could be translated to "the joy of cycling". The aim of the campaign was to -- literally speaking -- mobilize the unused potential of the bicycle in cities (nearly all households in Europe own at least one bicycle) by remembering their owners about the pleasure of movement:

>> If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea. << (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

Whenever I cycle on the weekend myself, try new bike routes or generally explore areas that I have never been to before by bicycle, I too feel this enthusiasm and pure joy of cycling. Last weekend was one of these occasions...

I put on my new stripy jersey dress, carried Paula up from the basement and set off for the unexpected. Also with me, a map printed from anachb.at (useful Viennese-area route planner), sunglasses, a hat and some of my cameras.

Radfahren in Wien -- a review of Vienna's new bicycle guide

"Radfahren in Wien" (Cycling in Vienna) is an extensive handbook with a lot of useful information about cycling. Although it is strongly related to Vienna, I can highly recommend it for a general German-speaking audience (in particular, if situated in Austria). This is, because it is an exhausting and wittily written, smart and neatly designed handbook on almost anything you ever wanted to know about cycling.

"Radfahren in Wien" by Alec Hager and Johannes Pepelnik

Back on track

What a day! First day after me being sick on the bike again. You must know that I live very close to my work now (only 5 minutes by foot) and don't have to cycle there anymore, so I grap every opportunity to ride my bike to places elsewhere. Today these were, all at once:

• my doctor
• a bike shop
• the Vienna University of Technology to meet a friend

Here's the story:

Setting off at home, I picked up Paula from the basement. There is a huge bike storage room in the house, but there are less stairs from our compartment in the basement to the street than from the bike storage room, so I keep my beloved there for the moment.

I even dressed up today (slightly).	Paula in the basement.

Upcoming carfree conference and workshop in York

Last October at the "Mobility week workshop" in Budapest (you can read about my experiences in these articles) Sonja and I met a few young and enthusiatstic volunteers who work for the World Carfree Network in Prague, Czech Republic. That's also how I learned about some nice events they organize in York, England, in June and July. But before I will come to that, let my briefly introduce you to the WCN...

Girls and bicycles

I must admit that I almost forget the importance of today -- it's International Women's Day, and probably a good idea to think about women and transport as well. If once written how little influence women have on traffic planning and how much of difference that could make (see "Women and transport").

Through Alec's article "Girl.Pedal.Power: Selbstbewußtsein per Rad" on the Austrian bicycle culture platform Velosophie.at I found this interesting video about school girls in Darlington, UK, who started to think about the use of bicycles in their town and compared it to the bicycle-friendly German city Bremen. Here's their video "Beauty and the Bike" in which they talk about their experiences:


If you got interested -- read more about their project "Beauty and the Bike" in German and English.

What are your reasons to (not) ride a bicycle? Do you prefer cycle lanes or rather not have them?

Barcelona and bike therapy

Does city life stress you? Are you fed up of being unable to unwind? Do you think cycle would help doing so? Then you need to try bike therapy!

I read about bike therapy a few weeks ago and it immediately caught my attention. I never heard about it and, judging for the little amount of information I found, it is a new practise. Mainly, bike therapy consist in combining cycling and relaxation exercises to reduce stress and gain tranquillity. The bike stroll must indeed be in a place which would favour all this.

Velosophing

As some of you already now, I am co-blogging on the Austrian bike culture community velosophie.at. This website has developed from the homonymous free bike magazine velosophie, that is enclosed in the Standard newspaper a few times a year. The back issues are also available online.

The velosophie blog on the very same homepage exists since May 2009 and so far different people wrote about bike related topics: Alec, Thomas, Bea, Inga, Eva, Karo, Günne and me. As you can propably guess, so many people create a fair mixture of opinions and topics . On Sunday a few of us met for dinner and the exchange of ideas. Was a lot of fun, and hopefully also fruitful.

We're there to entertain YOU (at least the German speaking part). So keep an eye on velosophie.at, watch our progress, and -- most importantly -- let us know what you think!

Velosophie Blog Team: Thomas, Bea, me and Alec

Let's have a big round of applaus for media's attentiveness

Did you ever wonder about how much power media has on our lives/mobility? I will examine this power now for print media in Austria, but it also applies to TV stations, radio etc. Please note that I will just try to give some good and bad examples of newspaper articles related to cycling and maybe one should not extrapolate from that to general statements, although it might be tempting.

Negative publicity:

Last year, around the same time, there was an article in the Kurier (an Austrian-wide newspaper) that upset many people who use their bikes on a regular basis. They claimed that cyclists in the winter are simply irresponsible and stupid. I translated and summarized the content of the article earlier, see "Is cycling in the winter dangerous?" if you're interested in the details.

An even worse article is "Radlerdemo endet in Randale" ("Bike demonstration ends in riots") in the Österreich newspaper in 2007. It accussed the participants of the Halloween critical mass of damaging cars despite lack of any police evidence. I personally was there, and did not observe any misbehavior.

I also consider an article about traffic controls in Vienna in the Krone newspaper as rather negative. It mentions the fact that more and more cyclists and pedestrians get injured and killed these days and that the authorities try to countersteer this. However, their main message was that cyclists often do not obey the traffic rules and implicitly it's their own fault when they are run over by car drivers.

Click on the pictures for enlargement

Useless advertising:

Ever seen a bicycle promoted in a newspaper ad? No? Well, sometimes there are ads by sport outfitters (only chains though) that want to sell cheap and crappy mountain bikes. This phenomena is closely related to the spring sell of shitty bikes by food chains, and only addressed to people who -- once a year -- have a wasteful desire to work on their body (I wrote about it last March). These bikes are mostly used once and then rot in a corner. That's why I consider these type of ads rather useless or even counterproductive for a bicycle culture as such.

The above is, on the other hand, accompanied by all these commercials that want to sell us cars. They are everywhere -- in newspapers, on the radio, the TV, on billboards, on flyers, in lotteries, in subway stations and trams. Lately I even came across a car advertised in a showcase at the Danube canal bike path. It's hard to ignore them. Very often they also sneak into usual newspaper articles. I'm sure you are aware of certain "car sections", but have you ever seen a "bicycle section" or a "train section"? I believe there is also some money involved. Or our society has been completely brainwashed already.

Positive publicity:

Yes, there are positive examples. The fact that the Standard became my favorite newspaper probably was not out of the blue. Alright, as every other newspaper they also promote cars and have a car section every Saturday. But they also print bike-related positive articles, and recently even established regular columns on bicycles, cyclists and cycling. For German speaking people I highly recommend the so-called Radkasten by Thomas Rottenberg and various bike stories by Guido Gluschitsch in the Automobil section. By now their articles get more comments than all these car-related ads which, in my humble opinion, clearly shows the need for more positive bike stories in Austria's media landscape. The started to fill a gap that was unknown to be a gap to most people.

Besides, it's not only their stories that attract me. It's the general design of their newspaper. They often just sneak in pictures of cyclists in everyday life. Let it be bike racks when they talk about the cold and snowy weather, a chic cyclist on the ring bike path (opposite of the parliament) when they remark that there is still no photovoltaic plant on the parliament's roof, a cyclist walking his bike along a road that has been closed down due to a water mains burst or a heavily loaded Chinese bicycle when they investigate Asia's economy.

No photo cells on the parliament's roof	China's economy booms	Water pipe burst on Währinger Straße

Of course, the Standard is not the only example of positive bike publicity. I should certainly mention, e.g., the Falter and Presse as newspapers that have an objective or positive view on cycling in general. I particularly like an article by Sibylle Hamann (editor for Profil) in the Presse about cycling, traffic and the interaction of people. Very clear and neutral. Read her article here: "Radfahrkunde für Anfänger".

Well, I simply love positive medial coverage of cycling! Or neutral articles in the first place. I started my own collection of some interesting (so far only German) newspaper articles in a flickr album.

Of course I'm eager to find more articles and am grateful for comments in case you spot some interesting ones :). Someone might even want to examine the media landspace with regard to mobility (as it has already been done for articles on foreigners and other minorities). Could be a very interesting topic for some socio-scientific research.

Parking offenders and a trip to the industrial area of Vienna

Today I just cycled to work and back. The round-trip is about 12km. Last Wednesday morning, however, I cycled about 20km extra. No, not for work. I went to the MA67 and back. The MA67 is the magistrate in Vienna responsible for parking violations. Why I went there?

About half a year ago I reported 13 cars that were parked on a bike lane, the sidewalk and in a "no parking and no stopping at anytime" zone. Right beside a school. They were parents picking up their children. One of these people filed a protest and I had to go to the MA67 for a witness report and to hand in a photographic proof.

Illegal parking on bike lanes is often just considered a trivial offense

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!

More than a Critical Mass of cyclists in Budapest

Last night I attended the Critical Mass in Budapest for the first time. Critical Mass is a world-wide event that usually takes place once a month. Read more about it here. In Budapest, however, the Critical Mass only happens twice a year but they have an amazing number of participants. In spring of 2008 there were about 80.000 citizens cycling on Budapest's streets.

Official Critical Mass logo

This time the event was slightly different, more "radical" meaning without police escort. According to different sources about 10.000 to 20.000 cyclists hit the road. It was amazing to see so many different people. For example, there was a choir in yellow T-shirts. I saw bike messengers as well as sporty riders and everyday cyclists. Among all of them there was us, the participants of the Mobility Week Workshop.

Finish girls on rent bikes at the Critical Mass
Sonja (on the left) will be co-blogging here soon

Neverending mass of cyclists

In the beginning of the evening the city hall was surrounded. Later on the mass started to move slowly. Quite slowly in fact. Traffic rules were obeyed. In the beginning we cycled in a big bulk, but later that split up and small subgroups were cycling through the town. I quite enjoyed that. One could see cyclists everywhere, but didn't have the feeling of being in some boring organized crowd.

In the end, however, everybody again gathered at Deák tér for the obligatory bike lift. I'm quite proud of myself that I could lift my heavy steal-framed bike including accessories :-).

Bike lift at Deák square in the end

For more insight you should read through Greg's impressions (as he is a local) and the website of Critical Mass Hungary.

The day before I met Mikael from Copenhagen Cycle Chic and Copenhagenize.com on a Cycling Lifestyles Workshop organized by the Hungarian Cycle Chic (thanks again to Ádám from the Hungarian Cyclists' Club for the translations to English). So there might be another outsider's view of the Critical Mass on his blogs too.

To finish all this and come back to the title of the post, I wish that Budapest and Hungary in general will see so many people cycling every day. Currently I have the impression that many subcultures exist, but not yet a culture of cycling that addresses everyone. All the best to achieve that!

---
UPDATE
See Mikael's video of the Critical Mass in Budapest: Budapest Bike Ride with 20,000 Friends

Disability and radical pedestrians

Budapest has one big problem that pedestrians and public transport users have to face, namely underpasses. Personally I don't like to go underground. It's always kind of dark and dirty there, and I loose my orientation. In Budapest there is also the other issue of mobility for disabled people. Although they are trying to improve according to European Standards, there are still a large amount of obstacles on the streets. As in every proper car centric society, it's the pedestrians that have to go underground and not the cars. And it's almost always done by stairs (although apparently existent I haven't seen any elevators or escalators myself). The stairs don't have bright lines for partially sighted people and there are no tracks for wheelchairs or bicycles.

Underpasses with only stairs: bikes have to be carried, people in wheelchairs or with buggies are simply stuck

However, these things are made visible to the public. And there are also people who protest against the fact that on certain junctions there are no crosswalks but only underpasses. At the Mobility Week Workshop we took part in a flashmob at Blaha Lujza square last Wednesday. Some activists painted there own pedestrians lights and gave green whenever the according parallel car lanes had green. Since there was no crosswalk/zebra crossing painted on the streets they used different posters with animals and zebras painted on them to demonstrate their ideas. I quite enjoyed that creative way of approaching these problems. It certainly increases awareness. The flashmob was a huge success. A lot of people used the opportunity to cross the streets on the surface (and not underground) safely in big crowds. It was a pleasure to see human mobility.

People crossing at Blaha Lujza square on the artificial zebra crossing

First (and second) time cycling in Budapest

As I already mentioned last week, I'm currently attending a Mobility Week Workshop in Budapest, Hungary. It's a meeting of 30 young Europeans from basically 6 different countries (Austria, Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, Hungary, Spain). After exploring the city center and area around the youth hostel Casa de la Musica, we will set different goals and work on how this area could be improved mobility-wise.

My bike impatiently waits for our departure at Wien Südbahnhof

I. (another girl from Vienna) and myself brought our own bikes along. Unfortunately, this is unnecessarily complicated since bike transport is only possible on the slow regional trains. Apart from the longer traveling time (4 rather than 3 hours) this also includes also other disadvantages for cyclists. For example, we had to change trains twice and always drag all our luggage and the bikes up and down the stairs at the stations (no elevators, not even rails on the stairs for wheelchairs – how do disabled people manage that?). Apart from that we didn't arrive at the main station Keleti in Pest but further outside at the Deli station in Buda.

I. at Györ station: changing trains means draging bikes and luggage up and down the stairs

Such things really annoy me. I don't understand why they discourage people to bring along bikes on long distance journeys. I think the EU should really try to work towards a excellent train network that includes possibilities for bike transport. Nowadays it's almost impossible to bring bikes (except folding bikes) on long-distant trains and the situation actually gets worse and worse, at least in and around Austria after the Austrian railway network ÖBB introduced their new Railjet trains that simply don't transport bikes. Such things just make me sad.

So, after all, how is cycling in Budapest? Before we left, we heard all kinds of stories basically saying that cycling in Budapest is very dangerous and that car drivers are aggressive. I must say that I didn't have that impression at all. Of course, there is a lot of car traffic. The roads and lanes are wide and the motorists get priority over everybody else. But cycling in traffic is not so bad. Car drivers leave a lot of space to the side when overtaking and nobody ever honked at us. With all our luggage (both of us had a 50l backpack and a small one) we found our way to the hostel easily and safely. We only had a problem once after we got on a bike path as this one actually lead us away from the Erzsébet bridge rather than onto it. So we ended up carrying our bikes up and down stairs (again) and crossed the Danube on the sidewalk of the bridge. Well, the view was great and we took some nice pictures :-). Though our first cycling trip in Budapest was actually quite pleasant.

Night view from Erzsébet bridge to Buda, Danube and Pest

The next day we cycled through Budapest on rented bikes from Budapestbike in the whole group of 30 people. That way we could see some of the bicycle infrastructure in the city. There is not much and of course there are many improvements that could be made. Compared to Vienna, however, I quite enjoyed that the bike lanes on the road are so wide here and even have an empty space between the parked cars (absolutely necessary and should be standard anyhow, but Viennese planners apparently don't believe in "dooring"). I didn't like the segregated two-way bike paths so much as they are quite narrow and not so visible from the car lanes (always problems with cars turning right that only see cyclists at the last moment). Still, I liked their clear and straight design and that they had a center line. At some places the surface was quite rough though. Very often the bike lanes are painted red at junctions, but the color already faded away.

Cycling in Budapest: cycling in traffic, on a bike lane and a two-way bike path

What I really miss here are one way streets with contraflow cycling traffic. That is something that works very well in Vienna and that really safes me a lot of time in everyday life. They do try to implement such things here too. As mentioned in one of the talks, they also have one advanced stop lane for cyclists (meaning that cyclists can stop in front of the first row of cars at traffic lights, also referred to as 'bike box') and so-called suggested cycle lanes (simply bike pictograms on the road with no real bike infrastructure – I reckon that they are much more efficient than small signs beside the road saying that this is a bike route, as these are not really seen by car drivers).

Concerning bike infrastructure (and generally traffic and spatial planning), Budapest still has a long way to go, but cycling is possible and safe if one is cautious. Cycling, however, is certainly not pleasant here. Still, cyclists in Budapest already represent 3-5% of the modal split which is quite similar to Vienna (as far as I know we have 5% cyclists, but already 8% in the “summer months”), and the numbers are continuously increasing.

More about other aspects of traffic in Budapest and a flashmob by “radical pedestrians” at the Blaha Lujza square in the next post. Stay tuned.

Information of the whole idea and activities in the Mobility Week Workshop on the official website: mobilityweekbudapest.eu. Have a look at the project diary.

What's up in Hungary?

Although Hungary is Austria's neighboring country and partner in crime in historical terms (I'm sure you heard about the k.u.k. monarchy), I must admit that I have not been there very often. I remember a rather long visit to Budapest in the early 90s, but apart from that I have only passed trough it a couple of times on my way to the Balkans.

But finally I will pay Hungary a proper visit again. It's all due to the Mobility Week launched in Budapest from 16th to 23rd of September 2009, organized by the Hungarian Cyclists' Club. There will be an international workshop on urban mobility and cityscapes. If you're interested, read more about it on their homepage or at the IG Fahrrad homepage (in German). The project description says:

"The objective of the project is to go over the common and alternative forms of city-scale public and individual means of transport and urban land use along with their ability to remodel the cityscape in negative as well as positive ways. We would like to show directly and clearly, that the direction of these future changes strongly depends on our present attitudes."

Although it was a bit unclear in the beginning, I hope now that I can attend all week, meet nice people and have interesting discussions. Greg Spencer from the Cycling Solution Blog already told me that he will be there and give a talk on the 16th. And seemingly Mikael Colville-Andersen from Copenhagenize.com und Copenhagen Cycle Chic should be there too.

Apart from that, Greg also informed me about the problems they have with the City Hall concerning the Margit bridge renovation in Budapest. Apparently, the orginal costs of 47 Mio. € increased to 77 Mio. €, why they now want to delete a bike path from the project. However, the EU subsides the project with 22 Mio. € including the bike path and there will hopefully be some protests coming from that side now. For more details see Greg's post.

Men cycling in work clothes

Well, cycling to work in work clothes is the obvious thing to do, isn't it? Not many people in Austria would bother to change clothes or demand a shower at the work place. Well, there might be the occasional guy who decides to change his T-shirt or leaves his jacket at work in the summer. But after all we're just cycling to work and not speeding in a race. No need for a complete transformation or to show off.

Note that the gardener in the upper left picture rides a company bicycle (company being the City of Vienna). This is really untypical and the first time I have seen something like that, so I tried to find out more about it -- and voilà, I found an old article (from May 1999) that mentions such efforts by the city council to try to make their employees set their cars aside. Ten years later, however, I would like to know if they are still at it and if it has made an impact on peoples' choice of transport.

An incomplete field study in East Tyrol

I have some relatives in East Tyrol (Osttirol, in German) that I visited for a few days. East Tyrol in the very south of Austria, bordering Italy. To the capital Lienz one can get in a reasonable time from Vienna, but in the rest of East Tyrol it's basically impossible to move around without a car. Well, there is a regional train operating between Lienz and San Candido (in Italy, called Innichen in German), but it's very slow and only connects a few towns. Due to bicycle tourism it runs more often in the summer and it's also fairly easy to bring along bikes. On the other hand, there are no more buses (except school buses), not even taxis, in most of the rural areas although the population is constantly growing.

Due to wide spread settlement it is difficult to operate a good public transport system

My grandma is lucky because she can still walk to the town center on her own and has my cousin looking after her, but for most of the old and young people in East Tyrol living there means heavily depending on people that are entitled and capable to drive a car. Must be very depressing to feel so locked in. My grandma only realized that when my granddad died, who used to drive her around.

Most families own more than one car. The scenery is nice, but they pay a high price for living in houses far away from centers. Strange enough there are also many who choose to live so car-dependent: many build their houses further and further away from basic infrastructure (such that they can't even get a liter of milk without getting in the car) and accept long commutes to work. Bicycles are rarely used on a day-to-day basis.

Cyclist waiting to cross the main road through East Tyrol. Did he go shopping at the petrol station?

However, in the summer one can see many tourists cycling in East Tyrol. Most of them cycle downstream along the Drava cycle path and look like that they only touch a bicycle for one or two weeks in the summer. I'm not really into that type of cycling and I also don't want to promote it (as this is done extensively already), but as part of a field study this is certainly worth mentioning.

Yesterday I read in a newspaper that the city of Lienz supports the purchase of E-bikes by paying 10% (max. 150 €, altogether spends 10.000 €). This is of course a nice gesture and brings bicycles as daily means of transport back into peoples' minds, but similarly to the scraping bonus in Vienna it won't be enough. What cyclists really need is a reasonable infrastructure (e.g. safe bicycle parking in front of shops, restaurants, schools etc.) and bicycle friendly traffic planning and politics. I wasn't particularly looking for it, but I couldn't see any bike path or bike lane in Lienz. And I also couldn't see many cyclists, except road cyclists and tourists. They still have a long way to go, but I wish them good luck in increasing the number of everyday cyclists.

Would you give away your old bike for 70 €?

Since Monday we have something called a Verschrottungsprämie (scraping bonus) for bicycles in Vienna. If one gives away his/her old bicycle and buys a new one (at least worth 140 €) 70 € are refunded. So far the campaign is limited to 500 bikes and only available for persons registered in Vienna. More information at the Standard and the ARBÖ. Altogether that costs 35.000 €. Already after one day people had to be put on the waiting list, but the campaign might be extended.

The term scraping, however, is misleading as the bikes are not actually thrown away but repaired and given away for free to poor people, or sold again. The bonus is a late response to the scraping bonus for cars at the beginning of this year. Back then 30.000 car owners in Austria got 1.500 € refunded for scraping their old car if they bought new ones. That cost 45 Mio €. Maff complained about it earlier in January.

What do you think about it? Would you give away your old bike for 70 € (= 100 $)?

I certainly wouldn't. Maybe my bike isn't worth much more, but although I'll buy a new bike soon I wouldn't get such a cheap but good secondary bike. And after so many years (14, to be precise) I'm also physically and mentally bound to my mountain bike :-).

Still, I can see that this campaign can be a great chance for some people that left their bikes abandoned in the cellar for a couple of years and now want to restart cycling. I think it's a good motivation for them and a good signal to everybody in this city that cyclists are appreciated and welcome. I hope of course that the campaign will be extended, 500 new bikes just can't do the trick.

Reviewing car-free estates

In Vienna Floridsdorf there exists a car-free estate since almost 10 years. Due to the absurd parking regulations here, they had to get a special permit to be able to build less car parks and safe that money for something more useful. Earlier I've posted a video by the Greens about this particular project (German with English subtitles) which explains very well how it works and what it looks like.

Car-free estate in Floridsdorf, Vienna, Austria

Recently I stumbled again across Christoph Chorherr's blog and read that they did an evaluation among the residents to find out what they think about their estate and community. The main results are summerized in these three files (in German): short version (2 pages), medium version (5 pages) and full version (96 pages).

So far I haven't read all of the full version myself, but here are the parameters and main things they found out:

• 244 flats (11.400 m²) but instead of 244 car parks only 25 [according to the Viennese building law the rate "car park:flat" of 1:1 can only be reduced to 1:10 with a special permit]
  
• build between 1997 and 1999
• concept: people that move in have to resign from owning a car (that's even stated in the rental agreement), ecological measures and green areas, no decrease of building costs (which would have been possible because of the fewer car parks) but rededication of the capital
• right before moving in about 24% did own a car
  
• for 53% it was very important and for 21% important to live in a car-free estate when moving in
  
• car-sharing is available but only used by 28% for shopping, about 1/3 of the residents don't use this service at all
• 88% already owned a bicycle before moving in, 7% bought one later
  
• the bicycle is used up to 10 times more than in an average car-free (!) household in Vienna [about 1/3 of Viennese households are car-free]
  
• 56% of the people living there use a bicycle to get to work or school
  
• per household they calculated bike storage for 2.5 bicycles which turned out to be far-off (they actually need storage for 1.5 bicycles per person!)
• the residents are very happy with their estate, which mostly results from joint projects that were carried out from the money that wasn't spend on parking lots: public areas, saunas, gardens, kindergarten, gym, garage etc.
• the communication among neighbors and other residents works well (something which elsewhere is basically nonexistent)
  

Actually I've applied for a flat in that estate one year back, but it's basically impossible to get hold of such sought-after living space. In view of that overwhelming demand the Greens are planning a similar project called Bikecity at an old train station in the north-west of the city. Hope that will work out.

For more reading you can find some information on car-free living on the "Wohnen plus Mobilität" website in German and English (it contains general information and various prototypes in Germany and Austria). Moreover there is a German website on autofrei wohnen and here's an English pendant on carfree cities (with an excellent link list). More on car-free housing estates in Europe e.g. in "Car-free housing in European cities" by Jan Scheurer. Well, the internet is full of information about car-free habitation :-).

Conclusion: car-free is carefree, so enjoy a car(e)free life if somehow possible!

Nude cycling for a better world

It's this time of the year again. It's time for the Naked Bike Ride in Vienna:

time: Friday, 19th of June 2009, 5pm
place: Schwarzenbergplatz at the fountain (Hochstrahlbrunnen)
for more information visit the website of Critical Mass Austria

Be there or be square! It only takes place in Austria once a year and it's neither necessary to be naked nor to own a bike. The motto is "Bare as you dare", everybody is welcome. Just make sure you get hold of a Citybike and bring your swimming gear (end point is the Danube).

The Naked Bike Rides are a worldwide event, so you probably also have the opportunity to take part in such a ride close to your place if not in Vienna. Read more on World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR) or watch this short movie (a longer version is available on the homepage).

Well, maybe you're a little skeptical about the whole thing. When I got my first flyer I thought "Well, good intention, but I'm not going to cycle through town naked with a bunch of lunatics". The good intentions for me were the fact that people will pay attention to cyclists, at least once a year. Being naked should also symbolize that cyclists are very vulnerable road users. I guess one could compare it to Naked Fur Protests, except that cycling is more fun.

It was only later that I found out about Critical Mass altogether and became a more or less regular rider. In June it was just natural to take part in the Naked Bike Ride. Well, I wasn't completely naked last year. I wore a bikini and gave away flyers somebody had printed. For this week's ride I thought about some bodypainting and maybe cycling topless, but haven't decided yet. Depends on the weather and my mood ;-).

Pictures from the World Naked Bike Ride in Vienna, June 2008

Velosophie 2.0

Yesterday the fourth velosophie magazine was published. That's a funky and free magazine dealing with bicycle culture in Austria that was established last year. The online versions are available here (in German). Hard copies can be found in several bike stores all over Austria. Grab it and read it or simply look at the spacy photographs in there!

In the current issue there is amongst others an interview with Heiner Monheim (who initiated the Radlust campaign in Germany) and one with Luud Schimmelpennink (about shared bike systems in Europe), some news about E-bikes, the cultural capital Linz, cool accessories and bikes for urban cycling, a bike trip through Africa (check out their English website) and so on.

But it gets even better! Yesterday Austria's first bicycle culture community was launched as well. If you're also based here make sure you check out velosophie.at and register yourself. There's also a blog that keeps you informed about bicycles in daily life, bike culture, news etc. My humble self is one of the currently five bloggers. And of course I'm looking forward to learn from different perspectives and have inspiring discussions.

Get involved too and let's work on an outstanding and diverse bike culture in Austria (and everywhere else)!