FEEL FREE! -- Advertising cycling and why I still don't like E-bikes

Lately I have seen some billboards with bicycle ads. In fact, the don't advertise bicycles in the sense of bicycle brands, but cycling as such. There is, for example, the Citybike Wien ad which obviously aims at young people:

This picture is from an article by the Greens in Simmering.

In contrast, there is the Wien Energie ad about E-bikes:

More about the E-bike test on the Wien Energie website

COP15 and cycling

COP15, the Copenhagen climate change conference, is trying to find appropriate mitigation and adaptation goals and strategies against climate change. Cycling is a carbon-efficient means of transport that in many cases presents a true alternative to driving a car. Let's take a look at how cycling has been showing in the first week of Copenhagen climate negotiations.

Denmark is a country of utility cycling, which can be an inspiration to both the conference participants and internationally. In Copenhagen, 1/3 of commuters cycle to work or school, but the city goal is even higher. Copenhagen is aiming at becoming the cycling capital of the world and hopes to achieve the cycling commuter rate of 1/2 by 2015. That city knows how to set a positive example!

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.

Commuting in Zürich

Last summer I worked in Zürich, Switzerland. By train that's about 9 hours from Vienna and there are even three direct trains each day. On two of these trains it's possible to bring the bike along so that was what I did. If you're interested in the synergy between public transport and bicycles in Switzerland you can read one of my older posts from March. I think it works perfectly there. But there are also other outstanding things concerning bicycle infrastructure ...

I lived on the very border of the city and the university is in the center. Although Zürich is much smaller than Vienna (only about 350.000 inhabitants), my daily commute was therefore longer than the one in Vienna (about 7 km ~ 4.3 miles). Zürich is a very hilly city too. Basically I had to conquer one steep hill both ways which took me about 40 min once I found the best route. It was fun to see mums with two kids in the trailer passing me on the uphill sections. Well, a remarkable number of people (especially parents and older people) uses pedelecs -- electric bikes where you have to pedal to regulate the motor. It's still only a small minority, but they are visible.

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)!

Weird bikes at the bike festival

On Saturday I rode to the 10th bike festival with a friend. It was a lovely sunny and warm day and it was absolutely packed! We got a lot of information about cycling in Vienna (like bike maps and one-way ponchos for free), trips to Lower and Upper Austria, the Neusiedler Lake, Slovakia etc., got our bikes registered by the police, saw some new bikes (e.g. cool e-bikes) as well as second-hand bikes (unfortunately they didn't really have a good catch in my size), watched parts of the Vienna Air King contest (an international dirt jump contest), bought bicycle-buttons of the great Motmot Shop and could try out some really weird bikes: tall bikes, penny-farthing bikes (high wheeler), swing bikes, fixies that are used to play bike polo and some other constructions that I can't even name.

Here are some impressions and us on some of these cool bikes. I can assure you that it was a lot of fun :-). It felt a bit strange to cycle back home on my "normal" bike though..

Handlebar is at the wrong position	In the beginning I didn't figure out how to ride the swing bike, but in the end it somehow worked :-).	Same problem with the tall bike which was even taller than me -- but once I got on it (without anybody else's help!), it was just awesome!
A bike with two gears: 1st -- pedaling forwards, 2nd -- pedaling backwards. Got it?!	Cheap second-hand bikes	Old bike with old bell and old front brake
Actually a bike for three	Amazing jumps	Although I don't want an e-bike, they might be useful to others.