A short stop in Dresden

It's already a few months back that I visited Dresden, capital of Saxony in the East of Germany. I arrived by an overnight train, pretty early and the place was still sleepy. Still, quite a few people were already up and bright on their way on bike everywhere.

Of course, one of the first things I noticed were rental bikes and out came my camera.

To Paris by train

Since beginning of this week I'm in Paris, France. Not for a holiday, but that doesn't matter. I still intend to enjoy it as much as possible :).

I was traveling by train all the way from Vienna, which took me about 12 hours (including a stopover in Frankfurt, Germany). Some might say that this is too long for a train ride and prefer to fly. I love train rides. According to my grandma I already enjoyed my first big train ride without parents at the age of 3 (we moved houses between two towns in Austria). My granny feared that I would start to cry because I would miss my close family, but instead I happily looked outside the window, pointed at sheep and giggled.

IC (Intercity) train of the German railway company DB at Frankfurt train station

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.

A short story about the back pedaling brake

Yesterday I saw a nice video clip about the pros and cons of a back pedaling brake (also known as coaster brake) in one of my favorite programs called Karambolage on my favorite tv channel Arte. Arte stands for Association Relative à la Télévision Européenne and is a quality European culture channel. They broadcast in German and French. Many of their own programs can also be viewed online on arte.tv. Unfortunately I could not find Karambolage. But the text of the clip (here in German and French, by Corinne Delvaux) and the pictures are available on their website. It roughly translates to the following:

Wir sind in Berlin. Das sieht man doch am Fernsehturm im Hintergrund, oder? Gut, dieser Herr ist Franzose und er freut sich, denn seine Berliner Freunde haben ihm ein Fahrrad geliehen, um die Stadt zu besichtigen. Super.

We are in Berlin. That's obvious because of the tv tower in the background, isn't it? Well, this gentleman is a Frenchman and he is happy that his Berlin friends lent him a bicycle for sightseeing. Great.

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?

There's nothing wrong with buying a bike in the middle of the winter

Maybe you remember my test ride on the Retrovelo Paul in November. It had a little poll in the end asking what kind of color you would choose for a Retrovelo Paula. Surprisingly enough the traffic white bike I was testing did not get any votes. On the other hand -- and that's now also the time to reveal my choice -- the pigeon blue came in first with a vast majority of 26%. I had actually already decided what kind of colors I would pick before I asked the question. However, it was really interesting to see that many people (Filigree, Carinthia, Justine, Trisha etc.) voted for the same bike and also mentioned the creamy tires and brown saddle and grips.

Well, here I proudly present my new beauty:

Pigeon-blue Retrovelo Paula (for the specs click on the picture)

I ordered the 7-speed version last week and am looking forward to receive my new bike some time in January :). In the meantime I just have to find a place to park it.

Many of my friends I told about my new steed already placed a reservation for a test ride which, of course, I will gladly offer. For the rest of you I can at least recommend Retrovelo's homepage and their catalogues (both in German and English)...

By the way, regarding benefits of cycling in the winter, I read in the news today that physical activity prevents depressions: "Bewegung beugt Depressionen vor". Psychiatrists claim that the lack of exercise leads to anergia and isolation, especially among young people. It's not only about prevention though, they also recommend physical activity, a regular day-night-rhythm etc. as part of a therapy in many such cases. The WHO tells us the following about physical (in)activity:

"Physical activity is defined as any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that requires energy expenditure. Physical inactivity, (a lack of physical activity) is an independent risk factor for chronic diseases, and overall is estimated to cause 1.9 million deaths globally.

Regular physical activity – such as walking, cycling, or dancing – has significant benefits for health. For instance, it can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and osteoporosis, help control weight, and promote psychological well-being. Everyone should engage in at least 30 minutes of moderate physical activity every day. More activity may be required for weight control."

From my personal experience I can also tell that that cycling makes me a happier, more efficient and well-balanced human being (see "Is cycling addictive?"). I also see that many people don't care enough about their physical health which also effects their mental health in a negative way.

I'm curious if you have similar experiences to mine, especially if you only started everyday cycling recently. Did you notice a difference in your overall way of life?

Enjoying a ride on a Retrovelo bike

Last Saturday I went to test ride some bikes with Filigree from the Lovely Bicycle! blog. I tried a Retrovelo Paul (the male version of the classy Paula) and Filigree a Specialized Globe Haul (a Mixte for heavy loads), both of which were gladly lent to use by the Citybiker bike shop on Lerchenfelderstraße.

The Retrovelo Paul in the Schmerling Park in Vienna (more pictures on flickr)

Patience pays off

A few months back Maff's old city bike broke down because an ownerless dog ran into his back wheel when he was cycling along the Danube bike path. Although he would have liked to have a new bike immediately, he decided to pick a more substantial and well- equipped bike this time. He choose the Fahrradmanufaktur T-300 in emerald green. Fahrradmanufaktur is a fancy bike producer from Germany. I haven't heard much about them beforehand, but they seem to build a lot of high quality city bikes and I can see more and more of their bikes on the road these days.

I don't know all the details, but the T-300 has an 8-speed gear hub (Shimano Nexus), a hub dynamo (which can be used in on/off/auto mode) and hydraulic caliper brakes. It comes with all essential accessories like fenders, carrier, chain guard, bell and even a small bicycle pump. It doesn't need reflectors on the spokes as there are built-in reflector bands on the tires (which nowadays is almost standard). If I'm not mistaken Maff only paid 700€ for this marvelous bike!

Unfortunately, at the Cooperative Fahrrad in Vienna and even at the Fahrradmanufaktur, they didn't have that bike in his size ready, so he had to use his cyclocross (a Kona "Jake the Snake", in emerald green too) in the meantime.

Well, but patience pays off! Look at that catch!

Maff and the Fahrradmanufaktur T-300 on the way back to Linz (by bike and by train)

By the way, the people at the Cooperative Fahrrad are very competent and have almost everything a cyclist can possibly want (including folding bikes, tandems and even penny-farthing bikes!). What I also like is that the young sales clerk keeps telling me that I have a cool bag. I guess I should introduce you to my messenger bag some time in the future, too ;-).

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!

Vintage bike store vs. car park

In Vienna there is an old regulation that requires new houses to have a certain minimum amount of places to park cars (e.g., for each flat at least one parking space). Whenever old houses are rebuild or get extensions that law has to be applied as well. This time it hits a vintage bike store in Mariahilf, one of the central districts of Vienna and a busy shopping area. Since the house gets a roof extension, the bike shop has to be removed in order to build a garage. From next week onwards the Radlager will be history. By the way, there already is a nearby car park that is never full, but law is law. A very sad story. This parking regulation actually goes back to 1939 and Hitler's plan of a car-centric society – and yes, it is still called Reichsgaragenordnung and in use (and not only in Germany and Austria). Even nowadays most politicians don't yet see the need to abolish this law.

Good-bye lovely bike store. Hello car park :-(.

Apparently, and that is sad too, there is no quite as powerful regulation for bicycle parking. Although new houses need to have a “sufficiently big” room for bicycle and buggy parking (see §119 (5) of the Viennese building law) the “sufficiently big” is yet undetermined and a very elastic term. While the car parks that have to be built are mostly empty, the rooms for bicycle parking (if existent) are hardly ever big enough.

Just that you get an idea – these pictures show how “sufficiently big” was interpreted in the house I live in (18 flats). Do the math yourself to see how many people have to store their bikes and buggies elsewhere. And yes, that stupid column in the center prevents from easy pulling in and out (note that the door opens inwards too). In fact, one can only store two bicycles for everyday use in there, the rest is trapped.

Sufficient bike parking? Left: an older picture before the big "muck out", Right: after the "muck out"

Old houses don't even need to have a dedicated area to park bicycles and it's often forbidden to leave the bikes in the staircase or inner courtyard. Most people living in one of those (and most houses in Vienna are in fact old) just have to drag the bikes upstairs and store them inside the flat. Elevators are of course rare too, so that is really a pain.

Please guys, wake up. Here's something going completely wrong!

---
UPDATE
There's an interesting article in Die Zeit called "Fahren, um zu parken" (driving to park) from 1995 dealing with some of our homemade problems I mentioned above. And here's another German text called "Verkehrssytem und Wirtschaftsstrukturen" (transportation system and economic structures) by the Austrian traffic planner Hermann Knoflacher, who I already introduced in an earlier post. If you know English literature dealing with parking problems, please post it ;-).

Albert Einstein and bicycles

Well, I guess everybody knows the physicist Albert Einstein, but not many people actually understand the theories he invented and the importance of them. He was an amazing and intelligent person for sure.

And what I particularly appreciate is his attitude towards cycling. There are many quotes about life and cycling related to Albert Einstein. I'm not sure whether they are actually originally his, but they're good anyhow.

Albert Einstein riding his bicycle in Santa Barbara, 1933

"Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving."

"I thought of that while riding my bicycle."
(on the theory of relativity)

More interesting quotations about cycling from various people here and on thinkexist. Any quotations of famous people you particularly like?

I also like what Christian Ude (mayor of Munich, Germany) says about cyclists:

"Können wir Leute in Spitzenpositionen brauchen, die zu ängstlich sind, eine Innenstadt radelnd zu durchqueren? Natürlich nicht. Lasst endlich die Radler ran!"

"Do we want people in leading positions that are too scared to cross a city center on a bicycle? Of course not. Let cyclists get at it!"

He also wrote a book called "Stadtradeln" (Citycycling). Something I want to read in the near future.

What the Greens in Europe do for cycling

At the beginning of June we will have the elections for the European parliament in the EU. This is a very important opportunity to take part in decision-making. Concerning cycling, and a positive promotion of it, I found some cool videos of the European Greens where they explain what kind of measures have been implemented throughout our cities. Here are just a few examples (all in English resp. with English subtitles):

Vienna
Christoph Chorherr talks about a car-free estate in Vienna (I tried to get a flat there but it's impossible because the demand is so high -- but they want to build a second one :-)). He also writes a very interesting blog (in German). The Greens in the 2nd district do that too.


London
Jenny Jones tells us how biking can help against the traffic chaos. By the way, Trisha and Dottie have recently visited London and wrote something about it in their blog.


Freiburg
The Green mayor Dieter Salomon talks about the nearly car-free district Vauban. Although it is a well-known fact that Freiburg has a very high number of cyclists I didn't know about Vauban until I read it in spiderleggreen's blog.


For more videos explore the YouTube channel of the European Greens yourself. There you may also find the videos with subtitles in other languages (I didn't check that, but it would make sense). And there are of course also videos about other green topics, e.g. how the sun is used in Barcelona, squatters in Helsinki, about how geothermal energy is used in Paris and so on. A lot of exciting, sustainable and future-oriented projects in Europe.

Cycling is the answer to everything.

Is it? Well, it isn't the solution all our problems, but for many of our traffic, health, social, economic and environmental problems, I believe. Here's some easily accessible information that might convince you too (in case you aren't convinced already):

There's a brochure by the European Commission called "Cycling: the way ahead for towns and cities" (1999). I have a link to a download in the right frame where it says "Cycling guides". You can download an English version here, a German version here and a Spanish version here. There should be versions of it in every European language, but the link on the website of the EU didn't work so I could only guess the endings of the .pdf-files. Maybe you can write them an Email yourself if you want another version..


Why do I think this is interesting? The handbook contains many successful examples of bicycle infrastructure in Europe, attacks common prejudices and tells us how we can resolve traffic problems by cycling. They describe the handbook in the following words:

This EC handbook stems from the idea that the worst enemies of the bicycle in urban areas are not cars, but longheld prejudices. It therefore corrects some of the prejudices connected with the use of the bicycle as a regular mode of transport in the urban environment. It also suggests some simple, inexpensive and popular measures, which could be implemented immediately.

So if you're a bicycle advocate, you should definitely dig into it. Although it is mainly written for policy makers in (European) cities, it is also worth reading for "normal" people who are interested in cycling. You don't need any previous knowledge about traffic or spatial planning and it contains many illustrating pictures, graphs and examples and isn't even very long (only ~60 pages). In the end you will have many arguments to convince people why cycling is good for them :-).

Since I'm already at it: There is an initiative by some German professors and students that want to promote cycling as natural and positive means of transport by focusing on the joy of cycling. That's also where the German title "Radlust" comes from. You can get all the information and downloads on their website (available in English and German). They started out 2007 with the following observation:

The bicycle is the worlds most used means of transport. Nonetheless there was no development of a noticeable cycling culture in Germany. This is incomprehensible if you consider the wide spread possession of bicycles – diverse potentials and advantages of a sustainable means of transport remain unused.