Cycling between the fronts

Do you know people who cycle daily because cycling is their job? Who comes to your mind? I naturally always think about bike messengers, mailmen, rickshaw whallas and bicycle taxi drivers, newspaper deliverers, ice-cream sellers and that kind. Recently I also came across cycling policemen in Vienna.

But what about people in very rural areas? There are generally little paved streets and it's tough going. Countrymen use tractors and robust four-wheel drive. Sometimes, however, such vehicles are too big. The military, for example, uses bicycles to patrol at the Austrian border in Burgenland:

Bikes in commercial use

One rainy day a couple of weeks back I decided to overcome my shyness and went to the city center pretending to be a tourist. With my tiny pink Asian camera, I took photos of interesting bikes. Here's a few pics taken that day that are concerning commercial use of bikes.

You have to get an official permission for
outdoor advertising, and pay quite a lot of
money. Some creative small entrepreneurs
have figured out that it is allowed to lock
bikes almost everywhere...

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...

Rickshaws in Delhi

To be honest, I did not like Delhi. It's a stressful, noisy, overpopulated and dirty city. The whole place is covered in a thick pall of smog. The streets are filled with mostly men, and a lot of them are shamelessly staring at women. Not a pleasant place to be.

Maybe my bad experience is also connected to our arrival. One of the first things that happened -- even before we reached the hotel -- was a taxi breakdown in the middle of a busy street. It was hot, dirty and uncomfy. And it seemed to take forever to get out of this straining situation.

Traffic in India

Beep! Beep! Apart from left-hand traffic this is the first thing one notices after coming to India. It’s the cars, autorickshaws and motorbikes blowing their horns on the crowded roads. Unlike Europe, however, this noise level does not indicate stress or anger. People honk for various reasons -- before and while overtaking, to indicate a turn, before stopping or changing lanes.

Bicycle calenders for a good start in the new year

Last year I ordered a calender from Copenhagen Cycle Chic. This year there are even more options available. Let's start with the classical one -- the Cycle Chic 2010 Calender:

This time Mikael Colville-Andersen also started another project and produced the Copenhagenize Bicycle Infrastructure Fetish Calender which probably suits someone like me better:

My favorite bike-related calender, however, is homemade :). It's this year's Bike Messenger Calender produced by Andreas Stückl (photographer and messenger from Graz):

On his website botenkalender.meinblog.at he also has other nice things, e.g. a bike messenger memory game (simply click on the picture, print, cut out, laminate and play :)):


For ordering any of these calenders, simply click on the respective pictures. If you know and/or prefer any other calenders then let us know too!

Bike messengers in Vienna

Sorry, we're quite busy these days before Christmas. However, I always have the time to take some pictures while cycling. These are a few of bike messengers in Vienna. Although I have a rather short commute (and not so much in the city center), I do see them sometimes. Do you have any/many bike messengers in your town? What do they look like?

WUK bike rack project

The WUK (Werkstätten- und Kulturhaus) is a hot club in Vienna. Especially nice for us cyclists is that they run a non-profit DIY workshop too. They provide tools, assistance (if necessary), and (used) spare parts at moderate costs of 3,00€ per afternoon. Opening times are Monday to Wednesday, 3:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Beside that, the WUK people run several projects and the latest is a really nice one.

As WUK member Jasper Kühn tells us, over the past years an increasing number of newspaper deliverers has been using the repair service. It is to say that it's common in Austrian cities that bicycles are used for this purpose. Most common failures are broken racks and problems with the rear wheel. Newspaper are a heavy loading, so carrier bikes would be a fine choice. Well, carrier bikes are quite expensive and hard to find.

The WUK people developed a prototype for cheap but stable bike racks instead. They are planning to give the racks away for free (being a newspaper deliverer is a job one hardly can live from here). Donations and manpower are welcome, so maybe I'll join them to install those heavy duty racks.