Some white stuff from above

Last weekend, just before I headed off to Innsbruck, it started to snow in Vienna. It also did when I returned on Sunday evening, and it still does!

Now that's quite some snow for Vienna.

Gray with colors

Winter in Vienna generally means gray. A lot of gray sky. It's cloudy and foggy. If at least it would snow! But it very rarely does. What to do?

I survive this time of the year by wearing some colorful clothes. An additional benefit of this brightening up is that it also increases visibility. Today I set off with Paula for a short gift shopping trip. Since it's cold one has to wear proper protection anyhow. My choice of the day was a blue and red woolen combination. Feels much warmer already, doesn't it? What are you favorite winter cycling clothes?

Ready ...

... and go!

Cycling the campus

Long time since I wrote last, I must apologize. I was off on holiday in India, and then got pretty sick for a while. But now me and Paula are back!

A trip to the central cemetery

robably it's not to everybodies taste to spend her/his weekends on a graveyard, but I like to visit the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna from time to time. The Zentralfriedhof is the biggest cemetry in Vienna. It is located in the outskirts of the city (in Simmering) and can easily be reached by bike. There are also various connections by public transport (e.g. trams 6 and 71).

I set off in the morning at the Donaukanal bike path ...

The bicycle, a status symbol?

We all know that cars are status symbols. But what about bicycles? I think they are too. It's not so much about expensive bicycles though, more about style.

Still, over-priced bicycles are on their way. I finally got the message when I strolled through the posh center of Vienna last night. A bicycle in a shop window at the Graben.

About fairness

A few days back I got this fairness flyer on the Donaukanal bike path:

"fair cyclists" flyer -- to read the back click here (in German)

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

A not so naked bike ride in Vienna

Yesterday, the time has come again. The time of the "bare as you dare" bike ride in Vienna. If you'd like to know the story behind it, you may read my comments and look at some pictures from last year. This year I went there on short notice straight after work. It was rather cold and the weather forecast not too promising. I did not bother to take a bikini with me because it was way too cold for me. Very few people, however, did. Brave. I hope they didn't catch a cold.

Cyclists at Schwarzenbergplatz

Crossing streets

This is my friend Alberto crossing a street in Vietnam. He told me that there are about 90% scooters in the modal split there, and that people even take them into shops etc. The noise level is very similar to Indian cities, however, there are already more cars in those places.

In Vienna, many streets have traffic lights. So crossing a street as a pedestrian (and often also cyclist) is done by the following procedure:

• approach the junction
• (press a button)
• wait
• wait
• wait
• cross

You're a poor guy/girl and have to cross once more? Too unfortunate. You'll have to wait again, because there are hardly any "diagonal" traffic lights. I don't know how there are called technically, but I mean those where you can use cross diagonally because all the vehicular traffic has a red light. In Austria (and most other European countries I know, apart from Ireland) motorists have green at the same time as pedestrians and cyclists on, e.g., a parallel segregated bike path. Of course, car drivers have to yield those, but sometimes there are dangerous situations, especially on bike paths that are somehow visually detached from the road. Be aware!

Many times on small roads I find that the traffic lights are not necessary because a) there is not much car traffic in the first place and b) pedestrians have green when most of the car traffic has too, anyhow.

In Vienna, there are a lot of traffic lights for cyclists. The seperate ones are pretty neat, as long as they are not "on demand" lights (it takes ages for them to turn green, and especially when I wear thick gloves in the winter, they are not so easy to use).

Two "on demand" traffic lights for cyclists in the 3rd district

However, most of the time cyclists' lights are included in the pedestrians' ones. This is a big disadvantage, because cyclists are much faster than pedestrians, and we could do with a much shorter clearing phase and hence a longer green phase (cyclists are actually much closer to "normal" traffic than to pedestrians). Especially on the Gürtel bike path, cyclists have a huge disadvantage due to these joint lights as well as due to turning cars -- we just miss the progressive signals at almost every junction, i.e. on average every 50-200 m. By the way, this is called "Grüne Welle" (green wave) in German. I like that term, but I would like it even more if it would refer to bike rather than car traffic.

How is it like in your town? Are there many traffic lights? Special ones for cyclists? Green waves for cyclists?

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.

Watching the new neighborhood from above

I am sick these days and stuck in my house with a bad internet connection. So what should I do in a half-furnished flat apart from lying in bed? Well, let's have a look outside the window:

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

Special spring cycling moments

You may remember my enthusiastic post about meeting friends while cycling and that being able to have a little chat with another cyclist at a red light is a great advantage of not being trapped in a car. Well, it's not entirely true that conversations with people in cars cannot happen (and I don't mean the common "Get out of my way" shouts). But see for yourself:

A new plus and a new minus in the 9th district

Since a few days I live in the 9th district in Vienna. Generally, it has a dense network of bicycle infrastructure -- a lot of bike racks and a lot of bike lanes. In fact, too many bike lanes. And some of the new ones in horrible positions: in the door zone, and on cobblestones. Who the hell plans something like that? Certainly not a regular cyclist... By the way, in Austria we have the law that any bicycle infrastructure available must be used, so on many such "bike lanes" I am forced to either ride illegal or unsafe.

On the other hand, I can also report something good.

Moving houses by bikes?

Yesterday I moved to the 9th district. I hate moving. Of course, it's nice to live in my own apartment (and in a house with a big bike room :-)) rather than just a room in a shared apartment, but this putting-things-into-boxes and clearing everything is just a pain. I organized a moving service (2 strong guys and a truck) who did all the hard work of carrying my stuff, so at least that was very easy and relaxing for me. Earlier, when I had less crap, I used to move by (my friend's) car and public transport. But once one has to transport a lot of furniture, moving by car is too much of a pain. And by no means cheaper than just renting a service for 2-3 hours (ok, that depends on the distance, they usually charge 1 €/km for people who move countries).

Lately I read an article on derStandard.at about a few people who have established a moving service by cargo bicycles. They charge 25 € per half hour and transport up to 100 kg per bike. That's much more than I paid for a truck and two guys, who I reckon are also much faster. Thus they can't really do it commercially yet, but I like the idea as such. You should definitely have a look at the pictures (just click on the one I linked :-)).

www.heavypedals.at

By the way, one can win "them" for the 15th of May. So in case you are planning to move within Vienna soon, have a look at their website www.heavypedals.at. Unfortunately I had to be out by Friday, but I would have loved to see them in action ;-).

Suddenly Vienna seems so peaceful...

After being back from India (see posts from Nagpur, Delhi and Jaipur) and its stressful traffic, I do appreciate the peaceful and almost empty streets in Vienna. Everything seems so organized and easy.

Gürtel bike path in Vienna

Seen in the 7th district in Vienna

A machine that sells inner tubes for bicycles 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. There's a similar one in front of the Cooperative Fahrrad. I really like that idea and hope there will be many more. Cause sometimes an inner tube can be everything you need in the middle of the night or a weekend :-).

A so-called Schlauchomat

Meeting bikey friends

Did you ever recognise a friend on bike while cycling from A to B? It happens to me about once a month that I accidentially meet a friend waiting at a red light. I really like these moments and little chats, it cheers me up and suddenly all the time waisted at these red traffic lights seems much shorter and more valuable :).

Yesterday at Alserbachstraße I bumped into Bea who is a co-blogger on Velosophie.at. She still has some problems with her cycling bag that she keeps losing (it's a click-in system for the rack). Nonetheless she's very stylish in this ugly wintery weather.

Bea on Alserbachstraße yesterday
(it's bloody freezing, snowy and windy again -- buuh!)

My first bike ride with Paula

Those of you who followed my blog already now that I ordered a pigeon blue Retrovelo Paula in December which just arrived a view weeks back. Due to lack of parking facilities in my house, it was parked in my boyfriend's apartment while it was still snowy and icy out there (in such situations I rather stick to my old mountain bike of which I know how it behaves) or I was out of town. Finally, yesterday, I took Paula for a ride around town. Here are some impressions of her first glance at Vienna (more are on my flickr album):

Paula in the corridor