Green Bikes visit Linz

On Sunday at 7 am the Green Bikes Tour arrived at Linz to stay here for a couple of days (I already wrote about the project earlier). Yesterday at noon the tour went on to Vienna where they'll arrive on Saturday. Most of the 25 participants came by bus across the alps, other ones joined the tour in Linz and came from Szopron, Hungary, by bike. After ten days of riding in the rain in Italy and Slovenia, it was rainy in Linz, too. Sorry folks!

My cycling organization helped the tour here in Upper Austria with accommodation, meals, workshop, and all kinds of other stuff. Since I did most of the work I had some busy days (on Saturday, with Anna's help I managed to buy lots of food for nearly 30 people without a car), but I met really nice people, learned some interesting things at the workshops (especially one in a village near Linz on spatial planning, revitalization of rural areas, and re-naturalization of the landscape) and had a lot of fun!

I didn't take any photos by myself, so I may refer to the official GBfP - website. It will be updated soon! And I'm sure Adam, Tomas, and all the other cyclists will be happy about comments!

Cycling and walking in pouring rain -- the differences

Since more than one week it rains more or less constantly in Austria. There is a lot of flooding in many parts of the country going on. Fortunately Vienna has a good flood protection -- the Danube island, which is also a great recreational area and hosts the Danube Island Free Festival each year. This year it was, well, wet. And it is still raining and will be for a few more days.

Remember, when I wrote about the cycling poncho that I once got from the city of Vienna? Last week during cycling it was pouring with rain, and the poncho was not sufficient. The problem was that it is only a very short poncho and didn't cover my legs. I should really buy a proper cycling poncho that extends over the handle bars and also protects my legs. By the way, I do have fenders on my bike, but that should be self-evident.

Out in the rain. Boring picture but lovely weather.

My jeans got completely soaked (expect a little strip on the back). Luckily I was on my ride home and it didn't matter. Otherwise I probably would simply have waited for the heavy rain to stop. But I don't do it if I don't have to as I love to practice my rain cycling skills :-). I'm not a person who would avoid so-called "unpleasant" weather unless it's perilous.

So what about the title of this post? Yes, I got also caught by the rain when walking from a Citybike station to home on Saturday night. Luckily my backpack has a rain shield. Apart from a jacket I didn't wear anything waterproof though and my trousers got soaked again. I noticed a slight difference to the previously mentioned rain cycling experience -- my trousers got more wet on the back.

Cycling vs. walking in rain

Conclusion: Even if you don't have proper rain gear you will stay drier when you cycle, because you're exposed to the rain shorter and have an advantageous posture that keeps the hollows of your knees and behind dry :-).

Bike vs. car: a short alleycat race in the rush hour

Mr. E. Wagner is a publisher of city maps, hiking guide books and other things of this kind. Last fall I worked for him to revise the new edition of the "Eco City Traffic Map Linz" which features bike lanes, bike paths, one-way directions, secret paths for pedestrians and more useful information.

Last Thursday Mr. Wagner asked me to accept the challenge of a short alleycat race through Linz, bicycle vs. car. My competitors were the editors of the local online newspaper www.linzerleben.at, Mrs. G. Winter and Mr. C. Savoy. Checkpoints were at a drugstore in the northeast of Linz and a post office in the center, the endpoint was a bookstore near the center too.

Since my opponents relied on their navigation system, I could take the lead from the start. I must admit, I went a little faster than I usually do when I go to work or the like, therefor I sweat a little more, but my opponents weren't able to gain the lead again. The traffic of the afternoon rush hour did the rest. After 7 kilometers (a little more than 4.3 miles) I won with a clear margin of 10 minutes.

After the heat: maff, Mr. Wagner, Mrs. Winter
(by courtesy of www.linzerleben.at)

A german article and more pictures can be found here.

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!

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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 ;-).

1 out of 100

After I left the peaceful Bike Ride on Friday, reality just again bit me. Am I asking for too much, when I want cycling in Vienna to be relaxed and safe?

Well, I was riding along a very narrow one-way street (of course only narrow and one-way because cars are allowed to park free of charge on both sides of the road). As I heard a car approaching from behind, I already started to watch out for possible gaps to pull in to let it pass as I don't like cars following me and it's also not comfortable for them. But before the car even caught up to me, the lady already pushed the horn continuously and shouted “Get fuckin' out of the way!”. Sorry, but that was it for me. I'm generally giving way to cars if possible, but this time I just couldn't. I pulled back in the middle of the lane, gave her the finger and shouted “I have as much right to drive here as you have”. She continued pushing the horn, shouting from the window, and I got really petrified that she would try to hit me. She simply didn't get that there was not enough room to overtake and that I didn't block her on purpose.

People along the road already started looking and some came out of a bar. I don't know whether they recognized the hysterical lady behind the steering wheel or thought that I'm just a stupid cyclist blocking traffic (the “real” traffic of course, the one with cars).

When the road got a little wider (already after 20m anyway) she accelerated immediately, overtook me and cut me off. Apparently she didn't notice that I had slowed down cause there was a junction where we had to give way to the rest of the traffic. She ignored a pedestrian waiting at a crosswalk and nearly crashed into the car coming from the right. So now that guy started honking at her... In fact there is a ban on honking in Vienna, but nobody really gives a shit. Very annoying and yet another needless sound source from motorized traffic.

Honestly, what's wrong with some people? How is it possible that such maniacs are entitled to drive a car and thereby threaten other people? I know, only something like 1 out of 100 persons behaves like that when trapped in a car, but it's still too much.

Unfortunately, such experiences get me steamed up. I need to calm down. I can live with the honking itself by simply ignoring it. But as soon as somebody starts bawling at me, I'm close to lose my poise. Cycling in this city already requires a high frustration tolerance and such incidents are just the last straw. How do you handle such a situation?

"Honk for bikes" by Dave O

Just some pictures ...

... from the so-called World Naked Bike Ride in Vienna. Well, the police asked people to put their clothes back on right from the start and several times afterwards. Many people weren't naked or even dressed lightly. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great -- pretty cold, cloudy and later on even raining (and it still is). Anyhow, here are some pictures for you to get a taste of the atmosphere ;-). By the way, there were about 600 people joining the ride.

Filigree, who I briefly met at the Schwarzenbergplatz, has pictures of some truly Lovely Bicycles and cyclists on her blog too (and also here). There are also plenty on the Critical Mass Austria website.

Yehuda Moon is back!

Finally, after a few months of absence, Rick Smith continues his great daily comic strip on yehudamoon.com. A must for every city cyclist! Welcome back Yehuda, Joe, Tistle, Fizz, Bike Ninja, Fred (well, he's probably not coming back), Councilman, Carbon Rider, Shakers, kids ... I missed you guys a lot. You definitely make my days.

Here's one of my favorite strips: