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.

Holiday on wheels

Today I'm bugging you with my holiday plans. I am a utility cyclist, but that does not mean that I wouldn't enjoy cycling. I love cycling in rural and half-rural landscapes where you don't have to breath the dust and exhaust gases of motorists. I love to hear the birds sing and feel the fresh breeze on my skin. I also find the sight, sound and smell of open water very enjoyable. I am also lucky enough to live really close to perhaps the most beautiful archipelago in the world, and I actually live right next to the ring road that leads there. So, my holiday dream is to take a 5-day ride in the Turku Archipelago next summer.

Turku Archipelago is a rare thing world wide. It is located in the biggest brackish water inland sea in the world. Baltic Sea is a shallow sea, and it has several thresholds. One of them is between Stockolm and Turku, and it is indicated by the archipelago' of Turku, Åland, and Stocholm. Turku Archipelago is the largest one of them and has 20'000 to 40'000 islands depending on the definition. Baltic Sea drainage is an area of post-glacial land uplift, which can be as fast as one meter in hundred years. Also Turku Archipelago is experiencing constant uplift and so small islands are slowly growing together and gaining size and islands gain contact with the main land. From the shores one can find neatly zoned succession forests with lotsa species. There are not many erosional coastal forms such as cliffs, because the uplift takes the coastline away from the wave action before they can be formed. Most of the coasts are rocky and have bare glacially eroded rocks, but there are also small beaches. Baltic Sea is getting increasingly eutrophicated due to the drainage land use and cities' waste waters, but you still come accross relatively pure areas that, if you did not know better, you would mistake for a natural state sea areas.

To get an impression of how it looks like over there, check out this link. It features an interactive map of the Turku Archipelago and when you click the items that turn yellow under the cursor, you get a 360 view of the location. I recommend that you do that, the views are amazing! The dark blue lines in the map symbolize ring roads in the archipelago and the long tour is about 250 km in length.

There are several ways of how one can explore the area by bike. You can choose a destination and stay there and do expeditions on your own. Sometimes that sort of cottage/hotel holiday trips also have guides. You can also just pack your bags and hit the road, there will be plenty of lodging opportunities on the route, for this area of Finland gets most of its income from tourism. Or, we have quite extensive civil rights here: you can pack a tent and put it anywhere you like without the land owners permission as long as you are out of their yards and crops and leave nothing behind, and don't hunt or make fire. In the Swedish-speaking area you need to be a bit more careful, for they don't care much of the "all men's rights" even though they are concerned by the same laws as everyone else. My plan is to take a semi-independent 5-day tour in the archipelago. It costs 205 euros, and for that you get a rental bike, directions, and lodging. I don't know if breakfasts and ferry tickets are included, but probably majority of them is.

Ms Aurora from Iniö to Kustavi

So, what would one encounter in the archipelago? Many islands are more or less "barren", so many of them are forested. Natural scientist will find plenty of intersting natural features, species, formations, etc. Of course, you would have to take several different ferries between the islands too, and that is lotsa fun! That's actually when you get to see many exciting things. If you have a long distance objective in you camera, I would suggest that you to take it with you, because you can sight e.g. eagles and storks. There are also mammals like white-tailed deer, moose and foxes. Those are species that I or friends of mine have sighted. Also, the archipelago is an area of early settlement. There are many cool lighthouses, churches, mansions and other historical buildings to see. There are also tiny idyllic villages scattered here and there.

The old castle of Kuusisto

You can only take semi-independent tours from June to August. Unfortunately I don't know yet where I'll be on the summer or what will I do for living, so there's no knowing if I can do it on 2010 or will it have to be postponed until the next summer. If someone has done the tour, I'd like to know your impressions of it. Also, if you are not Finnish and wish to take the tour, I could help you find out about your options. Many of the web sites are in Finnish or Swedish. If you wish to come but are lacking company, you could come with me ;) So far I've planned to go on my own, but company wouldn't hurt me either.

Time for tights

After a long-lasting wonderful summer ...

... I'm now ready for a colorful fall.


Let's cycle into the golden sunset together!

Men cycling in work clothes

Well, cycling to work in work clothes is the obvious thing to do, isn't it? Not many people in Austria would bother to change clothes or demand a shower at the work place. Well, there might be the occasional guy who decides to change his T-shirt or leaves his jacket at work in the summer. But after all we're just cycling to work and not speeding in a race. No need for a complete transformation or to show off.

Note that the gardener in the upper left picture rides a company bicycle (company being the City of Vienna). This is really untypical and the first time I have seen something like that, so I tried to find out more about it -- and voilà, I found an old article (from May 1999) that mentions such efforts by the city council to try to make their employees set their cars aside. Ten years later, however, I would like to know if they are still at it and if it has made an impact on peoples' choice of transport.

There's a flower on my...saddle!

This is the very useful bike I found a couple of weeks ago as I was going to get a bike. Nice decoration isn't it? It made me thing about the video Anna posted some weeks ago.

Wanna have a ride in this well-decorated bike? Irony out: is this a good service? Do people think about other BiCiNg users? Maybe both? Well, let's take it easy or I should be pulling my hairs out in anger...

Anna from BCN

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.

Stylish cycling in the heat

Well, probably some people will disagree that temperatures around 33°C are hot (that's 92 F), but I already don't like that kind of a temperature. Still, I can deal with it...

Generally I wear a lot of wide, loose, thin and light-colored cotton clothes. Cycling in them is no problem as the air flow then constantly cools. Even in that suffocating heat we currently have in Vienna. Well, you may want to carry a spare shirt to change with you if you sweat a lot. Choose good sunglasses. And don't ever forget to ride in style :-).

By the way, it's better not to carry a backpack (to avoid sweating on the back) but to put everything necessary in a basket or on the carrier.

What's the summer like in your place and how do you deal with it? Has anybody got good solutions for handling high humidity?

Summer cyclists in Vienna

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.