News: July 2010

Lloyd reported back in 2007 that the City of Toronto was using bait bikes fitted with GPS to trap would-be bike thieves. Apparently the idea is catching on, and London is now following suit. In fact, British police are going to be deploying bait bikes across the country after a series of successful trials cut theft rates by as much as 45%. All well and good, you might think, but it seems some people are concerned this tactic amounts to entrapment.As Frederika Whitehead reports over at The Guardian, British police are deploying unlocked and poorly locked bikes fitted with GPS, and then tracking them as they are stolen. The idea is not just to catch the lowly cycle thieves (who are often young kids or junkies), but to track the bikes back to warehouses where criminal gangs often store their collections of stolen bikes before selling them on. But it seems some people working in...

A driver who killed a German cyclist after falling asleep at the wheel of his heavily laden logging truck and trailer has been jailed for two years and three months. Troy Roberts was sentenced in Tauranga District Court on Friday after pleaded guilty to reckless driving causing the death of Stephan Stoermer, falsifying his log book and several breaches of regulations, relating to exceeding his restricted driving hours, the Bay of Plenty Times reported. Mr Stoermer, 38, of Frankfurt, was on the final leg of a 26-country cycling holiday when he was hit and killed by Roberts' truck and trailer on State Highway 2 near Te Puke, 21km southeast of Mt Maunganui, on March 12 last year. The court was told that police inquiries revealed Roberts exceeded his restricted driving hours and did not have enough rest breaks in the days leading up to the crash. Roberts was also...

Before there were cars, cyclists agitated for smooth, paved roads. In 1896 there was a massive protest in San Francisco with five thousand cyclists, demanding that roads be improved, with the motto “Where There Is a Wheel, There Is a Way.” The roads belonged to the bike.And the bike changed the way people lived; in Hank Chapot's article "the Great Bicycle Protest of 1896" he concludes: The bicycle remained an important option for workers and businesses for decades before being redefined as a toy following World War II. Its popularity rebounded in the 1930’s and again strongly in the 1990’s. In much of the world, it never left. Appearing between the horse and the automobile, the bicycle had helped define the Victorian era. It aided the liberation of workers (and especially women and children) as it changed concepts of personal freedom. On two wheels, individuals were free to...

There is a highway code - a set of expected rules, best practices, and behaviors when manipulating your vehicle on those long ribbons of public road. There isn't, as of yet, much of a corresponding city street code - a set of guidelines that help walkers, bikers, scooter, truck, and car drivers - maneuver the streets of a city in a safe and (as important) polite way. New mobility consultant and WorldStreets editor Eric Britton is proposing the street code start with a fairly simple rule. The biggest vehicle bears the burden of responsibility, and in the case of an accident, also the burden of proving innocence. If streets are for cars, as Britton says, than there isn't much need for this type of street code. But if streets are multiple use vias (and in the U.K. 12 towns are adopting the 'shared space concept' to improve quality of life) where cars are just one player, Britton...

Increased bicycle riding and brisk walking may be the secret for preventing weight gain, women have been told.A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that cycling or a brisk walk was associated with less weight among pre-menopausal women, particularly those who were already overweight or obese.The US study calculated that about two-thirds of American adults were overweight or obese, while 16 per cent of children and adolescents were overweight and a further 34 per cent were at risk.Study authors suggested that this may be down to the fact that only around 0.5 per cent of the commuting population ride bicycles, of which only 23 per cent are female.'To our knowledge, research has not been conducted on bicycle riding and weight control in comparison with walking,' the study authors said.'Our objective was to assess the association between bicycle riding...

Thank you to Pat Watson of Community Waitakere for that kind introduction. I want to firstly share my excitement that when the panui was sent throughout the country, hundreds of people immediately put up their hand and responded to the call. I'm not at all surprised.  In this room is the heart of Aotearoa - the people who give our nation the reputation of being a country that cares. Last week was Volunteer Awareness Week; a time to celebrate the mass movement of 1.2 million volunteers aged ten and over; who give so much of your time to health, social services, sports and arts, education, the environment, faith based organisations and the like. You are people who literally get on your bike and travel. Bikes are very much on mind at the moment. Bikes were the reason I had a couple of visitors in my office yesterday literally beaming with enthusiasm about the major challenge they...

A cycle response unit has been set up by the Devon branch of St John Ambulance to reach isolated incidents. The cycling team will respond to incidents at locations where casualties would be hard to reach by ambulance. The bikes will also be used at events like the Devon County Show to transport medical care through crowds. Medical equipment, including minor treatment kits, has been fitted to the bikes.'Saving lives' Cycling co-ordinator Ollie Mulcock said: "At Devon County Show it was very hard to negotiate the crowds of people on foot and carrying medical equipment. "It made me realise then that cycle responders would be really useful as it is much easier to negotiate a crowd on a bicycle. "Saving minutes can mean saving lives and we want to make sure that everyone who needs first aid can get it as quickly as possible."From BBC News

There used to be a time when culture and cycling were not words you'd expect to use together (way back around the same time coffee was just a hot drink). But, what was once a mode of transport (or an obscure sport for skinny guys with shaved legs) has become a hot culture, with tribes and sub-tribes. Naturally, each has its own wardrobe. And some even subscribe to a manifesto. Pippa Coom is the high priestess (she prefers to call herself co-ordinator) of one of the prettier sub-cultures of cycling - Frocks on Bikes - and with a bunch of other style-conscious women is reclaiming the roads for people who prefer not to go public in Lycra. This cycling chic movement has branches worldwide (in New Zealand it's happening in Wellington, Christchurch, New Plymouth and the Hawkes Bay) and it has a manifesto which springs from Copenhagen, that city of civilised roads and uber-cool eco...