To get a good sense of how popular bicycles are becoming in car-centric countries, you sometimes need to look at it from a different angle.
Amsterdamize faithful Alan sent me this nugget from the Guardian, a few excerpts:
UK calls on sex shops and bailiffs in slump
“What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago the [...]
Alternative Bicycle Data
How’s This For Promotion!
From NBC Chicago:
An Oak Park man fell in love with the biking culture in the Netherlands and brought some home with him. For the first time in North America, you can get a De Fietsfabriek and go green with your commute.
My only note: why did they cut the last 20% of the chain guard off?? [...]
Bicycle Links With Your Coffee
San Francisco Bike Plan Under Assault
Bike Racks And Bike Theft In Amsterdam
Velo Mondial asks other cities to challenge Amsterdam
The Dutch Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of a bicycle thief who stole a decoy bike planted by police
A Toblerone bicycle rack
From the archives: “Should I Move To Amsterdam?”
Buy A Condo, Get A Bicycle
Rock The Vote…With [...]
Free Bike? No, It’s Not Being Offered By a Creepy Guy in a Van
Tristan Fowler’s contribution to the progressive collaborative blog Pushback:
“How’s this for innovation? Colleges and universities are giving away free bikes so students don’t bring their carbon-spewing, planet-killing cars to campus. The University of New England gave a bike to any new freshman who promised to keep his or her car at home. It’s a heck [...]
Dutch Cycling Expert Rolls Into Burlington
More good news, this time from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada:
Rob Faulkner
The Hamilton Spectator
BURLINGTON (Oct 16, 2008)
In the shadow of Burlington City Hall, the tall, lanky Dutchman Wim Mulder looks down at the bike helmet as if he doesn’t often wear one or hasn’t even seen one before.
Yet, the traffic engineer visiting from Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, is [...]
Govt urged to spend $800m on bike lanes
Good news from Australia:
The cycling industry says the Federal Government will save money in the long term if it invests $800 million now in bicycle infrastructure.
The Cycling Promotion Fund has submitted a proposal to Infrastructure Australia, asking the Government to fund the construction of physically separated bike lanes and major cycleways in capital cities.
Spokesman Elliot [...]
Take It From Doc
Amsterdamize reader/faithful Alan ventured into the realm of medicine & cycling and found this Guardian article by Jonathan Sale, called ‘Two Wheels‘, dealing with his physical misgivings on a bicycle. In short: it will enlighten you about the best and most healthy posture for cycling. Some excerpts:
Two Wheels
“If God wanted us to ride bicycles, babies [...]
Fold It! Strida’s MAS Special Signature
I own a Strida 4, have always loved it for its purpose: short rides, taking it on train, tram, bus, whatever form of public transportation. Here’s some news on that front, from Jaunted:
Self-Propelled Travel: STRiDA’s Folding Bicycle
“If you’re headed on an extended trip and the destination city has little in the way of public transportation, [...]
Amsterdamize In Canadian News
First it was the Guardian in the UK, now it’s the National Post in Canada picking up on something called ‘normal people in normal clothes on normal bikes’….ok, ok, Cycle Chic. There you go.
My 2 cents:
It’s absolutely evident that the mainstream media is scrambling to catch up. But that’s always been the case. No matter [...]
Status Quo For How Much Longer? [Update]
In the Netherlands the car remains by far the most popular means of transportation to go to work. Last year, three out of the five trips were by car.
This share has been constant for many years. This is evident from statistics published by the Central Bureau of Statistics today.
Cycling to work over short distances remains [...]
Sandwich Bike By Bleijh
As found on Treehugger:
The Sandwich Bike, designed by Pieter Janssen and Basten Leijh of Bleijh Concepts and Designs of Amsterdam, was such a hit at the Salone de Mobile in Milan that someone broke in and stole the prototype.
From the designers: The design
“Inspired by the concept of flat packing and home assembly made popular by [...]
This Doesn’t Help [Update]
Every hour or so I scan my feeds that provide me with cycle information on any known or relative subject, including ones that shouldn’t see the light of day. But as with most other things, they do.
Paradoxically, it’s good that it’s above ground, so you can spot it and report about it. Case in point: [...]
Consider The Potential
Say you have national or regional elections. In any type of democracy (or (semi-dictatorships) career politicians will fight for your (or fictional/alleged) vote, left and right. Every year more and preposterous amounts of money are thrown out the window to get the message out, aka pandering to the base with promises that would shame a [...]
A Virtuous Cycle: Safety In Numbers For Bicycle Riders
We already knew this, but hey, let’s keep science right smack in the middle of the ‘discussion’ and spread the word, ok? And prepare for personal and emotional counter stories…:-p.
Science Daily (Sep. 7, 2008) — It seems paradoxical but the more people ride bicycles on our city streets, the less likely they are to be [...]
More Dutch Fuel
High Petrol Prices See Bikes Gain Ground In The Netherlands
THE HAGUE (AFP)
The Dutch rely ever more on the humble bike for transport as pollution concerns and high petrol prices give new impetus to traditional pedal power in the only country with more bicycles than people.
The average Dutchman cycled 902 kilometres in 2006, up 16 kilometres [...]
Max Keiser : Record Oil Profits, Peak Oil and Arctic Conflict
Max Keiser is an acquaintance and fellow vlogger who I’ve been following ever since VlogEurope 2005. He’s an ex-stock broker (simply said), a financial genius and he has been exposing the lies and deceptions of the world’s financial markets, players and companies for years now.
He embraced online (grassroots) media years ago, when he and [...]
Building Momentum
Back to the future! I watched this last night, but couldn’t for the life of me find the real video embed stuff (way to go MSNBC!). No panic, of course another bike blogger would’ve seen it too! Bingo:
On so many levels this has never happened to me:
1. I watched the news and felt upbeat and excited [...]
Cycle Chic Outlaw
FBI says Atlanta bank robber fled on bicycle
Associated Press - May 21, 2008 5:44 PM ET
ATLANTA (AP) - The FBI says an armed robber held up an Atlanta bank and was seen leaving the area on a red bicycle, with a tan cap and a towel around his neck.
The man entered the Suntrust bank inside [...]
