Bike to the Future: Redux

A few weeks ago I posted about the Transport+, the electric assist cargo bike from the Gary Fisher Collection. It was coming to the UK and I for one signed up wholeheartedly. Then we ran into a small problem. The UK limit for the power of an electric assist motor is 200w but, the Transport+ being primarily a bike destined for the US, we used a 350w motor. Snag.

But here's the thing: the EU motor limit is 250w, a limit we will undoubtedly adopt at some point, and this motor is 350w. But all the bikes in the UK are limited to 15mph, so does the wattage make that much difference? Certainly acceleration could be affected depending on the software employed, and it would have the power to carry a given weight further (all else being equal), but apart from that you still have a top speed of 15mph, which is fine for me.

I should point out that a 350w motor in the UK is not illegal, it's just classed as a moped. Which is very odd as it seems the motor categorises the end product. So if, just for the sake of argument, I put a 350w motor on a chair, it would be a moped and have all the associated legal restrictions put in place. Although would it actually be classed as an electric car, given that it would need 4 wheels. So the argument rages, in my head at least. Ultimately, if a pedal assist bike is limited to 15mph, does it matter what size motor is attached? I'd welcome any thoughts on the matter as I'm sure other folk have pondered this for longer, and far deeper, than I.

Needless to say, the boffins in the US are testing the bike with a 200/250w motor for all us EU hopefuls and we should hear back before too long. However, the process being what it is, in bringing a bike to the market, it could be the tail end of the 2011 season before we see it. I'm okay waiting, I know it's what I need to do the trick and in the meantime there's a lot of other bikes for me to ride, at higher speeds than 15mph and under my own steam.

For more info on pedal assist regulations, go here.

Gig To Groats

Just a quick one. Follow the link to a full length video of a guy riding a 15 year old Trek 970, from Land's End to John O'Groats, gigging along the way. It's a strenuous ride at the best of times but he did this unsupported and gigged most evenings when the majority of us would be recovering.
Sat Nav Sam he calls himself, perhaps a modern version of the travelling troubadours of old?
Congrats Sam, and good luck on the World Tour.

Gig To Groats

Bike to the Future

My daily commute by bike is a 60 mile round trip, so needless to say, I don't do it that often and possibly less often than I should. However, there are shorter car trips I do that I'd like to cut out, shopping being one of them. Feeding a family of four is a multi bag operation and has been a car trip for too long. Today, I got the news that I no longer need to take the car. Enter the Transport+.

If you've read JB's blog you'll know that this is a bike that has split opinion at Trek HQ, and, for a while in the UK, it was uncertain whether we'd be able to run it. We can and we will. It will retail at £2200. I'm having one, that's a given, but I guess the point of this post, like JB's, is to canvas opinion. You are the people we make bikes for, if you don't like something, we find out about it pretty quickly; so what's your take on the Transport+?

I know it's not a bike for everyone and it is in many respects, a very specific bike to purchase, but I see it as an opportunity to make that shopping trip less of a chore and more fun. And the added benefit is that the car will sustain less shopping trolley damage. Oh, and there's the environment and...you know the rest.

Downhill World Cup in Fort William

You may be wondering why this post is in Slick Tales rather than The Dirt, but bear with me.

It has to be said, I'm not a downhiller and the very thought of riding a bike, let alone racing it, down the side of a steep and rocky mountain like that of the Fort William DH course, brings on a feeling akin to that of seeing The Grudge for the first time. (Japanese version). But that doesn't stop me from enjoying all the colours, atmosphere and spectacle of, arguably, the biggest single bike race in Britain. The Downhill World Cup in Fort William is a once a year experience that too many people miss. The aforementioned are reasons enough to make the long trip to the West of Scotland but there is another, more important, reason.

If we'd like our country to be fitter, healthier and perhaps a little greener than it currently is, it should be a regular fixture for a school trip. The athletes are a huge inspiration to young and old, but it's the kids that will build the future and, as Wordsworth once wrote, 'The Child is father of the Man'- the more kids cycling now surely means more adults cycling in the future.

Scotland has already made a huge leap in that direction- Scottish Cycling recently announced the addition of Cycling as part of PE lessons, with East Renfrewshire being the first to implement the plan developed as part of the Scottish Government's Smarter Choices, Smarter Places program. This is a move I wholeheartedly applaud and judging from the numbers of kids on bikes at the World Cup, I can imagine that PE will be a lesson that is no longer inundated with fake excuse notes.

If you need proof that this event is popular already...

Security and the City

I lived in London for a while, and for a shorter while I was a cycle courier, a very naiive one. Back then (I should start with 'back in the day' to show it was a REALLY long time ago) the only cyclists on the road were the couriers, experienced ones and newbies like myself.

The old hands rode bikes that you'd expect to see in a skip and most were black and, even then, there was a preference for fixies or single-speeds. In my naiivity, I thought my bright white Muddy Fox with its 21 speed Suntour groupset, was like bringing space travel to folk who'd not even seen, well, a bicycle. Oh how wrong I was!

Day 1, job 1- Pick up large envelope from office on Bishopsgate. No problem. Lock the bike (big D lock) and head up to the second floor to receive said envelope from reception. Nice smile from the receptionist- 'yes, I'm a cycle courier, hardy and fearless'.

Outside again. Okay, I'm a cycle courier with no saddle. I now have to drop off the envelope in Grays Inn but some scally with nothing better to do (and undoubtedly no bright white Muddy Fox missing a saddle) has half inched my only perch! A lesson learned the hard, and somewhat painful way.

Let's fast forward a large number of years. Cycle usage has increased massively, bikes look remakably similar but are far removed technologically in many respects. And couriers still ride fixies and single-speeds. The alarming thing is that cycle theft has more than kept pace with all of this and according to a recent survey by London Cycling Campaign, '80% of London Cyclists have at least one bike stolen'. Back in the day, this figure would have meant a few couriers had been left bikeless and you could almost understand the reticence of the Police to put any effort into recovering them. (Before anyone lets off a round of abuse here, let me make it clear I don't condone the lack of response to ANY cycle theft).

However, things have changed. Not only are there more cyclists on London's streets, they are a higher proportion of Londoners, and that means a bigger voice, one would hope. As a specific voice for London's cyclists, LCC have decided enough's enough and that voice is now aimed squarely at cycle theft. They've launched Beat the Thief (metaphorically, we don't want any have-a-go heroes) and produced a natty little video with some enlightening tips on cycle security.

If this had been around on that fateful first day, I'm pretty sure the memory would not have been of searing pain in the quads for lack of a suitable perch, but instead the warm glow of a receptionist's smile.

It's always good to know there are people out there who, in the midst of what seems to be a pretty cold and dreary start to winter, can look beyond what is and see what could be. This is one such chap. http://www.londoncyclist.co.uk/features/pictures-that-will-make-you-want-to-grab-your-bike-and-see-where-it-takes-you/

Minus 2

A nice comfortable commuting temperature this morning, -2degC is so much nicer than -7decC.

Potholing

Have you noticed the number of potholes that have opened up in the recent days?

Have you also noticed that most of them are exactly three feet from the kerb - just where you safely want to ride?

Help is at hand from the CTC, using their excellent website fillthathole.org

The form is really easy to use, the report simply marks the site on a Google Map

I reported a particularly vicious crater on Wednesday morning and it was fixed on Thursday!

It's not the neatest fix I've ever seen but it's one hundred times better

than the five inch deep hole that was trying to dent my rims the day before!

Blue Eggs or Bicycles?

I have short hair. I like getting up in the morning knowing that my hair looks exactly the same as when I went to bed. I don't bother with hair 'products for men', I'd rather save the cash and buy another pair of classically outmoded cowboy boots, (they will return, trust me). I also recycle my newspapers, and these two facts came together on Sunday to provide me with a nugget of understanding in an otherwise bewildering world.
I cut my own hair with an electric clipper. I do this in front of a mirror and over a section of the newspapers that I then recycle. For some reason, the August 23rd edition of the Saturday Times hadn't yet gone out, or at least the Body and Soul section hadn't, and whilst buzzing my 9mm long hair back to 3mm, (there's an OCD there somewhere), I spotted an article about how our 'cramped little island is stressing us out'. It went on to discuss the emotional and mental effects of living with almost 1200 people in each square mile of the green and pleasant.

'Psychologists point out that people have two basic space requirements: personal space and territorial space. When these two are infringed, stress levels rocket.'

One can imagine then, how stressed your average London commuter should be. What I found so fluffy, yet narrow minded about the solutions the article went on to suggest, was that they generally didn't take the person out of the situation and place them in a new, improved situation. Here's one:

'I advise clients to imagine they are in, say, a blue egg on the Tube. The egg-shell is flexible and doesn't break so if they are touched or their personal space is invaded, they are still protected'. Suzy Dittmar, Hale Clinic.

WHAAAT!! Whilst I'm all for mind over matter, there is a more beneficial alternative. Get out of the Tube. There are a number of ways to do that but the one with the most benefits, obviously, is to get on a bike. London is about 25 miles across, a 12 mile commute, (the average commuting distance is 8 miles), by bike, by an average person, takes less than an hour and that hour has more health benefits, both mental and physical, than 20-25 minutes on a Tube, by any stretch of a blue egg!

So, there's your choice stressed out Londoners; pay someone probably more than the price of a lightweight commuting bike, to be told to get back into the Tube with a blue egg, or get a bike that provides freedom from all that in the first place. Go by bike!

My nugget of understanding? Perceived convenience has a very high price.  

London Life in the Saddle

Things have changed in the capital. Since 2000, cycling has increased by 91%, a pretty big figure and despite it starting from a very small base, it shouldn’t be dismissed, as some critics may, as an increase of 91% of nothing remaining, effectively, nothing.

I’ve just spent the best part of an hour London watching. While having breakfast in a small café at around 7.45am, I was disappointed by the number of cyclists. ‘Get there early,’ I was told, ‘because they all disappear come 9am.’ Well, here I am, wondering if he meant 8am, not 9. Then, at 8.04am precisely, a small train of cyclists come past; all different bikes, clothing and gender. Brill! It’s started. And so it continued until about 8.35am, with the height of activity at around 8.20am.

So I watched, in amazement really, as hundreds of cyclists made their way through the capital. I have to admit, I was a little nostalgic for a moment; I was a cycle courier here in 1992, my origins in the bike trade. Reality soon kicked in though as I began to appreciate two inalienable truths-

1. Cyclists who jump red lights are the same people who would decry such actions were they in a car.

2. Most car drivers have no idea of the impact of their driving on other road users.

To explain:

I fully expected a number of cyclists to jump the lights; to my shame, I did the same when I was a courier and that was in a time when there was a greater chance of ending up under the wheels of a car or van, when cycle awareness was non-existant. What I didn’t expect were the type of people, (and yes, this is a generalisation), that jumped lights. Courier wanabees? Check. Respectable looking businessmen in suits? Um, check. Middle aged women? Eer, check, again. So, there is no one group more guilty of this than any other. Cyclists jump red lights, but only a minority and they earn the scorn of other cyclists.

Pedestrians, however, are without doubt far more guilty of jumping lights and as it is such common practise, there is no pressure on them to change their ways. In fact, one cyclist who, on a green light, continued to cycle through a crowd of pedestrians crossing against their red light, received a torrent of abuse even though he was going slowly, was obviously a competent cyclist and was pinging his bell from a few yards out. Come on pedestrians, play fair.

Point 2, above, is a simple one. Car drivers are under the assumption it would seem, that their back wheels follow the same course as the front. Wrong! The number of cyclists that had to avoid being hit by cars, as they pulled out from Torrington Place and onto Tottenham Court Road, was astonishing. As the back end of the car drew closer to the barriers as the car turned, the cyclists were forced to slow or even stop in order to avoid being hurt. And, it must be said, not one of these cyclists hurled abuse at the car driver. Nice.
So, what do I take away from all this? That there is more work to be done in London than merely increasing cycle facilities. Transport in the Capital has to be a holistic solution, encompassing all modes, for any transport policy to work. Boris, if you’re listening, I’m here to help, as are so many other cycling bodies and user groups. It just takes a little trip around the streets to see where things could so easily improve.